Raytheon Aircraft buying back Starships
 

Not sure if it is the right forum, so Mods, feel free to move

I just read in the august edition of Aerokurier that Raytheon is buying back the Beech Starships from their original owners, in order to have them scrapped (actually burnt down).

As far as I understood, this is because of rocketting spare part prices.

Out of the 53 Starships built, 43 have been bought back. Museums have made requests to get some, but no decision has been made yet wether any aircraft could escape destruction.

Has anyone got more news on that ?

I have read somewhere that two of the planes actualy owned by ratheon will be donated to Burt Rutan, who had a lot to do with their design.

I think he will use them in his design bureau.

:cool:

Or maybe it was because they wanted to protect their company image an residual Values. What I mean by that is the second hand prices were very low I heard they were selling for only a couple of Hundred thousand USD. Not exactly pocket money I know but it is for an Airplane. As the right honourable gentleman pointed out the spare parts prices were frightening. I heard a set of brake pads cost about $8K USD as they were handmade. Its a shame though as it was/is such a unique Aircraft and was a bold step forward, I hope it doesnt put other manufacturers off in the future?

Well it didn't put Piaggio off, did it?

Actually none have been bought back. The 40 some odd that were relocated to Arizona and being dismantled/burned are owned outright by Beech and were being leased by operators. The few that are owned by individuals are still being negotiated for buyback.

Found the website of one of the individual owners :

http://www.bobscherer.com/Pages/Starship.htm

They are buying them back because they are afraid of them. The composite was not holding together as well as planned. Thats the tough part of being the first to market with a entirely new concept. You can't see the bumps until they get you. :\

Very interesting 747Focal, I have been following this closely for some time, and this is the first I heard of this. Do you have any verifiable sources of info/data relating to the composite issues?