The Beechcraft Starship is a twin-
turboprop
A turboprop is a Gas turbine, gas turbine engine that drives an aircraft Propeller (aeronautics), propeller.
A turboprop consists of an intake, reduction drive, reduction gearbox, gas compressor, compressor, combustor, turbine, and a propellin ...
six- to eight-passenger pressurized business
aircraft
An aircraft ( aircraft) is a vehicle that is able to flight, fly by gaining support from the Atmosphere of Earth, air. It counters the force of gravity by using either Buoyancy, static lift or the Lift (force), dynamic lift of an airfoil, or, i ...
produced by
Beech Aircraft Corporation. Featuring a
canard design and extensive use of carbon fiber composite, it did not sell many units and production ceased in 1995, nine years after the Starship's first flight.
Development
Development of the Starship began in 1979 when Beech decided to explore designs for a successor to its
King Air line of turboprops that would fly faster and carry more passengers.
On August 25, 1982, Beech contracted with
Scaled Composites
Scaled Composites (often called simply Scaled) is an American aerospace company founded by Burt Rutan and currently owned by Northrop Grumman. It is located at the Mojave Air and Space Port in Mojave, California, United States. Founded to d ...
to refine the design and build an 85% scale proof-of-concept (POC) aircraft.
One of the significant changes made to the design by Scaled Composites was the addition of variable geometry to the
canard.
The POC aircraft first flew in August 1983.
This aircraft had no pressurization system, no certified avionics, and a different airframe design and material specifications from the planned production Model 2000. Only one POC was built and it has since been scrapped.
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. Beech built three airworthy full-scale prototypes. NC-1 was used for aerodynamic testing
and had an ejection seat. This was the only Starship equipped with conventional electro-mechanical avionics.
NC-2 was used for avionics and systems testing and NC-3 was used for flight management system and powerplant testing.
NC-1 first flew on February 15, 1986.
The program was delayed several times, at first due to underestimating the developmental complexity and manufacturing learning curve of the production composite construction, and later due to the technical difficulties of correcting a pitch damping problem and developing the stall-warning 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 . Starship development cost $300 million. The first production Starship flew on April 25, 1989.
Design

The Starship is noteworthy for its unconventional carbon fiber composite
airframe
The mechanical structure of an aircraft is known as the airframe. This structure is typically considered to include the fuselage, undercarriage, empennage and wings, and excludes the propulsion system.
Airframe design is a field of aeros ...
,
canard design, lack of centrally located vertical tail, and
pusher engine/propeller configuration. The aircraft employs a
variable-sweep canard surface in order to counteract the nose-down pitch from extending the flaps.
Carbon fiber composite
Carbon fiber-reinforced polymers (American English), carbon-fibre-reinforced polymers (Commonwealth English), carbon-fiber-reinforced plastics, carbon-fiber reinforced-thermoplastic (CFRP, CRP, CFRTP), also known as carbon fiber, carbon compo ...
was used to varying degrees on military aircraft, but at the time the Starship was certified, no civilian aircraft certified by the U.S.
Federal Aviation Administration
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is a Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government agency within the United States Department of Transportation, U.S. Department of Transportation that regulates civil aviation in t ...
had ever used it so extensively. Beech chose carbon fiber composite for its durability and high strength-to-weight ratio. According to Beech, the Starship weighs less than it would have if it were built from aluminum. Nonetheless, the empty weight of production aircraft exceeded the target by several thousand pounds.
Beech studied several configurations before settling on a canard configuration in early 1980.
As configured, the Starship is difficult to stall; the forward surface stalls before the main lifting surface, which allows the nose to drop and more-normal flight to resume.
A traditionally located vertical tail would have transmitted propeller noise into the airframe.
In its place, directional stability and control is provided by rudders mounted on the winglets. Because of this addition Beechcraft called the winglets "tipsails".
Mounting the engines so that the propellers are facing rearward, pushing rather than pulling the aircraft, is done for the purpose of a quieter cabin, since the propellers are further back 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 high-velocity exhaust gases are discharged directly into the propellers, producing more noise where they are than if the propellers had been in a tractor configuration.
Flight instrumentation for the Starship included a 14-tube Proline 4 AMS-850 "
glass cockpit
A glass cockpit is an aircraft cockpit that features an array of electronic (digital) flight instrument display device, displays, typically large liquid-crystal display, LCD screens, rather than traditional Analog device, analog dials and gauges ...
