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From: cfiaime@ihnp3.UUCP (J. Williams)
Newsgroups: net.aviation
Subject: Re: Beech Aircraft
Message-ID: <190@ihnp3.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 22-Nov-85 10:41:22 EST
Article-I.D.: ihnp3.190
Posted: Fri Nov 22 10:41:22 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 24-Nov-85 03:57:21 EST
References: <4599@alice.UUCP>
Reply-To: cfiaime@ihnp3.UUCP (45261-J. Williams)
Organization: ATT Bell Labs
Lines: 32

In article <4599@alice.UUCP> ark@alice.UucP (Andrew Koenig) writes:
>Hmmm... Beech has hired Burt Rutan and Roy LoPresti.
>What do you suppose they are going to do?

Several Aviation Week issues have noted that Beech is going to go
more and more to Rutan designs.  Let's face it, who do you think did
the aerodynamics of the Starship?  Not Walter Beech (actually he is
dead, and has been for years) because he had a thing for cabin biplanes.

Really, Beech is looking for a Duke sized composite canard, and is
also looking at dropping turbines on the Starship.  Bert is one of
the leading engineers on aircraft composite structures, according to
many sources.  (Other sources say differently, but you have to admit
that his ideas do fly.)  Roy LoPresti, on the other hand, may not have
been an administrator (or may have just ticked off Mooney), but the
man is one of the best aerodynamic cleanup artists in the business.
He is the one who did the American Tiger, American Cheetah, and the
Mooney 201.  All spectacular improvements with no increase of horsepower.

Beech is going to be interesting in the next few years.  Gone are the
days of Olive Ann running the company.  The old guard is gone, and the
new is going to come in and kick, yes they are.  Expect the same 
quality, but also look for radical designs.

As an aside, aside from Starship, what really new designs have come
out of Beech since 1963?  That was the year of the Musketeer.  It is
time that they stopped reinventing the Bonanza and got some new designs
out the door.

					jeff williams
					ihnp3!cfiaime
					AT&T Bell Laboratories