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  • Need Help Identifying An Aircraft

    I saw the strangest plane the other day, flying in the Austin, Texas area. I've never seen one like this and wonder if anyone here can identify it based upon my following observations / description:

    To start out with, does anyone remember the Beechcraft "Starship"? A twin engine, turbo-prop / pusher prop business executive aircraft. I'm not sure if any Starships remain flying these days?

    The aircraft I spotted was NOT a Starship, but it looked like a bit of a rip-off copy cat Starship-like design in many ways: It had twin turbo-prop / pusher-prop engines like a Starship. It had a front canard like a starship. The wings were not swept back like the Starship. This aircraft also had a vertical tail fin with a high mount horizontal stabilizer, where as the Starship did not have a vertical tail fin.

    It may or may not have been a composite airframe.

    I am wondering if this may have been some sort of one-off homebuilt or experimental aircraft, or is this is some new craft which is going to be mass produced?

    Thanks for any information.

    Rick G.

  • #2
    Could it have been the Piaggio Avanti like this?

    [photoid=8052435]

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    • #3
      Hello pilotgolfer,

      YES! That is without a doubt what I saw! Straight wing, straight canard, high T-tail and all!

      After reading your reply here I did a search online to read up on this aircraft, and viewed additional pictures of it.

      Italian built, well I'll be. And it's been around for many many years! Here I thought I was viewing a brand new, homebuilt, or experimental design. Well this one has done a good job of sneaking past me all these years. I've never heard of it before.

      Amazing, this board is invaluable, and enjoyable.

      Thanks so much for the kindness of your reply pilotgolfer.

      Rick.

      Comment


      • #4
        No problem!
        That's the first one that came to mind, and I was sure of it.
        I haven't seen one in person, but I do know there are plenty flying about, but never where I'm at. Maybe one day.
        As for the Starship, I haven't seen any flying in person, but I do know there are a few out there. Where at, though, I'm not sure. There is one at the Evergreen Museum in McMinnville, OR, which is pretty neat to see in person.

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        • #5
          Yes, as soon as I read the description I definitely knew it was the Avanti. It almost looked like the Wikipedia entry for it!!!

          Beautiful airplane, and very good performer too (the performance is almost like a jet -think things like 400 kts and 41000 ft- but the fuel burn is that of a turboprop). I first knew about it in 1993. I was in the university doing Aerodynamics I and part of the condition to approve Aero I and II was to do a project for an airplane. One had to choose the mission and then design the plane during the 2 semesters of both subjects. We (it was a team of 2) decided to do a high performance and versatile executive tween. It would also have a specific mission in terms of range and payload and, very important, it would operate from short unimproved runways.

          We wanted to put the engines in the back for several reasons. One was the cabin noise, another one was that we wanted more prop clearance from the ground to prevent prop damage from operations in gravel and grass, and fuselage and wing damage from small stones the the prop could hit (after being lifted by the nose wheel. Yet another reason was because we were planning to use a natural laminar flow wing, and the prop wash spoils the laminar flow. And finally, because of the looks of it (we wanted it to look like a sporty business jet). So searching the Jane's All the World's Aircraft (which fortunately was in the library of the Department of Aeronautics, since it is a $2000 book) we came across the Piaggio Avanti. We immediately fell in love with it and started to investigate more. We found papers about the the design of the fuselage, which is laminar flow too and matched very well with our laminar flow wings. It was an inspiration but we ended with a little more conventional design, in that it was a typical low wing T-tail airplane (that looked very much like a business jet as we wanted) but had a radical design since the engines were mounted in the rear fuselage (yes, just like a business jet but this was a piston twin!!!).

          This type is in service since 1990.

          A few clarifications from your description.

          The Avanti is not a canard design. it is a 3 lifting surfaces. The forward stabilizer, in particular, is not a canard because it lacks pitch control, which is in the rear stabilizer like in a conventional plane.

          The Starship, which a was lucky to see it land and take off in the airport where I was flying for my private during a demonstration tour (it still had "experimental" painted above the door), and to climb on board (on the ground) and see for the first time the EFIS displays (CRT back then), as you said, doesn't have a vertical tail fin: It has 2!!! (in the wing tips). That's in a big part of why the wings of the Starship are swept: To move the fins back.

          Somewhere I have a Digital8 video of the Starship (on the ground and taking off).

          Both these airplanes (and our design too, had it ever flown) make a very ugly strong high pitch noise (outside, the cabins are very quiet for their type) because of the props operating in the wake of the wing, so each blade encounters zones of air with different characteristics (angles and speeds) along each turn. That is a big problem of all pushers planes (from the Cessna Skymaster to the experimental MD-80 with the unducted fans), especially now that airplane noise is a big environmental concern.

          --- Judge what is said by the merits of what is said, not by the credentials of who said it. ---
          --- Defend what you say with arguments, not by imposing your credentials ---

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          • #6
            Ah, that thing. There must be one based in Texas (or at least flies to Texas a lot) as I see one in College Station every now and then, but haven't managed to get a picture of it.

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