What do you think of the Avanti and Starship compared to classic biz-jets?

[Frank N. O.]

I know the "Backwards King-Air" is now long gone out of production and the last one is probably finally bought up and chopped up by Beech and not sure if the Avanti is still being made, but what do you think of them and how did they fly compared to the classics in the business-plane business?

I love this picture of it, and used it as an avatar in small version for a long time at Racerplanet forums too.
http://home.worldonline.co.za/~fanjet/NC-06.jpg

Frank

[fireflyr]

Frank,
There is still one Starship in privare hands--belongs to a guy in SoCal and has been used as a chase plane for Burt Rutan's space program.
I believe the Avanti is still in production but I've never flown either s I don't have an opinion other than they are both sexy looking airplanes.
I do know the Beech had rather lackluster performance which I find surprising simply because Rutan's designs usually are superb performers.

[Baradium]

There are a few starships still around.  Those that have them love them.   The bad thing is they can't get RVSM certification.  You need 5 aircraft of a type, there are 5 still out there and one of the owners isn't willing to get the certification done, so they can't go up high where the best performance is.

When we went to one of the flight team competitions, the guys who flew the planes up came across one of the starship owners.  The guy loved his plane but was unhappy about not being able to get RVSM.  He also said parts are really expensive becuase he was having to get brakes custom made every time he got the done.

I believe power to weight the starship has excellent performance.  Lackluster is relative.

[Voidhawk9]

The Avanti II is now in production. Apart from looking great it is fast! 

Love pushers. Except when people ask me why the engines are on backwards. 

[spacer]

The Avanti is definitely still around, and the pilots I've known who fly them seem to like them pretty well.

As for the Starship, ah, such a sad tale.
Certificated aircraft of that class weren't commonly made of composites (in the main) and the Starship was
breaking new ground. She was overbuilt, much heavier than Burt could have done, given his potential, but I guess
that was the price paid for certification with a relatively new form of construction.
The resulting performance for the price just didn't add up for a lot of folks, and they moved up into jets,
or back into a King Air. At least, this is what one of the Raytheon guys in Little Rock figured.
The lessons learned have gone into some of the newer Beechcraft planes, so it was not all in vain.
I did love those lines, though.

[Baradium]

The starship also apparently has a glass cockpit, unheard of at the time.   However, as an early technology it had it's share of problems and still keeps owners in headaches...

I think it's kind of sad how Beech went around ceasing production, buying them all up to just take them out of existance.  The staggerwing museum in Tullahoma, TN has one sitting there that Beech donated for a static display, I wonder if you can go inside of it...

[fireflyr]

I believe power to weight the starship has excellent performance.  Lackluster is relative.

Relative to what?

[Baradium]

I believe power to weight the starship has excellent performance.  Lackluster is relative.

Relative to what?

How much fuel it burns compared to other aircraft in its class among other things.  What kind of climb rates does it actually get?   The Beech 1900 might have the ability to make it past 25,000 (our service ceiling is 250), but the Starship goes a fair amount past that.   Our sea level climb rate can be almost 2,000 fpm even at gross.  As an aircraft that has the ability to haul similiar or more weight to higher altitudes, I can't see the starship being any worse than that.   I'll bet the starship is faster than a 1900 too.

Props are also handy for short feilds.  We can operate out of 4,000 ft strips easily (and do it on a regular basis).  We can be down and stopped in 1,000 ft and when light our takeoff distance is pretty impressive too.   I don't know what a starship's is, but I have a feeling it's better than a citation.

[YawningMan]

I've actually seen a Starship fly over my house in Texas.  When I was living in CA, I saw one on the ramp at Brown Field.  It was cool to be able to see one in service, and in person.  Got to watch it take off, too.

Never did write down the N number, though.

[spacer]

I may be a little biased (as I'm a little bit of a space nut too...) but the Starship was just about the prettiest plane in the air.
It wasn't as... hunchy as the Avanti, though I still think the latter is a very nice looking airplane.
I was saddened when I heard the news, but what can a guy do?

[switchtech]

I've actually seen a Starship fly over my house in Texas.

I don't know if they're still there now, but I remember seeing four Starships at San Antonio International at one of the private hangers at the west side of the field.

jbs