Beechcraft Starship

The Beechcraft Starship is a futuristic-looking United States turboprop-powered six- to eight-passenger seat business aircraft. The design was originated by Beechcraft in January 1980 as Preliminary Design 330 (PD 330). Burt Rutan was subsequently retained to refine PD330 and one of the significant changes he instituted was the addition of variable geometry to the canard (he holds a patent for this). Rutan's California-based design and fabrication company Scaled Composites was then contracted to build scale-model prototypes to aid in development.

Development

Work began in 1979 when Beechcraft identified a need to replace the King Air 200 model. After a brief hiatus while the company was being bought by Raytheon, full development began in 1982 when Beechcraft approached Burt Rutan of Scaled Composites, a leader in the field of novel composite aircraft design. Much of the design work utilised computer-aided design, using the CATIA system. By the end of development, the Starship had grown larger in cabin volume than the King Air 350 while having the same gross ramp weight of 15,010 pounds.

While in development at Scaled Composites, the 85%-scale prototype was the Model 115, and Beechcraft referred to the production version as the Model 2000. The Model 115 first flew in late August 1983. However, this aircraft had no pressurization system, no certified avionics, and a different airframe design and material specifications than the planned production Model 2000. Only one Model 115 was built, and it has since been scrapped.

The first full-size Starship (the Model 2000) flew on February 15, 1986. Prototypes were produced even as development work was continuing — a system demanded by the use of composite materials, as the tooling required is very expensive and has to be built for production use from the outset. The program was delayed several times, at first due to underestimating the development complexity involved and later to overcome technical difficulties concerning the stall-warning system.

The first production Starship flew in late 1988, after over $300 million in development costs. Those working in the program have stated[citation needed] that much of the development delay was due to the new owners' ongoing vacillation and lack of assurance over whether to continue with the new-concept project.
[edit] Design

The Starship was notable for several reasons:

* Its all-graphite composite airframe, using high-tech materials instead of aluminum. These materials were in frequent use to varying degrees on military aircraft, but no civilian aircraft certified by the US Federal Aviation Administration had ever used them so extensively. Composites were chosen to reduce the weight of the aircraft and to provide exceptional surface smoothness. However, the empty weight of production aircraft considerably exceeded the target.[citation needed]

* Its canard design, with the lifting surface aft of the horizontal stabilizer. As configured, the Starship is extremely difficult to stall - the forward surface stalls before the main lifting surface, which allows the nose to drop and more-normal flight to resume.[1]

* Its lack of a conventional centrally placed vertical tail. Its two vertical surfaces are mounted at the tips of the swept wings, which places the rudders well aft of the aircraft's center of gravity.

* Its pusher design, with the turboprop engines mounted facing the rear, pushing rather than pulling the aircraft. This design has the potential of a quieter ride, since the propellers are far removed from the passengers and because vortices from the propeller tips do not strike the fuselage sides. However, the propellers are operating in a turbulent airflow in the pusher configuration (due to airflow past the wings moving aft in vortex sheets), and thus the resulting propeller noise is more choppy and raucous than otherwise.

* Flight instrumentation for the Starship included a 16-tube Proline 4 AMS-850 "glass cockpit" supplied by Rockwell Collins, an early application of this concept in small civil aircraft.

[edit] Operational history
[edit] Sales
Beechcraft Starship

Commercially, the aircraft was a failure, with limited demand at list price. Only fifty-three Starships were ever built, and of those only a handful were sold. Many of the aircraft were eventually leased by Raytheon under very attractive terms. Raytheon considered the cost of supporting a commercial fleet of just 53 aircraft with necessary parts and flight training to be prohibitive. With the decision already made to cease production, Raytheon's management made the decision to de-certify those Starships in their possession. The airframes were either donated for static display or dismantled at Pinal Airpark.

Some reasons for the lack of demand:

* Price. 1989 list price for a Starship was $3.9 million, similar to the Cessna Citation and Learjet 31, which were pure jets of similar carrying capacity and range. The Piper Cheyenne, a turboprop airplane of similar capacity, was less expensive ($2.9 million).[2]
* Performance. The Starship was 89 knots (165 km/h) slower than the Cessna Citation. It was 124 knots (230 km/h) slower than the Learjet 31. The turboprop-powered Piper Cheyenne was also faster than the Starship. 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.
* Economic conditions. The Starship was finally introduced as the US economy was entering a periodic slowdown, and sales of all high-ticket items such as business transportation vehicles were off.

[edit] End of the program

In 1995, NC-53 was the last Starship produced, and by 2003, Beechcraft deemed that the aircraft was no longer popular enough to justify its support costs, and has recalled all leased aircraft for scrapping. The company was also said to be buying back privately-owned Starships, though some Starship owners say they have never been contacted by Raytheon about this. Raytheon's spin-off, Hawker Beech Corporation, continues to offer technical support by phone but no longer offers parts support to current Starship operators. Rockwell Collins has maintained full support for the AMS-850 avionics suite. In March 2008, the third of the five remaining Starships completed RVSM certification returning the aircraft's service ceiling to the original FL410 limit.

Almost all of the recalled Starships have been ground up and incinerated at the "boneyard" at the Evergreen Air Center located at the Pinal Airpark in Arizona. The planes have little aluminum for recycling. A few have been purchased by individuals who regard them as lovable failures, much like the infamous Ford Edsel. Many former Starship engines and parts have been reborn as part of the Epic turboprop kitplane. Starship Model 2000A NC-51 was used as a chase plane during the re-entry phase of Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne. Several Starships have been donated to museums since the decommissioning program began, with the Kansas Aviation Museum receiving the first aircraft in August 2003. Starship NC-42, flown by the architect David Schwarz for many years, is now at the Museum of Flight in Everett, Washington. Starship N214JB is displayed at the Southern Museum of Flight adjacent to the Birmingham International Airport in Alabama. Starship NC-27, N74TD, is on static display at the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museumin McMinnville, Orgeon. One other Starship is on display at the Beechcraft Heritage Museum in Tullahoma, TN (KTHA).

As of autumn 2008 only six Starships continue to hold airworthiness registration with the FAA. Three Starships are based in Oklahoma, one in Washington, one in California, and one is still registered to Raytheon Aircraft Credit Corporation in Wichita, Kansas.
[edit] Specifications (2000A)
A Beechcraft Starship chasing a Scaled Composites SpaceShipOne during a test flight

Data from Beechcraft Starship 2000A Performance, Specifications & Equipment[3]

General characteristics

* Crew: one or two pilots
* Capacity: 8 passengers
* Length: 46 ft 1 in (14.05 m)
* Wingspan: 54 ft 4.7 in (16.58 m)
* Height: 12 ft 11 in (3.94 m)
* Wing area: 280.88 ft² (26.1 m²
* Empty weight: 10,120 lb (4,590 kg)
* Loaded weight: 15,010 lb (6,823 kg)
* Max takeoff weight: 14,900 lb (6,760 kg)
* Powerplant: 2× Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-67A Turbo-props, 1,200 shp (895 kW) each
* Propellers: 5-bladed McCauley propeller

Performance

* Maximum speed: 335 knots .60 mach (385 mph, 620 km/h)
* Stall speed: Un-stallable (Un-spinable)
* Range: 1,576 nm (1,814 mi, 2,920 km)
* Service ceiling: 41,000 ft (12,500 m)
* Rate of climb: 2,748 ft/min (13.96 m/s)
* Wing loading: 53.0 lb/ft² (Main wing=35.0, Forward wing=70.0 lb/ft² (258.77 kg/m²
* Power/mass: 6.21 lb/shp (3.78 kg/kW)