The F70 and the F100 had identical cockpits. Having said that, the F70 was available with two kinds of cockpit. The one that was identical to the F100 and another cockpit that was simplified to cater for the airlines flying to crummy airports. For instance the auto-land was less sophisticated on the simple F70.

Also, although the cockpit layout of the F70 is identical to that of the F100, some software changes had been made which made the F70 better. It was planned to introduce the same changes on the F100, but the bankruptcy prevented this. I believe Stork/Fokker (the left-overs of Fokker) offers it as a conversion but am not sure of this.

At the time the Fokkers where reasonably priced, regrettably the US Dollar was not. Therefore Fokker lost a lot of money, as was mentioned by Rekkof2004 this was one of the many factors leading to their demise.

Austrian has not only expressed an interest, but has actually decided to take a few F100s from AA. Not sure of the number but the first one(s) will be delivered not too long from now. Forgot the dates though.

The reason that the F100 is as succesful now as it is, is purely because it is dirt cheap. You can buy a F100 for the same price as a B732 I’ve been told. I probably do not have to tell you why the F100 is much preferred over the B732.

From what I have heard the F70 nowadays are not much cheaper than a new F70 back when Fokker was alive. The F70 is a really good plane that even today stands out. One of the reasons for that is no doubt the small production run. Only 64 where made (including protos) and 20 of them are now in the hands of KLM Cityhopper. And they seem to be adding more of them evey year!

The F50/F60 is completely different from the F70/F100. Comparing them would be useless.

Different airlines require different planes. The ATR is a great plane, but when it comes down to using unprepared runways the Fokker will win all the time. Similarly the ATR was less quiet and indeed economical at the time. You have to bear in mind that the new ‘500 series was not available then.

To say the Fokker is not economical is silly. Plenty of airlines use it and are happy with it. KLM Cityhopper and VLM for instance.

Also comparing the costs for the planes you mentioned by Shamrock is not that usefull. Comparing the F50 with the ATR and Dash 8 I can understand. But to add the D228, E120 and even the 737NG and A320 is stretching it a bit. They are in a completely different market and it does not take a genius to figure that out. The size, the range, they are all very different.

But that still does not answer my question whether it was a wise decision to develop the F50/60 or if Fokker should have gone with the jetline only. Personally I have my doubts about it. It is a great plane but perhaps too little too late (the original F27 lasted for god knows how long with only an occaisional stretch and minor updates on the avionics) and at too high a price for Fokker.