A strange jet

i just saw,for the second time this year a very strange looking jet bieng escorted by what im sure were two FA 18s flyin about a mile or so above it.In both instances that ive witnessed it the jet was flying VERY LOW and VERY SLOW.the first time i saw it was in march,i was at my brothers house doing some late evening work to his car when i noticed lights slowly approaching from the southeast,i payed it no mind until 10 or so minutes later it was flying right over us,i swear it couldnt have been more than 200 yards from the ground.As it passed,the lights from the ballpark across the street sort of illuminated the jet and revealed a shiny blueish black color which caught my interest because most military craft dont use rich paints and clear coat.we watched up until its features werent clearly visible,then got back to work.The fuselage(may have mispelled) was of fairly normal shape,at least from underneath,what stumps me is that the wings were closer to the rear facing forward,i couldnt see a tail..Any ideas??

reply to post by VicDiaz89


Possible private jet with canard type wing in back short wing in front. not too many of this type I wondered what they were the first time I saw one It came in low also as there is an airport about 30 miles away and we live in the flight path What you describe is definately a canard design .Paint the thing what ever colors they like..owner has the money .

this "guy"? foward swept wings????
x-29

www.centennialofflight.gov...

i understand that forward wings are used,ive never seen them on such a large jet.Its size is closer to,maybe greater than a commercial jet.

sourse

I hope this works Is the aircraft ?
this is the Beechcraft Starship Corprate Jet
They are in production Maybe someone painted one black

the aircraft pictured is actually a turbo prop

Its hard to tell by this picture but the wings are angled forward but not a great amount

reply to post by granpabobby
Sorry granpa you are wrong, or at least out of date.

The Beech Starship is no longer in production and hasn't been for quite some years. Whats more Beech basically bought back all the airframes they could and destroyed them. They gave trade-ins to then owners and took back all they could as they no longer wanted to support them given that the program was something of a commercial flop. To the best of my knowledge there are only around 5-9 airframes either airworthy or retain registration. Beech sold all it's parts inventory to a Starship owner and only offer phone support. All bar one of those remaining are in the US with the other in Queensland Australia.

LEE.

Originally posted by thebozeian
reply to post by granpabobby

 

Sorry granpa you are wrong, or at least out of date.

The Beech Starship is no longer in production and hasn't been for quite some years. Whats more Beech basically bought back all the airframes they could and destroyed them. They gave trade-ins to then owners and took back all they could as they no longer wanted to support them given that the program was something of a commercial flop. To the best of my knowledge there are only around 5-9 airframes either airworthy or retain registration. Beech sold all it's parts inventory to a Starship owner and only offer phone support. All bar one of those remaining are in the US with the other in Queensland Australia.Then If thid is the aircraft that was seen by myself(the one I saw was silver ) and theOP it was indead a rare aircraft . OR one strikeingly simular in its size and design we should wait on the OP to see if he can identify this aircraft as the one he saw ..If you know of a simular aircraft post a pictuer and lets look at it shall we

LEE.

reply to post by thebozeian
The aircraft I saw(it was two years ago ) was so weird looking that I never forgot what it looked like so I serched till I found it OR verry simular in size and design I live in Texas so its possible one of the few left flew into our airport Pardon me i thought by what I read that it was still in production..but its design is unmistakeable .I actually thought it was experimental it looked so weird

Piaggio Avanti?
en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul


No I saw that picture the plane I saw had vertical sections on the wing tips and no tail

OK - in that case I'm going for you having had a sighting of the very rare Beech Starship.

As indicated above there aren't many around - the FAA registry only lists 5

Could it have been one of Burt Rutans's creations?


Link

Originally posted by thebozeian
reply to post by granpabobby

 

Sorry granpa you are wrong, or at least out of date.

The Beech Starship is no longer in production and hasn't been for quite some years. Whats more Beech basically bought back all the airframes they could and destroyed them. They gave trade-ins to then owners and took back all they could as they no longer wanted to support them given that the program was something of a commercial flop. To the best of my knowledge there are only around 5-9 airframes either airworthy or retain registration. Beech sold all it's parts inventory to a Starship owner and only offer phone support. All bar one of those remaining are in the US with the other in Queensland Australia.

LEE.

Just a note, but the private story of the Beech Starship is very interesting, and quite telling...

Basically, when they sold them, they offered an "all in one, complete maintenance package" inclusive in the purchase cost - its not know how the sales team got the authorisation to sell such a package, but essentially it ruined the profit potential of the aircraft sold, and as Beech had another 50 sales in progress with similar terms, they worked out that the cost of providing maintenance would have cost them the equivalent of building all owners a brand new aircraft every 5 years.

So they scrapped the program, bought back all aircraft already delivered that they could get their owners to part with (because it was cheaper than providing the maintenance) and scrapped them.

Quite a costly mistake.

reply to post by RichardPrice


out of all the pictures the starship was the one I saw Now my sighting of it was 2 years ago the other guy (op) may have seen some other type..guess I got to witness a very rare aircraft in flight.