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Beech Starship The Starship is a twin-turboprop-powered passenger transport aircraft that was sold by Beech-Raytheon aircraft in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The Starship was a design well ahead of its time, perhaps too much so. Only 53 aircraft were ever produced, including 3 prototypes, and the line was cancelled in the mid 1990s. Raytheon has recalled all of the leased aircraft, and there are only a few flying aircraft not held by Ratheon or in museums. Robert Scherer owns one of the remaining Starships still flying. He has a web page dedicated to the Starship, including, for instance, a list of all the starship airframes and their current locations. I attended AirVenture Oshkosh in July 2004 and July 2005. In 2005 I brought along a video camera that I borrowed from a friend and managed to get footage of Robert Scherer's Starship, NC-51, approaching Oshkosh field for landing. Oshkosh 2005 Through my nefarious sources, I had determined that NC-51 was going to be coming to Oshkosh on that day and roughly when, and my whole purpose of bringing the camera along was to get this footage. I set up at runway 9, which was the runway where the IFR traffic was coming in. Sunday was my first day using the camera, so I was taking shots of the incoming traffic. At some point I stood up and took a quick break, and out of pure serendipity, caught the Starship coming into land on 18! Argh. I grabbed the camera and started taping. Given that that I was out of position by more than half a mile, the footage I got is actually pretty good. Here are a few stills from the video: Turning base for landing. You'll notice the Starship's canard is a bit forward swept here. That's a part of the flap system. The Starship has flaps at the trailing edges of the wing. Extending those flaps would move the center of aerodynamic pressure too far to the rear, so the canard (normally swept back) sweeps forward to compensate. On final for 18R Here's the movie After taking this footage, I of course realized that I was at the wrong end of the field, so I hoofed it down to to try to get photos of it taxiing in. I didn't quite get any, but here are the shots I got just after coming in off the taxiway. Parked in Aeroshell Square ...with its back to the Beech booth, just to make the point. :-) A few of the Starships, including NC-51, were equipped with an HF communications antenna along the top of the fuselage. It can be seen here clearly, silhouetted against the trees. Before uploading the movie, I reviewed the footage one more time. Pangur decided to sit on my lap and supervise. Oshkosh 2004 I arrived at AirVenture Oshkosh for the very first time Wednesday July 28, 2004. Thursday the 29th was looking cloudy, and around lunchtime the dark clouds actually produced rain. I was eating in one of the food tents along the flight line at the time, and I decided that this would be an excellent time to test my waterproof boots, jacket, and hat that I'd recently purchased for my upcoming trip to Great Britain. Leaving my bags and gear with my friends, I wandered out into the downpour as most other people were runninging for shelter. (As a side note, the wings a C-5 Galaxy can shelter quite a number of folks from the rain.) I was wandering towards the taxiway, when a tow tug came into view from my left pulling an aircraft. I didn't notice it right away; after only a half a day, a random aircraft wasn't enough to catch my attention. Still contemplating the wonders of impermeable fabrics, I looked up and realized that this aircraft wasn't a riveted aluminum warbird that occupy so much of Aeroshell square. I focused on this airplane, in the rain, and said to myself "Holy @#*^$--that's a Starship!". Since seeing NC-51 on that day, I've done so much reading on the Starship that I don't remember where I'd read about it before that moment, but I definitely recognised it. NC-51 has a "Starship 2000A" on the nose, which confirmed it. The Oshkosh experience has pretty much been downhill from that time. :-) Friday, the weather was much nicer, and I wandered by the square to see if the Starship was still there. It was, and I snapped the following photos (curtesy of my trusty tripod). As far as recognising it, I think the Starship is almost the only twin propeller pusher ever made? Am I imagining that? Craig, looking like the cat who just got the canary. Another photo, more from the front. The gentleman toward the right side of the photo in the broad-brimmed hat is Dallas Kachan, the author of The Starship Diaries.

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