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Update – Beechcraft Starship 1
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Beech Point the Way to Tomorrow With Futuristic Starship
Beechcraft, long considered overly conservative in their aeronautical design philosophies, have launched what is without doubt the most visually futuristic aircraft design of recent decades. Aptly designated, Starship 1, the new Beech offering is representative of a new generation of high-performance turboprops that are set to challenge the domain of the smaller executive jets.
The Starship is a product of the best brains from the Beechcraft design bureau (who have more experience in NASA space programmes than most people realise) coupled with the unique design talents of Burt Rutan. Rutan in fact has built an eight-tenths-sized flying test development aircraft much in the same way he did for Fairchild with their New Generation Trainer (NGT) which eventually won the USAF basic trainer contract. In fact, the photos accompanying this article are of the eight-tenths scale flight test development aircraft.
Constructed of advanced technology composite materials and titanium, the full-scale production Starship 1 will feature:
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• A computer-aided, tandem-wing design configuration, incorporating a 54′ 7″ span, aft-located swept wing with 7′ 9″ Tipsails (winglets with rudders) at each end, and a 26′ 5″ span, patented variable geometry forward canard-style wing. The Rutan Vari Eze’s influence is obvious.
• Two pusher-propfan turbine engines located inboard, and above and to the rear of each wing. All fuel is carried in the blended aft ” wet wing”. • 8. 5 psi cabin pressure differential for a comfortable 8,000 ft cabin at a cruising altitude of 41,000 ft. The rate of climb of 3,300 ft per minute and a gross weight of only 12,500 lbs.
Starship 1 will be powered by two Pratt & Whitney PT6A-60 engines flat-rated to 1,000 shp each providing a maximum cruise speed of 400 mph. Beech President Linden Blue stated at the NBAA launch of the Starship 1 that it would exceed all performance parameters established by the present Super King Air 200 series. Range, field performance, climb, cruise profile, cruise altitude and fuel burn would all be improved over the existing King Air 200. Beech was also keen to point out that the Starship is not a King Air replacement and that the King Air will remain in production alongside the Starship for many years to come. As the Starship offers a roomier cabin than the King Air 200, it is longer by two feet, taller by nine inches and wider by a foot, and offers state-of-the-art design technology it is naturally only a matter of time though before it attains sales supremacy over its stablemate.
The scale development model has been flying since late August while FAA Certification is expected during 1985 with customer deliveries commencing soon afterwards. The utilisation of a scale model virtually provides a flying wind tunnel in which systems can be more accurately monitored and developed. A full EFIS cockpit will be standard providing a level of electronic displays previously unknown in a corporate aircraft.
Beech have quoted a 1983 US dollar price of a production Starship at $2,742,500, not cheap but certainly a worthy rival for what was once purely the domain of the light jet.
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