Cubdriver

Before my time in Wichita, but I believe the Plastic Duke was one of Linden Blue's projects, along with quite a few others over the years. Now he is with General Atomics making Predators among other things, but he has a pet project called the Spectrum which wants to compete in the HA-420/ M2/ Phenom class. Don't count on buying one this decade- they seem to lack funding. It takes roughly one beeelion dollars to attempt a new bizjet startup, and LearJet was the last one historically to succeed.

jungle

The truth teller on the starship is that Beech spent about 300 million getting it off the ground and then built only 53, it was a sales failure, but it did set Beech up to produce carbon fiber hulls for other aircraft.

What became of those aircraft? They ended up as a burden and were scrapped/destroyed because they represented a liability and support effort not worth the time.

"The last Starship, NC-53, was produced in 1995. In 2003 Beechcraft determined that supporting such a small fleet of airplanes was cost-prohibitive and began scrapping and incinerating the aircraft under its control. The aircraft were sent to the Evergreen Air Center located at the Pinal Airpark in Arizona for destruction. A number of these aircraft are currently in storage at Marana Regional Airport (KAVQ) 8 NM southeast of Pinal Airpark. Beech worked with owners of privately owned Starships to replace their airplanes with other Beech aircraft such as the Premier I jet."

I was lucky enough to visit the Starship production line and talk with Beech execs about it. It dang near broke the company and had it not been for military orders they might have bit the dust from their Starship journey.

Cubdriver

Nice website by a Starship nut

Robert Scherer Starship page

You could do a master's thesis on the long-range effects of this airplane extending well beyond the Dreamliner. Just about every concept airplane Boeing and Airbus have now are influenced. Blue was the dreamer who could and also did. Too bad he can't get funded now for his own airplane, but a source tells me the HA-420 just slid another year in certification, a leader in this area although it is only partially composite, so it must be a tough time for high tech business jets.

Cheesus Chrust

To this day I still think that's an awesome looking bird.

Yoda2

An interesting airplane, though I'm more fond of the Learfan... The Learfan would have been the real game changer, had it not met its unfortunate demise. About the only one that made out on the Starship, that I know of, was Rutan. I once saw the Starship listed as one of the biggest failures in corporate history, talk about lack of foresight... BTW Blue was involved in both these failures.

Cubdriver

Exceeding their budget was their only real failure, the technology was ahead of its time. They have my sympathy because business ventures involving cutting edge technology are hard to manage effectively. You do not know what you are up against ahead of time. But failure is the pillar of success, and thanks to projects like these we have several high carbon-matrix content airframes like the Dreamliner, Hawker 4000, Beech Premier, Lear 85, F-117, F-22, V-22, B-2. In addition, carbon matrix parts are just about everywhere now.

Yoda2

In a manner of speaking, the Learfan did not really employ all that much new technology. CFRP had been around for quite awhile. It was more issues with the application. I followed the Learfan project fairly closely; having also made several visits to the plant, near the end. I was, in fact, finally being brought in to help salvage the situation, primarily from a mechanical standpoint. I had a firm date to report and was contacted at the last minute and called off. A short time later the whole house of cards came crashing down. It was not simply that the program ran out of money. It was more like why they ran out of money. There were various factors at play which contributed to the demise, including opportunists... Due to the rules of the forum, I am not allowed, nor would it be prudent, to go into much detail or deserved bashing... Most of that is already well known anyway. You can say what you want about Bill; though had he not become marginalized and subsequently died the project would have likely succeeded. He also knew how to surround himself with the right people and get the most out of a dime. There was plenty of lack of foresight to go around with this deal. I agree it can be risky when foraging new ground; however most of the failures and ill fated projects in aviation have much more to do with the shot callers posessing or exercising no greater than "Level 2" situational awareness... You can't plan for every eventuality, but much more foresight and contingency is possible than typically exercised.

Cubdriver

Good story, thanks for sharing.

Aerophile

I've really enjoyed reading everyone's story's about this plane. Thanks!