RAYTHEON AIRCRAFT has donated two Beech Starship twin-turboprop business aircraft to NASA for studies related to the US Advanced General Aviation Transport Experiments (AGATE) programme.
The AGATE programme is intended to combine the resources of NASA, the US Federal Aviation Administration, industry and universities to develop new technologies, which could revitalise the general-aviation (GA) industry.
Raytheon is a key participant in the programme and chairs the board of the AGATE executive council, elected on 11 April. An AGATE aircraft, illustrating technologies intended to make GA aircraft safer, more affordable and more attractive, is expected to be demonstrated by 2001, when the programme is due to end. The two all composite Starships, are expected to be used by the NASA Langley Research Center, as testbeds for various AGATE technologies.
Raytheon has stopped production of the pusher-propeller Starship, which is regarded as a technical success, but a marketing failure. Seventeen aircraft remain at the Raytheon factory in Wichita, Kansas.
Chairman and chief executive Art Wegner says that, despite selling five of the canard-configuration aircraft since the beginning of 1995, the company has no intention of restarting the Starship production line.
Source: Flight International
