When I first heard that Learjet would build its new Model 85 entirely from composite materials, I wondered what management there was thinking. So far there has not been an FAR Part 25 transport airplane built even mostly from composites. And the history of turbine-powered composite airplanes is sketchy at best.
The Starship, of course, remains the granddaddy of all composite airplane disasters. Back in the 1980s Beech spent somewhere between $800 million and $1 billion to build the factory, make the tooling and create the procedures to certify and manufacture the first turbine-powered all-composite airplane.
