JUSTIN WASTNAGE / LONDON
Raytheon blames decision on prohibitive spare part costs and outmoded avionics
Raytheon Aircraft has started negotiations with the 10 remaining private owners of Beech Starship twin-pusher turboprop business aircraft as it seeks to remove the type from service by the end of the year.
The Wichita-based manufacturer says spares costs for the unique design are prohibitive and it aims ensure all 53 aircraft are scrapped. It halted production in 1995.
Raytheon now owns 40 aircraft, as well as the three prototypes, most of which have been returned after lease agreements or following part-exchange deals. The manufacturer is now engaged in negotiations with the 10 remaining owners on a "case-by-case" basis. Raytheon is understood to be offering part-exchange deals in excess of the estimated $2.5 million maximum pre-owned value of the aircraft. The last production Starships were priced at around $4.9 million.
Raytheon says many of the parts made for the Starship are no longer available and that the avionics cannot be upgraded to meet future requirements such as reduced vertical separation minima. It plans to ferry its 43 aircraft to a facility outside Tucson, Arizona, and strip them of all useable parts, including landing gear and engines, before destroying their carbonfibre fuselages in incinerators. The company hopes to add the 10 private Starships to the termination programme, but says it is considering requests from aviation museums.
NASA has already returned two modified canard-configured Star-ships it had been using for atmospheric testing.
Raytheon says that despite the type suffering poor sales, Starship development provided valuable production techniques for future aircraft such as the Premier I and Hawker Horizon. "The Starship was the first certificated pressurised composite fuselage and we learned a lot about the manufacturing process from that,"it says.
Source: Flight International
