So Long, Starship

Raytheon's plan to destroy the entire fleet of Starships seals the fate of the ground-breaking composite turboprop, or does it?

Raytheon Aircraft's surprise announcement that it is sending its Starship literally to the shredders, thus ending the type's existence on Planet Earth, doesn't necessarily mean maintenance and engineering support for the innovative airplane is finished, too.

By year's end, as many as 40 of the remaining 50 Starships will be marooned in the desert at Marana, Arizona, stripped of those parts and components bearing resale value and then crushed, shredded, and wiped from the aviation landscape.

When asked why Raytheon chose the somewhat unusual means of shredding the airplanes out of existence, spokesman Tim Travis said taking the airplanes out of service made sense from a financial standpoint.

"This is a sound decision from a business standpoint; removing an airplane that is relatively rare and expensive to support from the company," Travis said. "Unusual? Raytheon doesn't see this as unusual. It's a business decision, that's all there is to it."

Travis said talks are under way with the owners of the remaining 10 Starships in hopes of Raytheon's taking possession of those airframes as well.

"We are offering various incentives to trade in the remaining 10 Starships including agreements on other Raytheon products," Travis said without detailing exactly what those incentives might be.

Word on the street–including information from current owners–indicates that incentives include attractive deals on the very Raytheon King Airs the Starship was expected to challenge for market dominance as well as Raytheon Horizons and Premiers.

Travis remained mum on the street talk, but did say that regardless of whether the remaining 10 owners traded in their Starships, Raytheon would–at least for a time–continue support of the Starships.

"However, some manufacturers of components that went into the Starship are no longer in business and, because of the size of the fleet, it would seem unlikely anyone will consider it worthwhile to produce parts for Starships," Travis said.

As the 40 Raytheon-owned Starships are stripped of parts, the parts will go into Raytheon's inventory in as- removed condition, Travis said. He said there is a limited stockpile of new parts still in inventory at Raytheon's Dallas, Texas parts warehouse.

Travis said there's no expectation that Raytheon, at this point, will overhaul the cannibalized components. He said some components being removed from the Starships are also attracting interest as bulk lots.

"Other parties have expressed interest in obtaining the engines and the landing gear from the Starships as one lot," Travis said. "The reason, I believe, is that the engines are PT6s and although they are pusher engines, they share sufficient commonality to be converted back to [tractor engines].

"I don't know about the landing gear because the gear was built specific to the Starship. The gear was not borrowed from another product line," he said.

Federal regulations require manufacturer support of an aircraft type for a certain number of years after it is manufactured, so Raytheon, Travis said, will continue to support Starships for an indefinite period.

Travis said Raytheon has not yet determined when or even if the day would come that Raytheon would no longer support privately-held Starships.

"The fact is that the day when there will be no more parts to support Starships is already approaching," Travis said. "Eventually the parts in stock now will be used and there won't be any to replace them.

"With such a small fleet of airplanes left in private hands, there's really not going to be a financial incentive for someone to manufacture spares," he said. "So, the support–or at least the replacement parts availability–will eventually end. When that happens, it's likely Starships remaining out there will just sit."

Depending upon the fate of the remaining 10 Starships being operated privately, that is, whether the owners will decide to continue flying their Starships or seek trade-in and/or trade-up deals, it appears Starships that, for now, survive the shredder may be flying for quite some time.

In Santa Ana, California, Martin Aviation, based at Orange County/John Wayne Airport, maintains at least one customer's Starship on a regular basis and Martin's director of maintenance, Ron Franz, said his experience with the Starship has been fairly straightforward.

"As to most of the systems in the Starship," Franz said, "they are pretty much standard airplane systems, so whatever problems you see are problems you would see with any other airplane and there are common fixes for those."

Mechanical systems related to the Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6s powering the Starships as well as control surfaces and landing gear are fairly easily fixed, Franz said.

"The only real issues we've found with the airplane sometimes have to deal with airframe-related components," he said.

