This aircraft is specially designed for Artificial Intelligence [AI] to simulate air traffic, it is able to land and take off with extreme precision in the main airports in the game, it is also a playable aircraft, you can enjoy air collisions or target practice .

MAPA Aviation · 2023

Wiki:

Development of the Starship began in 1979 when Beech decided to explore designs for a successor to its King Air line of turboprops that would fly faster and carry more passengers. The design was originated by Beechcraft in January 1980 as Preliminary Design 330 (PD 330). Beechcraft President Linden Blue was the executive sponsor of the project at its inception. Max E. Bleck was the Beechcraft President who oversaw its subsequent production. C.R. Stoner, head of Beechcraft’s Experimental division, was the project manager. On August 25, 1982, Beech contracted with Scaled Composites to refine the design and build an 85% scale proof-of-concept (POC) aircraft. One of the significant changes made to the design by Scaled Composites was the addition of variable geometry to the canard.

The POC aircraft first flew in August 1983. This aircraft had no pressurization system, no certified avionics, and a different airframe design and material specifications from the planned production Model 2000. Only one POC was built and it has since been scrapped.

Prototypes were produced even as development work was continuing—a system demanded by the use of composite materials, as the tooling required is very expensive and has to be built for production use from the outset. Beech built three airworthy full-scale prototypes. NC-1 was used for aerodynamic testing and had an ejection seat and was the only Starship equipped with conventional electro-mechanical avionics. NC-2 was used for avionics and systems testing and NC-3 was used for flight management system and powerplant testing.NC-1 first flew on February 15, 1986.

The program was delayed several times, at first due to underestimating the developmental complexity and manufacturing learning curve of the production composite construction, and later due to the technical difficulties of correcting a pitch damping problem and developing the stall-warning system. By the end of development, the Starship had grown larger in cabin volume than the King Air 350 while having the same gross ramp weight of 15,010 lb (6,808 kg). Starship development cost $300 million.[6] The first production Starship flew on April 25, 1989.

The Starship is noteworthy for its carbon fiber composite airframe, canard design, lack of centrally located vertical tail, and pusher engine/propeller configuration.

Carbon fiber composite was used to varying degrees on military aircraft, but at the time the Starship was certified, no civilian aircraft certified by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration had ever used it so extensively. Beech chose carbon fiber composite for its durability and high strength-to-weight ratio. According to Beech, the Starship weighs less than it would have if it were built from aluminum. Nonetheless, the empty weight of production aircraft exceeded the target by several thousand pounds.

Beech studied several configurations before settling on a canard configuration in early 1980. As configured, the Starship is difficult to stall; the forward surface stalls before the main lifting surface, which allows the nose to drop and more-normal flight to resume.

A traditionally located vertical tail would have transmitted propeller noise into the airframe. In its place, directional stability and control is provided by rudders mounted on the winglets. Because of this addition Beechcraft called the winglets "tipsails".

Mounting the engines so that the propellers are facing rearward, pushing rather than pulling the aircraft, is done for the purpose of a quieter cabin, since the propellers are further back from the passengers and because vortices from the propeller tips do not strike the fuselage sides. However, the propellers are operating in a turbulent airflow in the pusher configuration (due to airflow past the wings moving aft in vortex sheets) and high-velocity exhaust gases are discharged directly into the propellers, producing more noise where they are than if the propellers had been in a tractor configuration.

Flight instrumentation for the Starship included a 14-tube Proline 4 AMS-850 "glass cockpit" supplied by Rockwell Collins, the first application of an all-glass cockpit in a business aircraft.

Real Photo, Credit: HistoryNet

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