Thanks for the memories, Juan. But the problem is not the FAA. New to Air Facts? From afar, the planes may appear similar, but it should be noted that the Avanti has a normal looking tail; the Starship doesnt really have a tail at all. Other examples include: Burt Rutan’s Long EZ and its variants, the Convair B36, the Cessna 337 (a push-pull configuration), the Velocity family of homebuilts, a wide variety … I was impressed but admit I have always wanted to fly in one but unfortunately have yet to take a ride in the BEST. It is hard to imagine that the initial design phase for the Starship started in the late 1970’s. Beech was completely embarrised that a King Air was faster on less fuel burn. Once the configuration was accepted the outcome for the Starship was set. Ibis Aerospace Ae 270 HP. PT6A-67A. After five minutes of banging, no visible outside damage was evident. There is no denying Burt Rutan’s accomplishments. Successful technologies today seldom come about due to a grand “Eureka” event. The bulkhead that ties the spar in also doubles as a pressure bulkhead. Raj Narayanan Makes sense to me. The other thing that I heard was that the cabin noise level was a King Air in reverse (I flew the King Air 200); quiet for the pilots up front, but noisy for the passengers, sitting back where those props were reverberating off the inverted vertical stab. What I remember from those prototype flights was the frisky flying qualities. Very interesting article. While the Starship was a fatally-flawed program for a lot of different reasons, at least Beech got it certified. However, I submit that the lessons learned from starship formed the essence of subsequent platforms in the aerospace industry including the Premier and 787 and many military programs. Mac, I was an engineer at Raytheon working on the Starship (Starbarge). I am defending it because I have 3000+ hours in a Starship and continue to successfully operate 2 aircraft today 30 years later. Hi Mark, The Lear Fan was also a pusher but with a single propeller. Seems like they just did not know when to “fold em” in this case – but it appears that their goal was to produce a quality product and they just got too deep in the project to admit the obvious. To my eye they are both a bit short on wing area vs. "regular" airplanes. They range from the Piaggio Avanti and Beechcraft Starship to the large flying wing bombers produced by Northrop in the late 40’s and early 50’s such as the YB-35. Analysis methods and technology were not robust enough on any platform in that era. Be advised however, that flying-boat hulls are not ‘as easy’ as too many aircraft-designers have apparently assumed across the last 115 years. A lot of the blame on the weight gain goes to the FAA in insisting on additional safety margins in the construction. Primarily, the ever increasing FAA Certification requirements kept increasing the weight of the airplane. In this month’s Aircraft Comparative Analysis, Mike Chase provides information on two popular turboprops for the purpose of valuing the King Air 350i and 350iER. In addition, the canard design of the airframe was almost “stall poof”. That being said, the design of the Piaggio here is purposefully simple, which gives quite a bit of control over to the Slicer. I didn’t believe an airplane could be too stable, but the Starship is. Mac Mc. Out the door price is currently running about $7.7 million with lots of bells and whistles, and a beautiful leather interior. Why is that? Personal view: Starship - 6/10 Avanti - 8/10 ....and for balance Hondajet - 4/10 ....sorry Honda. Together with a a select group of Beech executives, we saw this very unusual machine take to the skies. toggie F1 World Champ Development. But in the air, knots, not looks, matter most. Slick looks might sell a car where speed limits cap performance in any case. And you’re right about the cabin sound level in the Starship. It didn’t take long to learn that composite construction could not deliver the promised weight savings. I will eventually tell the whole story of Starship development in my bio. “Isn’t this Columbus, GA,” he asked? Not judging good or bad, just that the certification process is a fact of life. Feel free to reach out to Robert or myself. History and Features. Designing experimental aircraft is something quite different than getting one certified. If you lived through that time you’ll remember the aviation world being divided on the Starship. I blame the FAA and BEECH. The cabin space looks to actually be not that far off, since Avanti’s nose is shorter. —Quicksilver T @ 03:56, 5 June 2010 (UTC) The low noise levels and lack of vibration outshine the King Air by a wide margin. ), Your email address will not be published. But they were overruled. Having flown the Starship and been directly involved with its initial introduction into the charter market, three other issues contributed to its demise: 1)the sheer size of the aircraft made it all but impossible to hangar in other than huge, mass storage hangars making it unattractive to potential owners who leased or owned private hangars; He has private pilot privileges in single-engine airplanes, commercial pilot in helicopters and ATP in airplanes with more than one engine. Maybe the wing-to-fuselage intersection could have been handled better. The turboprop-powered Piper Cheyenne was also faster than the Starship. However it appears that they made it right with their depositors, admitted their mistake, and moved on. I replied that there was no I-185 in Columbus. Hmmm, interesting. Beech had been acquired from the founders by Raytheon, a leader in high tech of the day. Yes Beechcraft embarked on a revolutionary change in design, manufacturing, and certification. You do not have to be Richard Collins or Ernest Gann - simply a GA pilot with a story you'd share with friends sitting in the hangar. Appropriate that I was reading this story in Air Facts when I received the news……. Robert Scherer notes are based on his owning and continuously flying his Starship for about 20 years. The total development cost of the Beechcraft Starship was $300 Million. Exactly where the P.1HH name came from... HH = Hammer Head OK, not the best example of success... 