" supplied by
Rockwell Collins
Rockwell Collins, Inc. was a multinational corporation headquartered in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, providing avionics and information technology systems and services to government agencies and aircraft manufacturers. It was formed when the Collins Radi ...
, the first application of an all-glass cockpit in a business aircraft.
Operational history

Beech sold only eleven Starships in the three years following its certification. Beech attributed the slow sales to the economic slowdown in the late-1980s, the novelty of the Starship, and the tax on luxury items that was in effect in the United States at the time. However,
In an effort to stimulate demand, Beech began offering two-year leases on new Starships in 1991.
One of the Starships appeared in the opening scenes of the ''
Murder, She Wrote
''Murder, She Wrote'' is an American crime drama television series, created by Peter S. Fischer, Richard Levinson and William Link, starring Angela Lansbury, and produced and distributed by Universal Television for the CBS network. The series f ...
'' TV series episode "Terminal Connection" in 1991.
The last Starship, NC-53, was produced in 1995. In 2003 Beechcraft said 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
In botany, an evergreen is a plant which has foliage that remains green and functional throughout the year. This contrasts with deciduous plants, which lose their foliage completely during the winter or dry season. Consisting of many different s ...
located at the
Pinal Airpark
Pinal Airpark , also known as Pinal County Airpark, is a non-towered, county-owned, public-use airport located northwest of the central business district of Marana, in Pinal County, Arizona, United States. Silverbell Army Heliport is co-l ...
in
Arizona
Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...
for destruction. Beech worked with owners of privately owned Starships to replace their airplanes with other Beech aircraft such as the
Premier I jet.
In 2004, Raytheon, Beech's parent company, sold off its entire inventory of Starship parts to a Starship owner for a fraction of its retail value.
Variants
;Model 115
:Conceptual 85% scale prototype, one built by Scaled Composites. Scrapped by Beech at
Mojave Airport in 1990.
;Model 2000
:Initial production version. 20 produced including three pre-production airworthy prototypes.
;Model 2000A
:Beech did not serialise the 2000A as a distinct model and it was not issued a new FAA type certificate.
:The final 2000A configuration had tuning-fork-type noise dampers and improved insulation to reduce cabin noise and redesigned exhaust stacks for more efficient engine airflow. Stall strips placed on the front wing to enhance stall behavior were removed. Elimination of the stall strips reduced stall speed by up to , which allows the 2000A to takeoff from shorter runways.
The 2000 had standpipes in the fuel tanks to artificially limit fuel capacity so the aircraft would meet a target payload weight. The standpipes were removed in the 2000A, increasing fuel capacity by .
Both the
maximum ramp weight and
takeoff weight were increased by and
zero fuel weight was increased .
:Beech produced a kit to upgrade serial numbers NC-4 through NC-20 to 2000A specifications.
Aircraft on display

Several Starships have been donated to museums since the decommissioning program began. The
Kansas Aviation Museum
The Kansas Aviation Museum is a museum located in Wichita, Kansas, near 31st South and George Washington Blvd. The building, designed by Glen H. Thomas, served as Wichita Municipal Airport's terminal from 1935 to 1954. In February of 2024, the ...
received the first donated aircraft, NC-41, in August 2003
and the Beechcraft Heritage Museum in Tullahoma, TN, received the second donated aircraft, NC-49, in September 2003.
NC-42 was donated to the
Museum of Flight
The Museum of Flight is a private Nonprofit organization, non-profit Aircraft, air and Spacecraft, space museum in the Seattle metropolitan area. It is located at the southern end of Boeing Field, King County International Airport (Boeing Fi ...
in Seattle, WA, and is currently on loan to the
Future of Flight at
Paine Field
Seattle Paine Field International Airport — also known as Paine Field and Snohomish County Airport — is a commercial and general aviation airport serving the Seattle metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Washington. It is located in uni ...
in Everett, WA.
NC-27 was donated to
Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum
The Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum is an independent, 501(c)(3) non-profit, aviation museum in McMinnville, Oregon. Its exhibits include the Hughes H-4 Hercules (''Spruce Goose'') and more than fifty military and civilian aircraft, unmanned ...
in McMinnville, Oregon in late 2003 and is currently on static display.
