Trilander

RE: Trilander

Hmm. If I was a Director of a new airline (my target in about 10 years) I’d be tempted to cut costs and sod the rules. Would there be any repurcussions of using unapproved coffee pots? I’m sure the publicity gained by litigating against the CAA for unfair barriers to entry for new airlines (ie. rasinig the costs with silly, expensive rules) would deter them from revoking the airline’s licence!

Do you consider that such rules play into the hands of big airlines like BA or BMI (who have the capital base to afford lots of expenses) and deter new start-ups?

RE: Trilander

Rules is rules. Everything onboard has to be approved right down to the carpet.
By the way I made some enquiries and I found a nice man who will sell a 3 blade Hoffman Trislander prop for £10,000. Oh yes, it is approved!!!!!!!! 🙂

RE: Trilander

Why do you need to buy an “approved” coffee pot? Engine fan blades, I can understand. But coffee pot?? Nothing like a bit of profiteering!

RE: Trilander

Couldn’t give you a price but it will be immense as everything on a public transport aircraft has to be approved. A few years ago a friend of my wife (who was in charge of ordering certain cabin equipment for new B744’s that Virgin acquired) told me that a magazine rack (bulkhead mounted and nothing more than a small piece of moulded plastic) cost nearly £500! A single coffee pot for the galley was £120. You can’t go elsewhere as you have to buy an ‘approved’ coffee pot!
Getting back to the point, you cannot just buy an extra blade. The hub mechanisms, constant speed drive units and even the blades themselves are all specific.

RE: Trilander

yes, thanks. How expensive can one prop blade be though?!

RE: Trilander

No, they all spin at the same rpm (aa set by the pilot) but as the 3 blade props are a smaller diameter the prop tips scribe a smaller circle than the 2 blade prop in the same time so their tip speed is slower (subsonic) at max rpm.

Hope this helps.

RE: Trilander

ie. the tail prop spins at a faster rate than the wing props?

RE: Trilander

Ja W – Trislander uses 3 bladers on the wing engines as they are a smaller diameter. This allows them to run at full chat without the tips of the props going supersonic which causes inefficiency and a terrible mashing noise in the cabin. The tail engine’s noise doesn’t penetrate the cabin (as much) and doesn’t justify the extra cost of the 3 blade prop.

RE: Trilander

Sorry meant Stansted from Cork :$ :$

RE: Trilander

I’m surprised you could drive from Cork to Farnborough in 6 and a half hours, never mind an hour and a half…

I mean, the ferry alone would take about 4 hours.

RE: Trilander

Ja, I’m only guessing here so bear with me:

The tail engine has 2 prop blades, which might mean that the engine puts out 1/3 more RPM’s than the wing engines. Don’t know why there could be more RPMs.

Wild guess!

RE: Trilander

Love Joey 🙂

Question for all you Trilander types?
Why does the TL have two three bladed props on the wings and a two bladed one on the fin?

Give me coffee and no-one gets hurt!

RE: Trilander

Hey Carl, you should have tried our way!

We tocuhed down at Cork knowing that the M25 had had an accident but not how bad. Picked up car hire and headed ot M11 only shortly to leave it (this was the west side and M25 was congested (non-moving traffic) all the way from the east side were accident was).

We then just went through london to arrive at Farnborough only 6 hours and 30 minutes later compared to 1 hr 45mins the AA roadmaster website thingy gave us!

Fun eh!

RE: Trilander

Aurigny advertise on most of their Trislanders as it is good advertising for the companies and generates a bit of money for them.

I agree that SOU has changed quite a lot.I remember the old airport terminal was extremely old and ugly with not many airlines serving the airport.The airport was loosing a lot of airlines and really was going downhill.However,with the new terminal being built and BAA taking over the airport and so the airport saw much growth especially with BA.Now BA,BEA,Scot Airways,AF,Aurigny and Aer Arran all serve the airport with destinations all over the UK and Ireland and also to Paris CDG,Amsterdam,Brussels and Frankfurt.There are also numerous charters with Iberworld,Spanair,Air Europa,Air Malta,etc.

