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Just saw an unusual aircraft

S

safn1949

poet,traveler
I didn't manage to get a photo,it was a canard wing,twin engine pusher,sounded like turboprops.I am outside the Kansas City Airport unloading a truckload of pop cans.Any ideas...oh,and loud as all getout.:USA-flag:
 
Possibly an Avanti.


It could also be a Beechcraft Starship...there are still a few of em in the air according to Bob Scherer's Starship tracking pages anyway. Not sure how current his pages are but he still lists 5 as registered and flying.
He's got a pretty complete listing of all 53 Starships that were built and what their fate is/was.
http://www.bobscherer.com/Pages/Starship.htm

I think if I was owner of one of the survivors I would relish flying it over KBEC in Wichita at every opportunity just to blow a big raspberry at Raytheon for scrapping most of em! :p:

I saw a Starship out in CA back in the early 90s. Neat looking machine!
And yes, they are loud for a t-prop twin...but them most of em are.
 
Have never seen an actual Starship but have seen (and HEARD) a few
Avantis. Even on final they're loud.
 
There's an Avanti based at KSUS, very near to where I live. I know every time it flies over - the sound is very distinctive.
 
I don't know,it looked like the wings were longer then the Avanti,but I only saw it for a few seconds.

A mystery to me.:d
 
Not sure,here is an image from my mapping program showing where I was.The aircraft appeared to be taking off,going west to east.
 
The Avanti and the Starship are both twins and both turboprops and both EXTREMELY loud, all from the propellors caused from being too close to the dual laminar airflows coming off the trailing edges of the wings.

A good way to tell if its a Avanti is the short wingspan, glider like wings, T-tail, with a fuselage that is fat in the middle.

The Starship has no rudder, only rudderettes on the wingtips, classic Rutan shaped wings that are thick at the roots, and the canards aim backwards (to the rear) when in cruise mode. The wingspan is also very wide.


They are cool to look at. There is an Avanti at Deer Valley. Very sharp looking birds. There is one Starship left, privately owned. He wouldnt part with his. The only one not scrapped.. What a shame..



Bill
 
Beech bought back all (I think) of the Starships to be chopped into little pieces, so they wouldn't have to support them any longer. I think Burt Rutan said they'd have to pry it out of his cold, dead hands. I don't know that any went to museums. Sad.
 
the Avanti west coast headquarters is at Camarillo, so I get to here those noisy planes a few times a day
 
The Starship is an incredible machine. I saw one at EAA Airventure many years ago. It was one of the coolest planes I've seen there.

It is a shame that they took them out of the sky. It is sort of like Concorde... I wish they would keep one flying, just because of its uniqueness.

The P180 is cool too though!

3776679669_bd2a3b87c2_o.jpg
 
Railrunner130 said:
Beech bought back all (I think) of the Starships to be chopped into little pieces, so they wouldn't have to support them any longer. I think Burt Rutan said they'd have to pry it out of his cold, dead hands. I don't know that any went to museums. Sad.
Click to expand...

One made it. Privately owned.
 
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