NC-23 is on Airline Row at the
Pima Air & Space Museum
The Pima Air & Space Museum is an aerospace museum in Tucson, Arizona, US. It features a display of nearly 400 aircraft spread out over on a campus occupying . It has also been the home to the Arizona Aviation Hall of Fame since 1991.
Overv ...
.
NC-6 is on display in Liberal, KS, at the
Mid-America Air Museum
The Mid-America Air Museum is an aerospace and aircraft museum located at the Liberal Mid-America Regional Airport in Liberal, Kansas, United States.
The Mid-America Air Museum is the largest aircraft museum in Kansas. It has on display over ...
. Aircraft NC-28 is on display at the
Queensland Air Museum
The Queensland Air Museum is a not-for-profit all-volunteer aviation museum located near the Caloundra Airport in Queensland, Australia. Its mission is to collect and preserve all aspects of aviation heritage with an emphasis on Australia and Qu ...
, after it was used by the Queensland Institute for Aviation Engineering in
Caloundra
Caloundra ( ) is a coastal town in the Sunshine Coast Region, Queensland, Australia.
In the , the town of Caloundra had a population of 96,305 people.
Geography
Caloundra is north of the Brisbane central business district. Caloundra is acce ...
.
Aircraft NC-14 is on display outside at the
Southern Museum of Flight
The Southern Museum of Flight is a civilian aviation museum Birmingham, Alabama. The facility features nearly 100 aircraft, as well as engines, models, artifacts, photographs, and paintings. In addition, the Southern Museum of Flight is home ...
.
Surviving aircraft
In 2003, Evergreen Air Center sold 8 Starships back to private owners for $50,000 each. Most are being used for parts; however, one of these aircraft has since been made airworthy again.
Some former Starship parts have been used on the Epic turboprop kitplane.
, nine Starships held an active registration with the FAA. Three Starships were registered in Oklahoma (NC-29, NC-35 & NC-45), one in Texas (NC-50), one in Colorado (NC-51), and four were registered to Beechcraft in Wichita, Kansas (NC-2, NC-8, NC-19 & NC-24).
NC-51 was used as a
chase plane
A chase plane is an aircraft that "chases" a "subject" aircraft, spacecraft or rocket, for the purposes of making real-time observations and taking air-to-air photographs and video of the subject vehicle during flight.
Background
Safety can ...
during the re-entry phase of
Burt Rutan
Elbert Leander "Burt" Rutan (; born June 17, 1943) is a retired American aerospace engineer and entrepreneur noted for his originality in designing light, strong, unusual-looking, and energy-efficient air and space craft. He designed the recor ...
's
SpaceShipOne
SpaceShipOne is an experimental air launch, air-launched rocket-powered aircraft with sub-orbital spaceflight capability at speeds of up to /
using a hybrid rocket motor. The design features a unique "Feathering (reentry), feathering" atmosph ...
.
In October 2008 NC-29 was the first of the five remaining privately owned airworthy Starships to complete
RVSM certification, returning the aircraft's service ceiling to the original
FL410 limit.
Salt Lake Community College
Salt Lake Community College (SLCC) is a public community college in Salt Lake County, Utah. It is the state's largest two-year college with the most diverse student body. It serves almost 50,000 students on 8 campuses as well as through online ...
used a Starship in their Aviation Maintenance program until late 2012 when it was sold and scrapped for parts.
, only six Starships were airworthy. Two Beechcraft Starships (NC-33 and NC-50) were located in Addison, Texas. NC-33 lost its data plate when it was scrapped, and was subsequently registered in Mexico; however when brought back to the US, the FAA revoked its certificate. It is now registered in the experimental category as N903SC.
The other airworthy Starships were located in Oklahoma (NC-35 and NC-45), Colorado (NC-51), and Germany (NC-29, though registered with the FAA by a company in Delaware).
Specifications (2000A)
See also
References
Sources
*
External links
The Starship Diaries* Detailed Beechcraft Starship (of aircraft N903SC) walkaround
{{Scaled Composites
Starship
A starship, starcraft, or interstellar spacecraft is a theoretical spacecraft designed for interstellar travel, traveling between planetary systems. The term is mostly found in science fiction. Reference to a "star-ship" appears as early as 1 ...
1980s United States business aircraft
Twin-turboprop pusher aircraft
Low-wing aircraft
Canard aircraft
Aircraft with retractable tricycle landing gear
Aircraft first flown in 1986
Twin-tail aircraft