"For instance, we've found that preflight walkarounds need to be done with a screwdriver because fasteners, especially those on the cowlings, tend to loosen and can come off in flight," Franz said. "It's really not that big of an issue, except that you have pusher props back there, and one of the fasteners going through a prop can do some damage as you might expect. It's not really that big of a maintenance issue per se, but it's one of the things you watch out for," he said.

Franz said a good resource for his company in dealing with Starship problems–the few that come up from time to time–is Raytheon's service center in Van Nuys, California.

"There's a guy at Van Nuys who's really sharp on Starship issues and if we have any questions, we'll give him a call," Franz said. "To be honest, Raytheon has been pretty top notch about helping support the Starships and with the relationship we have we don't see any real problems in keeping Starships maintained."

Franz did say that the one area in which his company doesn't tinker with Starships is perhaps the area that may ultimately prove problematical in keeping Starships flying into the future; the composite/carbon airframe.

"None of our guys are rated for dealing with the composite structures of the Starship airframe, so if we ever have anything related to that, it goes to Raytheon," Franz said.

One Miami-based Starship operator, Aviation Services, said it's already moving away from the Starships–several of which it has either owned or managed for customers–because of concern for continuing availability of Starship-specific components.

Company spokesman Will Ibarra said Aviation Services has experienced significant downtime with its Starships in the past due to parts availability; some of which were either exotic or specific to the Starship.

"We had one Starship grounded for about six months because the [pivot mechanism] operating the forward wing was found to be corroded and required replacement," Ibarra said. "It took that long to get a replacement mainly because those parts apparently don't experience that kind of problem and, as such, those parts aren't generally kept in inventory. But, it's happened to us and if it happens to someone else's Starship, they are going to experience the same problem," he said.

Another problem Ibarra experienced, this one with the wing deice boots, caused a similar grounding.

"If anyone needs to replace boots on the wings, make sure when you call that they have both pieces because the wing boots for Starships come in two pieces, not the typically one, and both parts have to be replaced," he said. "We had to wait for the manufacturer to [custom-make] us the second section and that took a lot longer than expected."

Despite some of the concerns, another Californian, Orange County real estate developer Bob Scherer, who flies his personal Starship single-pilot, said he plans to keep his Be-2000 regardless of Raytheon's desires.

"I just completed a major [phase check] and the airplane came out with a clean bill of health; not one thing wrong," Scherer said. "I take great pains to keep the Starship in excellent condition; I never had a problem with it and I bet we've not had any major maintenance surprises in more than three years."

Scherer said his maintenance provider is well-experienced in Starship service and there's seldom a time when his airplane is not ready to go when he is.

"We have had excellent experience since getting the airplane and no problems with maintaining it or getting it serviced whatsoever," he said. "Of course, I'm concerned about the future of parts availability, but right now that's not a problem."

Scherer said he was saddened to learn of Raytheon's decision to scrap the Starship; surprised, too, that the decision to scrap overtook the decision to keep the airplanes flying.

"If you ride in one just once, you'll never go back to anything else and I'm not interested in downgrading to a King Air regardless of the offer," Scherer said. "The airplane is a pure joy to fly, it has the best ride out there when it comes to flying in turbulence and, at this point, I see no advantage to either selling it or trading it in."

Asked if he'd consider a trade with Raytheon for a light jet, Scherer said maybe when the "Premier II" comes along.

"The Premier right now has some promise, but it doesn't compete, as far as I'm concerned, with the Starship," Scherer said. "Maybe when–if–Raytheon comes out with a Premier II, we can talk, but perhaps not before then."

Sad, too, at the Starship's passing is Las Vegas-based charter operator Ira Eichenfield, whose business did away with the last of its Starships in 2000, again only because of worries about future parts and service availability.

"The brakes were always a little expensive to overhaul or replace, but I can't say anything bad about either the airplane or Raytheon support," Eichenfield said.

"Our experience with the Starship was that it performed its mission for us very well and it was always the one airplane our customers requested most," said Eichenfield, who has replaced the pushers with jets.

"I'm sorry to see them leave," he said. "If they were going to still be around and the parts availabilities issues could have all been resolved, there's no doubt I'd put them back out there on the line in a minute."