Black Square Beech Starship

[SH427]

I haven't seen any posts on this one, maybe I didn't look back far enough, but JustFlight's sales page is now live for the Black Square Starship

Hopefully it's easier for the digital line personnel than other Beech products!

 

[FlameOut]

She is a unique design no doubt!
Here is a picture of the one at our local museum of flight: https://southernmuseumofflight.org/

It is not inside the museum but rather at the "boneyard" a couple of blocks away. She is awaiting funding from donations, state and local governments to build a larger building. The land for this site has already been obtained, until then she'll continue to roast out there in our southern heat & humidity.





- Don

 

[Tom Clayton]

I absolutely love the design and Mike Stone's version in FS9 with the aliased King Air panel was an all-time favorite. But with all of the FMC stuff included with this one, I'll have to pass. Imagine if the real thing was built today with a Garmin package...

 

[LouP]

Awesome news but can someone maybe correct me. Didn't I see an announcement from them that all their past offerings were going to get a major update including the Velocity? Anyone know what happened to that? did I miss it?

LouP

 

[Bomber_12th]

Awesome news but can someone maybe correct me. Didn't I see an announcement from them that all their past offerings were going to get a major update including the Velocity? Anyone know what happened to that? did I miss it?

LouP

Although I don't have them, updates for the Black Square Velocity and TBM 850 were just released a couple days ago, bringing both products to version 1.3. I assume you will find the updates wherever you have purchased the aircraft.

 

[Tom Clayton]

Thanks for the HU - I have the Velocity and never got any notification that there was an update.

 

[ryanbatc]

I am very excited for the Starship! I've seen a few flying in real life here and there, plus I saw one at Oshkosh this year as well. Black Square creates superb products - I'm sure this one will be no different!

 

[Killbilly]

Whoah! This came in under the radar for me. That 80s cockpit tech looks superb, and the aircraft is certainly unique and, IMO, absoultely beautiful. They even picked the perfect music for the trailer. I'm in.

 

[SH427]

I absolutely love the design and Mike Stone's version in FS9 with the aliased King Air panel was an all-time favorite. But with all of the FMC stuff included with this one, I'll have to pass. Imagine if the real thing was built today with a Garmin package...

I completely missed most of FS9 and I can't say I knew the Starship existed until a couple years after FSX came out. According to the page you can swap out parts for a modern Garmin stack, I'm not sure if that's entirely what you meant. I'm allergic to FMCs but I think I'd be willing to learn just this once...

Whoah! This came in under the radar for me. That 80s cockpit tech looks superb, and the aircraft is certainly unique and, IMO, absoultely beautiful. They even picked the perfect music for the trailer. I'm in.

I remember seeing mention of it long, long ago and thankfully forgot about it, I don't think I'd have been able to handle the wait this long!

 

[Tom Clayton]

According to the page you can swap out parts for a modern Garmin stack, I'm not sure if that's entirely what you meant.

That's exactly what I meant! If that's accurate, I'll be there with a fistful of cash on day one!

 

[dvj]

Been over a year since Black Square gave us first indiciations in a teezer video that Starship was in the works. Looks to be an "Accusim" type siimulation, maybe even better. I can't think of a more beautiful GA aircraft. Interior and exterior renderings in the video are quite good, but I don't think this is going to be a $19.99 product.

 

[StormILM]

Been over a year since Black Square gave us first indiciations in a teezer video that Starship was in the works. Looks to be an "Accusim" type siimulation, maybe even better. I can't think of a more beautiful GA aircraft. Interior and exterior renderings in the video are quite good, but I don't think this is going to be a $19.99 product.

Pricewise, I'd say closer to their Beech Duke model.

 

[DennyA]

Well, yeah, I expect a premium price since they created the Starship's "transitional glass/display" avionics stack, the one that Tom doesn't want , from scratch.

Opposite of Tom, I'm actually excited because I haven't flown a plane with avionics from that "middle" era before, and I'm excited to try the experience. (Not so into troubleshooting the 275 circuit breakers, though.... Really weird the aspects of "flying" that some simmers find compelling.)

