RE: Pic of the evening — Pilot’s nightmare

While I’m sure in reality there was a small amount of lateral separation the size of that flock that close to an active commercial airport is scary!

RE: Short-haul turboprops

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 03-02-03 AT 08:47 PM (GMT)]Turboprops typically have tiny cockpits which makes for very cramped conditions for 2 people on what may be a 12 hour working day/night. The Dash series has the largest flightdeck of any turboprop I’ve seen and the layout has mauch more logic applied to it than any other. For example, the Flight Management System (which is usually an optional extra in other turboprops) is not an afterthought dumped in a spare hole in the back of the center console but is located in the same place as in a Boeing or Airbus. Don’t look for an FMS in an ATR, you won’t find one! The only negative I can think of with the Dash is that it only has a manual trim wheel rather than electric trim but if that is all I can criticise it must be pretty good.

It’s difficult to justify why I put the Saab 2000 above the Dash 8-400. The Dash really should have been top as the Saab 2000 has no commonality with the 340 but sometimes an aeroplane just looks so sexy the heart has to rule the head!

Finally I would just like to give one example of the comedy of errors that makes me put the ATP at the bottom of my list. When BAe came up with the ATP they made it sit high off the ground so that it could use jetties. They made all their calculations and built the plane to then be told by the authorities that the door sill height was so high that they must now fit inflatable slides to all doors! It is the only western civilian turboprop I know that has the complexity and cost of slides. During the test program they tried to park the ATP on various jetties only to find that they had got their calculations wrong and the door sill wasn’t high enough!!! So BAe engineers scratched their heads and came up with a solution, they extended the length of the nose gear which is why ATPs taxi in a tail down stance. Unfortunately the byproduct of this is that the new ground attitude is incorrect for how the aircraft was designed to take off and land! British craftsmanship at its best!!!

Regards
wys

PS The picture below may be a 340 rather than a 2000 but it really does show why Saabs just look soooooooo good!
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RE: Ryanair Places Major Boeing Order

Ryanair appears to be keeping Boeing afloat at the moment. I bet they must be getting some fantastic deal.

RE: Short-haul turboprops

The ATR is not a bad aeroplane it’s just that the alternatives are better.

ATR advantages:
1. Capacity range 40-70 seats (only 3/4’s the capacity range of the Dash though) on one type rating
2. Forward and rear holds allow baggage to be distributed easily in a way that will allow the center of gravity to remain in a neutral position.
3. Cockpit design is designed to be a lead into the Airbus layout.

ATR disadvantages:
1. Reasonably complex and annoying to use autoflight system.
2. Significant difficulties with coping with sudden severe icing which has resulted in loss of hulls and crew/passengers.
3. The ATR uses spoilers for roll control at low speeds (like a big jet) whereas other turboprops use purely ailerons. This gives great problems during crosswind landings (a big reason why CityFlyer were always the least successful at getting into Guernsey when the conditiond were cruddy) as conventional ailerons give adverse yaw rather than the slewing the nose towards the downgoing wing as is the case with roll spoilers. Adverse yaw will cause the fuselage to align with the runway during a crosswind landing. The effect of roll spoilers will exacerbate the effect of the crosswind leading to serious controlability issues. Bearing in mind the ATR was always going to be operated into difficult regional airports it was a terrible idea to augment poor ailerons with roll spoilers.
4. The ATR uses a system they call ‘Hotel mode’. This means that when they get on stand they shut down the left engine and then apply a brake to the right prop but leave the engine running with the prop stationary to act as a GPU. This sounds like a sensible idea but the prospect of brake failure is awful. Many turboprops have this facility but most operators remove the brake mechanism (saving up to 300lbs!) and don’t use it because of the danger. However for some reason ATR still insist on its use and it is only matter of time before someone gets hurt. It’s not just the worry of the prop brake releasing but also the searing hot gases emanating from the exhaust (up to 600-700 degrees C).

As you see there are not a huge number of problems with the ATR, it’s just that they are all quite significant ones. They can all be coped with by the utilisation of decent SOP’s. I would suggest that any company looking for a turboprop should seriously consider the ATR range so long as the leasing costs were significantly less than the Dash 8.

RE: What is the most risque food you have ever eaten?

nothing exciting just snails and razor fish

RE: lonely planet

Mark Thomas: weapons inspector was absolutely superb!

RE: Could you ?

Yes 😉

RE: Ultimate cross-wind landing attempt

Very good bit of footage. Well worth the wait for it to download. I must add though that in the last crosswind thread several of the pictures including the original weren’t actually crosswind landings but pilots attempts to return to the centerline after having deviated from it!

Regards
wys