Where did you hear this rumor?
From what I’ve heard Nick at Black Square is trying to build experience before he tackles the Starship proper, so it’ll probably be worked on more after the Dukes and TBM 850 are out.
With the release of the TBM 850 I was also curious to see what the status of the Starship is. I would LOVE to hear from Black Square. Here’s an interview from April where Nicholas talks about the TBM 850 and says the Starship is still under development:
The Starship is the one I’m waiting for, I’ll buy it on day one. I hope they’re still making it and using all that TBM experience.
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Since you’re familiar with the Starship, can you say what nav aids it has? Can it do VNAV, or RNAV approaches? I would think many modern features are missing, what do we take for granted today that Starship avionics don’t have?
I created this topic to bring attention to an aircraft that is no stranger to early MSFS virtual pilots. I would spend hours flying it on FS 4.0 back in the 90s and it suddens me that has been forgotten and hasn’t seen any serious (study level) update by anyone!
By many considered the “Concorde” of business GA due to the huge leap in technological advancements, for the time, and its financial failure.
Designed by the legendary Burt Rutan (Scales Composites), the Beechcraft Starship 2000 is a high altitude, twin turboprop pusher engine type aircraft with operational capabilities that no other airplane in its class could match at the time.
A truly futuristic concept (hence the name), the Starship features a wing design philosophy that renders the plane extremely fast (in its category), stall proof (due to canard config) with near centerline engines placement configuration that allows single engine operations with near zero asymmetric yaw conditions and the first ever full composite airframe ever to be certified by the FAA.
It was also the first GA aircraft to have commercial style avionics with 16 CRT displays that featured EICAS - Boeing 747/767/777 type - display and functionality, digital checklists, 2 CDU/FMS and MFD operation redundancy characteristics.
A true innovator that was available for those of us who grew up with MSFS in the 90s.
Asobo resurrected Meigs Field, I think it’s time to bring back another blast from the past and honor the Game’s roots but also this groundbreaking aircraft that certainly needs a good study level representation in the virtual world, after its wings were “clipped” by its own manufacturer in the real one.
So, let’s make it happen. 
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I think Black Square are developing one…
If I’m not sadly mistaken, the last Starship to fly the Microsoft skies was the FS9 freeware offering by Mike Stone that used the stock King Air’s panel as an alias. I spent many hours flying that one.
As for “study level,” that might not be very easy. Only six examples are left flying, and I’d bet dollars to donuts that each one has something different in the cabin.
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You are not mistaken. I remember downloading from AVSIM back in the day. It wasn’t much to enjoy but did the job in hope that I’d get to fly a study level one day. It never happened. It’s a blasphemy that’s such an aircraft hasn’t seen a serious representation (even if it’s not PMDG level serious). As you said there’s only a few examples of it around the world (and god knows for how long) so to get a study level aircraft will be quite a challenge but it’s still doable. I know two of their owners are quite open to allow people to enjoy their airplane, knowing how much is adored by aviation community. So I can’t see any negative outcome by some developer approaching them and asking them to spend like a week or a few days with the aircraft to allow High-Res photo and audio data capture along with performance and avionics familiarisation. Most of the operational data (avionics, performance characteristics, systems schematics etc) can be obtained with not much hassle (I have the manuals personally). So the whole endeavour is not so impossible as it seems. Hopefully someone will step up and take on the challenge.
https://msfsaddons.com/2022/07/07/black-square-teases-the-beechcraft-starship-for-msfs/
Black-Square is working on one. I believe they are just trying to get some of their skills up before conquering the 1980s Collins avionics.
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Don’t get your hopes too high on the Avionics. The Starship had one of the first “Glass Cockpits” with the Collins AMS-850 avionics suite. I don’t remember a lot about it except it was difficult to master and rudimentary. Don’t visualize a modern glass cockpit. This had individual components, like a steam guage cockpit, except that the gauges themselves were CRT displays.
I’d rather have the Avanti II or Evo, the Starship is somewhat of the flying Delorean.
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And it was reportedly hotter than h**l from the tubes running all 16 of them! There is an early FMS with moving map onboard, I think it’s DME/DME something, but not GPS. Maybe LORAN or something else long gone.
This is true. Many of the CRT based EFIS systems suffered from heat issues and need powerful (and LOUD) cooling fans when the displays are on.
Any update since July 2022? I am aware of their efforts, is just I can’t seem to find any info of their progress since then. Seems to me like an abandoned project. Hopefully I am wrong.
, Avanti is a poor man’s Starship. Not even close at least in terms of achievement and breakthrough in aviation. Obviously the Avanti is a much better performing aircraft (at least faster) but it doesn’t come close to the significance and presence of the Starship.
I was around three of them parked when the were in the process of being decommissioned/returned. They were alright, but in person they had a strange hodge podge look to it, like they took another plane’s fuselage and attached everything to it. If you look at it long enough you can’t unsee it. Nor can you miss how out of proportion everything was. The Avanti looks a third the size with essentially the same cabin, and it hits the numbers. Sure it doesn’t have a dozen portable 80’s tvs showing steam instruments like the Black Moon.
Everything about it is an exercise in futility trying to make something happen in the face of adverse reality. I’d didn’t do anything well. Beechcraft pretty much ended up where every scaled composites ‘innovation’ ends up. Like where the DMC12 ended up. Pretty much the same ending with one dude buying up all the leavings for pennies on the dollar.
IRL I would agree.
But in the Sim I don’t have to worry about hinky technology or lack of spare parts, so I’d always go for the Starship first.
I mean: just look at it! 
There’s nothing like it.
I’m glad BlackSquare is on the job. They’ve made extensive progress with 3D modelling as well as with both internal systems and turboprop flight models.
Since the Starships are a dying species, creating a reasonably realistic depiction NOW for MSFS can preserve the feel of what it is/was to fly a Starship for future generations.
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This aircraft would be perfect for MSFS24 to highlight their new dynamics modelling.
I remember this from FS2004. Saw one flying at Avalon Airshow in Melbourne around 1992 or so and it blew me away as a av-impressed kid.
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Now that’s a name I’ve not heard in a long time. A long time…
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Any update since July 2022? I am aware of their efforts, is just I can’t seem to find any info of their progress since then. Seems to me like an abandoned project. Hopefully I am wrong.
In an interview last April it was said that development of the Starship is continuing still. The rumors that I have heard are that the complexity of the old 1980s Collins avionics have pushed the knowledge of the developer, so he has taken the opportunity to increase his skills through the other offerings (TBM-850 for example, and the in progress Beechcraft sistership, the B-60 Duke). Knowing what a mess the real avionics were, this is easy to believe.