RE: Short-haul turboprops
The Saab 2000 was a beautiful bit of design but the cause of its failure was that current 340 operators couldn’t just buy/lease the 2000 and have the same set of flightcrew operate them. Get an ATR or a Dash and that’s exactly what you could do. Regional airlines need a small aircraft to go route proving and than a larger version to later exploit that route. This is why Aurigny must move on from the Saab 340. Although it is a better aircraft than the ATR they need the dual size coupled with relatively cheap leasing costs available at the moment.
The ATR text about Hotel Mode is a wonderful excuse for leaving a costly piece of kit off their aircraft! If it’s so great how come everyone else already had it before them (without the need to give it a fancy name) and decided the danger did not warrant the time it took to plug in a GPU. It’s a poor show that aircraft the size of an ATR do not have an APU. The ATR designers new they would not be able to carry enough passengers to rival the Dash if they had to carry an APU so they put the aircraft on a diet!
One aircraft type that has not hit the limelight here is the little Dornier. It is a superb aircraft. If only it had been available in a range of sizes.
Mongu – I don’t care where an aircraft comes from I judge purely on its operational capabilities. It grieves me dreadfully that one of the worst turboprops and one of the worst jets are British. Oh well at least we can claim half of Concorde! By the way Saab is Swedish (Fairchild did not get involved until well down the production line). Didn’t you just love the story of the ATP nosewheel?
Without wishing to upset the eastern bloc lovers, the Antonovs and Ilyushins cannot really be compared in this discussion as none of them hold UK certification. This would be a costly process and none of the aircraft in question are good enough to warrant the cost. Conversely the Russians, etc find western aircraft sufficiently superior to warrant the massive expense of certifying them in their States themselves.
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