By Emme Hornung
The first EAA Aviation Museum Speaker Series guest of 2026 will be Tom Carr, who will share his experiences as a test pilot on the flight test program of the Beechcraft Starship, a twin turboprop designed and built in collaboration with Scaled Composites. Join us on Thursday, January 15, at 7 p.m. to learn more about this early carbon fiber composite general aviation aircraft.
Beechcraft originally conceived the Starship in 1979, and it was Beech’s first all-composite business class aircraft, featuring canard wings and twin pusher turboprop engines in the back. Beech contracted Burt Rutan’s Scaled Composites in 1982 to refine the design and build an 85-percent scale prototype. Deliveries began in 1988, with a total of only 53 being built before production ended in 1995 due to low commercial interest.
Tom Carr was one of several test pilots participating in the Starship’s flight test program, which he will dive into in his presentation.
After graduating from the University of Kansas with a bachelor’s in aerospace engineering, Tom joined the Beechcraft team as a control system engineer before moving over to flight testing in 1978. In 2003, he joined the Garmin team as the director of flight operations and chief test pilot. He’s since earned a master’s in aviation human factors and now focuses solely on his duties as chief test pilot.
“I like flying new, unusual, different aircraft,” Tom said. “The thing about the Starship is we found out a lot about canard airplanes, pusher airplanes, and composite airplanes. It ended up not being a successful program, but it really was a great program to be on to learn all about this new technology.”
There were many things that made the Starship unique and innovative not just for Beech, but for general aviation.
“It had different performance, handling qualities, stall characteristics, and that’s just aerodynamically. It was also different inside. It was the first general aviation aircraft that had an all-glass cockpit. Now, the Gulfstream IV probably beat us with an all-glass cockpit, but it’s a different type of electronic instrumentation system. Ours was completely glass, and that was new. We had a lot of competitors at the time, and none of them had anything like this,” he said. “It also had a different type of anti-ice system, the TKS type system. So, you’re learning a lot about all these new systems, and when I say you’re learning about them, you’re learning about them in the fray. You’re out there actually in icing conditions, seeing how the icing protection system works. That was neat.”
Join us to find out more about what it takes to flight test an eye-catching canard and what kind of surprises come up along the way.
Thursday’s presentation is free for EAA members and youths, and just $5 for nonmembers.
If you’re unable to attend, all Speaker Series presentations are recorded and will be available to members to watch here at a later date.