Beech Starship

[slammer]

The Beech Starship was a GREAT aircraft. I understand many have gone to the scrap yard but one person is committed to keeping them flying. I believe he owns two and even bought all spares from Raytheon. Anyone out there know who he is?

Thanx,
Slammer

 

[falcon20pilot]

I believe there are 4 still flying. I saw one on the ramp in Henderson, NV last fall and talked with the pilot - it was the one that they just bought and is based in Tulsa. I think it was 45FL.

See the following web page.

http://www.bobscherer.com/Pages/Starship.htm

 

[On Your Six]

I've seen one at SNA quite a bit. Beautiful aircraft.

 

[The_Russian]

I have some time in NC-28. I thought they were going to keep it flying. It seems as though they sold it to someone in Austrailia and they mothballed it. Too bad.

 

[BoilerPilot]

Starship

I know of one owner who has two flying one on the N registry and one on the X registry because there was an airworthiness thing with the FAA and Raytheon. Both are very nice airplanes. I also think he has one for parts and you are correct one of the owners bought the parts inventory.
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[badlander45]

Saw one at KASE a month ago, it looked as if it had not flown in a very long time.

 

[Piper877]

I know of one owner who has two flying one on the N registry and one on the X registry because there was an airworthiness thing with the FAA and Raytheon. Both are very nice airplanes. I also think he has one for parts and you are correct one of the owners bought the parts inventory.​

Wasn't someone messing around with taking the props off and making it a jet? I thought I heard that for awhile. That's one aircraft I'd love to have in my logbook.

 

[Captainjerky]

Starship and Spaceship One

There was a special on Rutan and Spaceship One on Discovery a while back. They featured the guy whose Starship was the low-alt chase plane. This might be the guy who bought the extra planes, because they mentioned he had enough spares to last quite a while. I think he might be affiliated with Rutan now. If Rutan has anything to do with that aircraft, his planes will probably fly forever and be faster than most jets... Too bad Beech didn't want to support those planes, though, it was a great design that was attacked by the FAA in typical fashion...

 

[CA1900]

It was a beautiful airplane, I'll grant that, but I wouldn't call it a "great design" by any stretch of the imagination. Any airplane that had to have that many vortex generators stuck to the wing just to make it fly needed a little more work in the wind tunnel before it was ready for production.

The pusher-turboprop arrangement also made this thing very loud on the outside, with the exhaust blowing through the blades. (Ever blow into a fan? Of course you have... ) The 2000A widened the exhaust pipes a little bit to try and solve the issue, and I guess it helped a bit.

Neat concept, and nice to look at, but not terribly well executed, and absurdly expensive (almost $5 million).

 

[Swass]

Leading the carbon fiber tech edge is expensive.