22 Sep 2020, 17:51. PT6A-66D. It wasn’t as quiet as expected, and certainly not on par with a jet. The result is more material is added to compensate for what could have gone wrong during the build. Avanti on the other hand at least has made and is making some sales, over 150 have been made. The total weight of the part is less than 25 lbs. And a lot of the blame goes to Beech, as you pointed out, for overreaching the needs of the market. Without the vision of pioneers we would not be where we are in aviation today. Piaggio Avanti EVO is the latest chapter in the story of the aircraft which rewrote the rulebook on aviation elegance and practicality. You might find that while short on initial design and performance expectations, the Starship 30 years later has allot to offer in terms of performance, reliability, safety standard, IFR/IMC capability etc. Why did Starship fail? You want to rig an engine today? But the configuration is all Burts. Plenty of blame to go around for a plane universally considered a disaster. There was a small lobby on our side of the hangar in front of our office with just a couple of chairs. Page 1 … The P180 did meet its speed projections. To get that futuristic look and make the airplane practical in terms of CG location the Starship wing needed a large amount of sweep. Too bad the owner/operator Bob Scherer is estranged from his two brothers, sued his own mother over money and refuses to marry the mother of his only child. Bottom line, what looks fast isn’t necessarily fast!!! Its a model of the Starship. I hadn’t heard about the water tunnel model, but it makes sense. I know the guy who was vice president for R&D when upper management decided to go forward. Back in the day of Olive Ann Beech and Frank Hedrick, the back of the envelope calculations said that you had to sell between 70 to 100 units of a new design to break even. My last encounter with the airplane occurred on the ramp of Lane Aviation in Columbus, OH, in 1989 or 1990. Of course there is much more to the Starship attempt than what you can describe in a short article; the personalities involved come to mind. PT6A-66B. The forward wing sweeps to keep the aircraft from pitching down during flap deployment. If anyone is interested, I have two McCauley propellers from a Starship on eBay for sale. There were 16, as I recall, individual TV tubes in the instrument panel burning amps and pumping out gobs of heat. Even so, the Starship is still superior to the King Air it was meant to replace, even with her flaws. His father, Leighton Collins, founded Air Facts Magazine. I feel that the Skymaster was a concept that was ahead of its time and a commercial program that was totally failed by its marketing team. Because the forward wing sweep was obviously critical to airplane performance and stall behavior, lots of monitors and backup equipment were required. How the decision was made is also quite interesting and would make a nice second chapter to your story about the Starship. The Piaggio Avanti Evo is an incredibly compelling aircraft with a unique design and amazing efficiency gains over equivalent turbofan and turbojet driven aircraft, for very little compromise As a current owner of a Beech V35 and past owner of a Beech B55, I have always been impressed (as have others) by the quality of the Beech product. A collaboration with Learjet to develop the aircraft began in 1983 but ended on 13 January 1986, with Piaggio continuing development on its own. The turboprop-powered Italian Piaggio P.180 Avanti had a configuration somewhat similar to the Starship (it incorporated a canard as well as a conventional tailplane) and comparable capacity, but was faster. The first production model did not fly until six years later, 1989. The Avanti can carry between seven and nine people plus the pilot. So glad to see you writing Mac!!! I’ll bet it goes another 30 years easy. I have several at the parts warehouse. I was there from the beginning of the construction of the 85% POC, there was never any other configuration. The set up is: Buy a (used) turboprop, preferably multi-engine, to seat at least 5 people comfortably with range to fly Scandinavia to southern Europe non-stop. We at AQRD in Dallas, TX own and operate two. Both the Starship and the Piaggio fall in that category. With ‘outsider novices’ e.g. (Too bad it still is impossible to find even a semi decent page layout program for free. I did not work on the Starship, I was off on other projects such as the 38P, the King Air F90, and the Beech 1200 Commuter Airliner, all developed around the same time. So if they are reporting snow on the ground can we assume the clouds will be ice free? Its popular KingAir line of private planes, with regard to selling an unusual configuration afore-mentioned aerodynamic complexities have. Enjoy it immensely and I face a daily barrage of Mixmaster jokes, maintenance ridicule etc! 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