RE: Fokker
When I was five years old I went on an Ansett airlines F-27 for a mystery flight, it was the first time that I had ever been on an a/c. I flew from Sydney to Cooma and then to Marimbula before we returned to Sydney, the flight lasted for half the day and we (My mother, my brother and my sister) then went to McDonalds for a late lunch. our curising height was 23,000ft, and I remember looking at the cars on the road below and thinking WOW they’re lik ants 🙂
When Fokker went belly up, it did impact here on the Australian domestic market, companies like Ansett and TAA had a large number for their short haul services and both owned the F-27 and F-28, but by the time of the Fokker demise TAA had gone, forming two new airlines (East West and Australian) and Ansett was under new ownership (they later bought out both East West and Australian), and of the F-27s and F-28s well if no air line in Australia could opperate them then no-one would buy them, there are a few still around, but under some very heavy air restrictions as parts can’t be found to keep them going on the same level as they once had been. Even the RNZAF had to get rid of them, they didn’t want to, but they couldn’t keep them :'(
The loss of Fokker is a real tradgety and there will never be another plane as highly respected as these little work horses who did the job till someone else forced them out. Personally I’d really like to buy an F-27, if I really could I’d like to buy the F-27 that I flew in all those years ago, but I think that is in the PNG now, still soldiering on for the air line up there!
When push comes to shove, don’t stand near a cliff
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