Aurigny operate the saab 340 from Guernsey to Amsterdam daily.They took over the route after KLM pulled out.It didn’t used to be popular and Aurigny were thinking about getting rid of it,but local company Spectsavers,now fund the route (for some strange reason)

Rumour has it that the ATR 42 Aurigny have leased in for the summer,is just in for trial and if it is succesful then they might consider it as a new aircraft for the fleet.This would be good for them because they could expand their operations from Jersey.

RE: Trilander

Thanks very much for that info and the photos. I did see the one in the”Ambro” livery at SOU, plus one other which I can’t remember now. I didn’t realise that Aurigny did the “flying advert” thing, I do see something simular with Ryanair who do it with their 737-200s but not the 737-800s, which Im seeing more often now since they started LPL-Brussels South.

Imcidently Southampton has changed quite a lot since I was last there (about 16 years ago !, lots of EMB 145s of BA plus a Scot Airways Do 328 and a Dash 8 of BEA. Last time I was there I remember Air UK (always liked their liveries) Heralds or F27. In fact I flew into and out of SOU with Air UK on a service from Stansted, the fare was very cheap, I think the aircraft went on to the CI.

I have seen a Trilander up here in LPL sometimes, i believe it is owned by local carrier Keenair used for freight/charters however Im not sure they still have the machine anymore. This carrier has just applied to fly LPL-IOM so that should be interesting against BA, they also have lpl-lcy plans apparently.

I saw an Auringny aircraft at Amsterdam recently, Yellow is quite distictive as a livery, so you tend to look up. Was that comming in from JER/GCI ??

Rgds

Carl

RE: Trilander

Here are the rest….
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RE: Trilander

I said I would post some pictures of the Trislander,so here we are.Most of the Aurigny Trislanders advertise local finance companies,however,G-JOEY and G-XTOR still remain in the Aurigny livery.
The pictures are posted in two replies so that all of them load for people with slow modems.
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RE: Trilander

The Aurigny Trislanders operate the ACI-SOU route around 8 times a day.They used to operate Saturday charters from Southampton to Jersey but this was operated by the Shorts 360 and finished around 3 years ago because they were not popular or profitable because of the BA dominance on the route.
Aurigny have been using the Trislanders since the 1970s and have prooved popular with passengers because they are so reliable on the routes from the islands to the south coast and northern France.You would be surprised how many visitors now come to the islands and say “We want a wide on those little yellow planes,” is amazing,though it has always been common for me to travel on one of these aircraft and its never really been a big occasion,for some holiday makers its really exciting to be travelling on something so small and noisy because they are rarely flown on or seen in the rest of Europe except with AirX (Another C.I. airline) and Skytrek.
The trouble is that now you have all these large jets and props flying,that people think why do I want to be stuck on a cramped and stuffy aircraft for 20 minutes to an hour,when I can travel in a larger aircraft,which is quicker and more comfortable?Also the fact that there is only one pilot and so this has lead local polititions and islanders to complain about the safety aspect of these aircraft. Aurigny cannot afford to run two pilots on the Trislander due to the cost.It would be devastating if they were forced to put two pilots on.
The affects of 9/11 has also pushed up the costs of inter island travel because of security (before then Aurigny didn’t have any security checks) and the popularity of the ferry,which is much cheaper,is leaving Aurigny in trouble and the Trislanders with an uncertain future ahead.

I have travelled on the Trislanders many times,around 3 times a year I would think.GCI-JER and GCI-ACI is the main route I travel,but also once I flew GCI-ACI-SOU which was quite fun,though quite long and also there was a lot of turbulance!
I will post some pictures of the Aurigny Trislanders tomorrow as well as the new AirX trislander.