Posted these on the official MSFS forum and I should share this here because you guys are way cooler than those complainers:

Interesting article (and interesting comments after) by Flying's J. Mac MacClellan about why the Starship failed, for those killing time waiting for the release:

Why the Starship was such a disaster : Air Facts Journal

When one examines a failure of such monumental scale as the Beech Starship program, the inevitable question is, “Why did they do that?” As in almost every instance where things go badly wrong, it was a series of decisions made under shifting circumstances that led to the ultimate disaster.

airfactsjournal.com

The article also makes me excited for the FlightFX P180, which Mac feels got the pusher formula right.

Not to be negative, as I'm excited about this release, so I'll also share a nice article on the Starships still flying after Raytheon tried to chop up the fleet:

Celestial survivors

The futuristic, composite twin-turboprop canard pusher? Didn’t Beechcraft buy them all back and cut them up years ago?

www.aopa.org

 

[Daube]

Really weird the aspects of "flying" that some simmers find compelling.)

Some of us dream about flying an aircraft.
I dream about walking around it for preflight checks, climbing into that aircraft, seating in the pilot seat, switching it on and then flying it (and landing it, and switch it off, etc... ).

 

[Killbilly]

Some of us dream about flying an aircraft.
I dream about walking around it for preflight checks, climbing into that aircraft, seating in the pilot seat, switching it on and then flying it (and landing it, and switch it off, etc... ).

. . . and having something occasionally go wrong, and desperately trying to fix it or land safely somewhere. Most of my fun in the sim comes from being as realistic as possible in the whole experience. I love state-saving aircraft so that I have to do the maintenance/refueling/etc., too. I would love it if this new Starship had the same kind of experience as the A2A Comanche.

 

[Priller]

I dream of a hobby where everyone can have it his/her way. You should have the possibility to do "get up and fly", "cold and dark" and "hardcore". That would make everybody happy and enlarge the user base, hence the profitability for the devs.

But who the hell am I?

Priller

 

[Sunny9850]

The

Well, yeah, I expect a premium price since they created the Starship's "transitional glass/display" avionics stack, the one that Tom doesn't want , from scratch.

Opposite of Tom, I'm actually excited because I haven't flown a plane with avionics from that "middle" era before, and I'm excited to try the experience. (Not so into troubleshooting the 275 circuit breakers, though.... Really weird the aspects of "flying" that some simmers find compelling.)

Posted these on the official MSFS forum and I should share this here because you guys are way cooler than those complainers:

Interesting article (and interesting comments after) by Flying's J. Mac MacClellan about why the Starship failed, for those killing time waiting for the release:

Why the Starship was such a disaster : Air Facts Journal

When one examines a failure of such monumental scale as the Beech Starship program, the inevitable question is, “Why did they do that?” As in almost every instance where things go badly wrong, it was a series of decisions made under shifting circumstances that led to the ultimate disaster.

airfactsjournal.com

The article also makes me excited for the FlightFX P180, which Mac feels got the pusher formula right.

Not to be negative, as I'm excited about this release, so I'll also share a nice article on the Starships still flying after Raytheon tried to chop up the fleet:

Celestial survivors

The futuristic, composite twin-turboprop canard pusher? Didn’t Beechcraft buy them all back and cut them up years ago?

www.aopa.org

The article from JMac is either a rewrite or cut and paste of one he wrote a few years earlier at his previous writers job.
And he did get a lot of flak for it from Starship-Troopers. It is not unlike saying something negative about a Tesla in certain circles.
About 6 month after the article I was at Mojave airport where they had somehow managed to do a flight safety seminar with Rod Machado and guest star Burt Rutan.
Yes there were lots of questions about that article and in many things Burt saw things differently.
I for one have always loved the design, doubted some of the claims why it did not meet design goals, because it is just so easy to place blame on the government, and hoped against hope I’d get to to fly in a Starship at least once. But that never happened, and now I think there are only two airworthy examples left, that Beech could not buy back….one is of course at Scaled Composites.

 

[tiger1962]

I dream of a hobby where everyone can have it his/her way. You should have the possibility to do "get up and fly", "cold and dark" and "hardcore". That would make everybody happy and enlarge the user base, hence the profitability for the devs.

But who the hell am I?

A valued customer, to some devs - the FSR500 has optional state-saving, as does the freeware JPLogistics C150. Both use the hide-able tablet device for these options which is very user-friendly and very much appreciated.

 

[SH427]

J U N E

 

[DennyA]

Finally! Nice. This will be my first Black Square plane.