Whatever happened to civil STOL?

There is at least one civil STOL twin in passenger carrying service, seen here amongst less STOL stable mates!

🙂

Someone asked above about aircraft types.

Having (inevitably) to go back a few years, here in the UK we were pushing things like the Skyvan and the Islander. I can recall quite clearly that huge futures were being talked up for these, extended versions of them and new STOL projects… and this is precisely why I started the thread… somewhere it has all gone wrong for the concept.

The noise problem with city airports was always going to be something of a problem – but I’ve heard it said that people who live in larger cities are actually used to a certain level of noise. For sure, some Londoners who bought a house near me a couple of years ago had to move back – because they found the silence at night ‘unnerving’!!!

Sometimes I wonder whether it’s things like vested interest and historical inertia which kill off bright ideas like STOL. It wouldn’t surprise me at all that any new, revolutionary concept – no matter how good – can’t make headway against what is already in place because too many people have monied interest in seeing that it doesn’t.

Also a 4-engined turoprop Breguet (Sp?) was evaluated for close-in STOL operations by the late Eastern Airlines in the USA…where like London City, a number of large cities have small close-in fields (generally left over from the 30s “Lindbergh boom” and airline DC-3 days).
McDonnell Douglas took out a license for USA production.
Sadly, like helicopter airlines, the economics (plus safety and environmental/noise concerns) were never quite right for huge expansion.

This is the Breguet 941…more from here

http://aerostories2.free.fr/acrobat/appareils/france/Br940-941eng.pdf

William

Also, the DHC-6 Twin Otter used some of its STOL capability in Southern California operations in the late 60s-early 70s.

Also a 4-engined turoprop Breguet (Sp?) was evaluated for close-in STOL operations by the late Eastern Airlines in the USA…where like London City, a number of large cities have small close-in fields (generally left over from the 30s “Lindbergh boom” and airline DC-3 days).
McDonnell Douglas took out a license for USA production.
Sadly, like helicopter airlines, the economics (plus safety and environmental/noise concerns) were never quite right for huge expansion.

In the early 80s I worked for a small airline that evaluated the Dash-7. However, with the exception of Sun Valley/Hailey, Idaho, the cities we served had excellent large airports so STOL wasn’t a huge priority for the management.
It would have been usefull some of the time at Sun Valley where density altitude was a factor in the summer.
At any rate, the DCH-7 was too large and expensive for the airline.
I did get a neat DHC sticker showing the 7 prototype…which I still have.

If the airline demand had really been there, then we would have seen STOL being adopted on a large scale. The 54-seat Dash 7 probably came nearest to true STOL, but production ended 19 years ago with just over 100 built.
Wherever you site an airport, be it somewhere like London City or Liverpool (five minutes from my house), it’s going to be in the wrong place for many if not most people. The samed applies to the main line railway stations.
I recall all sorts of wierd and wonderful VTOL (not STOL) offerings from Hawker Siddeley in the 1970s which were never the same again after the oil crisis, and the Wilson government of the day did the aircraft industry a (rare) favour by pulling the plug on them, IMHO.

William

What civil STOL types are out there? What’s the seating capacity??

It was cancelled by Wilson’s bloody government, that’s what happened to it!

Bri 😮

Do London City (Docklands?) operations count?

It’s one of the few “close-in” airports doing what it was designed for…even if dedicated STOL airliners aren’t being used.

Yes, City Airport is exactly the kind of operation being foreseen back in the 70’s. The ability to fly right into the heart of a major city is still the one thing which STOL has on its side. People rightly baulk at the idea of your bog standard 1.5hr European flight time, for example, being more than doubled effectively by the airport – city centre transits at each end.

I would have thought that, if only for this reason, we may yet see some future for STOL.

Do London City (Docklands?) operations count?

It’s one of the few “close-in” airports doing what it was designed for…even if dedicated STOL airliners aren’t being used.

What happened? Reality struck with a vengeance.

The oil crisis caused it, and it will never happen. Maybe on a small scale only with Osprey like vehicles, but judging from the Osprey’s reliability that will be some time.