The Scaled Composites Triumph was a twin-engine, business jet prototype designed and built by
Burt Rutan
Elbert Leander "Burt" Rutan (; born June 17, 1943) is a retired American aerospace engineer and entrepreneur noted for his originality in designing light, strong, unusual-looking, and energy-efficient air and space craft. He designed the record- ...
's
Scaled Composites
Scaled Composites (often called simply Scaled) is an American aerospace company founded by Burt Rutan and currently owned by Northrop Grumman. It is located at the Mojave Air and Space Port in Mojave, California, United States. Founded to develo ...
for
Beechcraft
Beechcraft is an American brand of civil aviation and military aircraft owned by Textron Aviation since 2014, headquartered in Wichita, Kansas. Originally, it was a brand of Beech Aircraft Corporation, an American manufacturer of general aviati ...
. It was known officially as the Model 143, and internally at Scaled as the "Tuna". The aircraft is a
three lifting surface design, with both a small canard, and a small conventional horizontal stabilizer in a
T-tail
A T-tail is an empennage configuration in which the tailplane is mounted to the top of the fin. The arrangement looks like the capital letter T, hence the name. The T-tail differs from the standard configuration in which the tailplane is ...
configuration.
Design and development
Originally, three versions of the all-composite aircraft were envisioned, one powered by piston engines, one by turboprops and one by turbofans. The only one built was the turbofan version with engines mounted on top of the wings, which was first aircraft to be powered by the
Williams International
Williams International is an American manufacturer of small gas turbine engines based in Pontiac, Michigan, United States. It produces jet engines for cruise missiles and small jet aircraft.
History
Dr. Sam B. Williams worked at Chrysler on th ...
FJ44 engine. The maiden flight took place at the
Mojave Airport
The Mojave Air and Space Port at Rutan Field is in Mojave, California, United States, at an elevation of . It is the first facility to be licensed in the United States for horizontal launches of reusable spacecraft, being certified as a spa ...
on July 12, 1988.
The flight test program was completed and confirmed the targeted performance. The financial situation of Beech at the time, and competing projects, prevented consideration of commercial production. In February 1991, Rutan stated, "it had the potential for enormous improvements in efficiency compared to the King Air. It was as fast as the Citation II, but had 60% better fuel economy." After the test program was completed, the airframe was mounted on a pedestal at Scaled's Mojave facility for several years. The Triumph is currently on display in the Joe Davies Heritage Airpark
Joe Davies Heritage Airpark
Retrieved March 29, 2015 at Palmdale Plant 42.
Specifications
See also
References
* Lambert, Mark. ''Jane's All The World's Aircraft 1990–91''. Coulsdon, UK: Jane's Defence Data, 1990. .
External links
Selected image
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Beechcraft
Three-surface aircraft
Canard aircraft
Rutan aircraft
1980s United States experimental aircraft
Twinjets
Engine-over-wing aircraft
Aircraft first flown in 1988