Customer: possibly Beechcraft
Type: twin-engine commuter airliner
Significant date: 1981
The Rutan Commuter was a daring concept for a 36-passenger, twin-engine commuter airliner. The unique features of this aircraft (in its Model 78-1 configuration) were the swept-forward aft wing, with flaps and elevators, while the foreplane was also equipped with flaps and elevators. This reflected the Fowler flap development pioneered in the Grizzly design. A center line thrust arrangement was accomodated by the turboprop engines mounted on the fin — one being a pusher, the other a tractor.
The tricycle landing gear main wheels retracted into streamline fairings at the lower fuselage sides while the nosewheel retracted into the aircraft's nose. Wing tip winglets were employed but the rudder was beneath the rear engine. The only conventional feature were the ailerons.
The Commuter was designed to provide safe, quick intercity shuttle service. A scale model of he Model 78-1 was wind tunnel tested at NASA's Langley Research Center. The project was published in the press late in 1981, and a Model 79 was also quoted for the same project, but no information is available on this alternate design. It is suspected that Rutan's work on the Beechcraft Starship I resulted in the Commuter being "put on the back burner."
Population: none built