Plane

"midengineer" (midengineer) 07/29/2014 at 00:39 • Filed to: None

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Chris Clarke > midengineer 07/29/2014 at 00:50

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Not a plane. That's the aircraft know as the Beech Starship.

Racescort666 > midengineer 07/29/2014 at 00:50

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ooh! Beech Starship. Nice.

NotUnlessRoundIsFunny > Chris Clarke 07/29/2014 at 01:18

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That's a Rutan creation, do I have that right?

Jared Glentz > midengineer 07/29/2014 at 03:23

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i saw one of theses like 3 or 4 years ago when i was in a tree stand during deer hunting! you dont get many planes where my grandparents farm is, so when i heard it coming i knew it wasnt your typical small plan.....it sounded really weird and when it came into view it looked just like the one pictured!

Cé hé sin > midengineer 07/29/2014 at 04:57

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Here's something similar:

Chris Clarke > NotUnlessRoundIsFunny 07/29/2014 at 06:39

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Correct. Only just a few still flying.

Rock Bottom > Cé hé sin 07/29/2014 at 09:22

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Ahh, the Piagio Avanti. All the Starship, none of the fail.

midengineer > Chris Clarke 07/29/2014 at 09:28

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Haha, I'll have to use that the next time it's brought up in discussion.

midengineer > Cé hé sin 07/29/2014 at 09:29

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The Avanti isn't bad looking but the Starship is definitely the prettier one to me.

midengineer > Jared Glentz 07/29/2014 at 09:30

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Wow! That had to be a pleasant surprise.

midengineer > NotUnlessRoundIsFunny 07/29/2014 at 09:31

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Yep! One was used as a chase plane for a couple Scaled Composites projects.

Rock Bottom > midengineer 07/29/2014 at 09:46

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The Beechcraft Model 2000. That's a god-awful abortion of a plane that we should all be glad is (mostly) dead and gone. It was plagued by phugoid oscillation problems from day one and they hurt this aeronautical engineer to look at up close.

Years ago, when I was a young aeronautical engineer at Hawker-Beechcraft, I closely studied the single Model 2000 we had left at the company for potential lessons to apply to our newer plastic carbon fiber aircraft. to say that Burt Rutan and his team disappointed me would be an understatement. Also, various cooling ducts were added haphazardly, and NACA ducts were not properly designed at all (they reminded me of the bastardizations that NASCAR teams add to their windows for driver cooling). And the idea of putting the props in the wake of the wing is just dumb. Oh, and then we'll dump the engine exhaust into that mess too. Why? Because we love that choppy noise rattling it's way through the passenger cabin! Propellers do not like being in the wake of a wing and they don't like being blasted with hot air twice per revolution. The inspection of this machine was what led me to conclude that Burt Rutan is an aircraft designer , not an engineer .

Piaggio built a pretty nice plane with similar layout called the Avanti. They got some of the details right that Rutan was too "busy" to be bothered with, but the overall issues of having props in the wake of the wing are still there and can't be ignored.

Flugtechnik > midengineer 07/29/2014 at 11:06

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There is one based at the airport near me so I see it fly over from time to time. It does sound unique. I'm not sure why.

The design was stolen from Japan (who probably stole it from the Germans)

Kyushu Shinden ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyushu_J7… )

midengineer > Flugtechnik 07/29/2014 at 13:30

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The pusher prop with a canard has been around for a long time many different designs: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtiss-W…

The designer of the Starship is Burt Rutan who is well known for his other pusher planes. I'm not sure what exactly influenced his decision to focus on that setup but in general the canard helps by giving the aircraft a very low stall speed and the pusher location (as opposed to tractor) can be more efficient power-wise. The turboprop pusher is the reason the aircraft makes a unique noise.

midengineer > Rock Bottom 07/29/2014 at 13:51

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Interesting take, generally the Starship receives praise when I read/hear about. I know overall the FAA required Beech to over-engineer the plane due to it's use of composites. As for the pusher setup, although it makes more noise on the exterior prop wash is not interacting with wing/fuslage and soundproofing can be/was used to reduce interior noise like on any aircraft. The pusher vs tractor setup has been debated forever and each has it's pros/cons. As for Burt Rutan, man has proved his ability with the Voyager, Spaceshipone, VariEze, and more. The Starship was simply ahead of its time.

bubblestheturtle > Rock Bottom 07/29/2014 at 19:36

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Yea, but at the time the Starship was a sign that the boring old designs were going to change. I recall young pilots really wanting a shot at one. But they were a rare sight. Apparently that was because they sucked.

Rock Bottom > midengineer 07/31/2014 at 09:53

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The beating the props were taking propagated through the prop shafts and into the structure. Sound insulation can kill off some of the high frequency noise, but that low frequency chop coming from the prop getting it's ass kicked is there to stay. I worked on several full-scale helicopter wind-tunnel tests, and we had the same problem. If the wake of the main rotor is interrupted, you will shake the crap out of the whole facility. It's rotorcraft dynamics 101.

As for the common claim that the FAA forced Beech to "over-engineer" the plane (I hate that term), I guess all I can say is this: The burden of proof that the structure is safe falls on the designer/manufacturer. If they fully understand what they are building and why they are building it, then they can explain what the safety margins are. They can defend their design and present test data and engineering analysis to support their design choices. It's that simple. If Rutan-god and Beech couldn't explain to the FAA why some design feature (like material selection) was sound, then I suspect it's because they didn't understand it themselves. In short, I believe they didn't know what the hell they were doing and the FAA knew that so they told them to raise safety factors. Again, this is just my opinion as a former Beechcraft engineer and former government aerodynamic test director. And one more thing: assuming for a moment that the FAA did force unnecessary safety factors on them, that doesn't explain the major design problems of phugoid oscillation and rotor chop. Neither were related to unnecessary fuselage mass, but they were related to aerodynamics and basic layout.

In conclusion, I maintain that Rutan is a designer and not an engineer. He can make beautiful machines, but he never breaks any new technological ground and he seems to lack (or ignore) basic aircraft design knowledge at times . I say this after studying one of Burt's creations as an aeronautical engineer, placing my hands on the machine, looking at the details in horrifying 3D, reading the test and certification reports and working closely with many of the engineers that helped make that thing fly. Yes, he made that one plane that can sort of loft itself into "space" for a few minutes, but that's not new. All it took was money.

Rock Bottom > bubblestheturtle 07/31/2014 at 10:00

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I wouldn't say they sucked... that's harsh, bro! They just had their flaws (like every plane in the sky). People think they were the perfect airplane and that Rutan can do no wrong. The truth is that there have been WAY better aircraft designers (Willy Messershmitt, Howard Hughes, Kelly Johnson, and Ed Heineman come immediately to mind) and better aircraft (like Beechcraft's own Kingair).

The Beech Model 2000 was cool, to be sure, but it was flawed. I think of it like the Tyrell 6-wheeled F1 cars in the 70s. Awesome? Definitely. Good at it's intended function? Not really.