Plane flips over after crash-landing in Somalia
Last edited by Saintly; 12th Jun 2024 at 23:20.
Turbo props: Learned a lot flying the B1900, but that was mostly due to its design flaws, and the maintenance budget where I flew..... Dash8/300 handled best, atrocious cockpit design. F50 incredible cockpit design, but had to manhandle it.
Light twins: Citation Bravo best for landing performance, best I did was take the exit right after the 1000' markers at around 1100' landing distance. CJ3 great for climb cruise&performance, 15 minutes to FL450, 800pph in cruise, great avionics with integrated Jepps and WSI. AC kept the plane frozen in Fla in the summer. Not awesome to land, no reversers, very high tire pressure in narrow tires with bad antiskid, not what you want landing on an ungrooved, wet runway, 60x3200 at night, with only edge lights, no approaches/vasi/papi, at night..... (yeah that operation was challenging too)
Now on the A320 for the last 11 years. Love the cockpit for comfort and design, but thrust levers should move, and not knowing what the other pilot is doing is a design flaw IMHO. About to move to the B737 or B757, new chapter, ask me again in few years..
Guess I never really explained what I meant. I should have said: "Build like a brick. Flies like a garbage truck with a flat tire on one engine". V1-cut was full rudder and a close to 180deg turn input on the wheel to barely keep it straight. Most of the time I would tell my FO to give me full L/R rudder in the SIM after an engine failure, because of the effort it took. Also, AP OFF + GD on final would switch the yaw damper off, because you could not land with it on, and with the small rudder and humongous tail with dorsal fin, lots of swaying on final (we would always reconnect the YD again, and hopefully disconnect before touchdown). You would never forget to take your hand of the power levers at V1, because it was too heavy to rotate with one hand at Vr. Put in flaps 25 at 160, and forget to put in three hands of trim, and you would be pushing against the control with 2 hands fighting the balloon, asking the PM to trim AND (even on the AP I saw it balloon way over 1 dot fly down on the GS when selecting F25). Stopped flying the F50 in '05, and have absolutely fond memories.
Last edited by hans brinker; 13th Jun 2024 at 13:54.
Funny you asked, my son just asked me the same thing today. I am about 14K hours in, with only 300 piston.
Turbo props: Learned a lot flying the B1900, but that was mostly due to its design flaws, and the maintenance budget where I flew..... Dash8/300 handled best, atrocious cockpit design. F50 incredible cockpit design, but had to manhandle it.
Light twins: Citation Bravo best for landing performance, best I did was take the exit right after the 1000' markers at around 1100' landing distance. CJ3 great for climb cruise&performance, 15 minutes to FL450, 800pph in cruise, great avionics with integrated Jepps and WSI. AC kept the plane frozen in Fla in the summer. Not awesome to land, no reversers, very high tire pressure in narrow tires with bad antiskid, not what you want landing on an ungrooved, wet runway, 60x3200 at night, with only edge lights, no approaches/vasi/papi, at night..... (yeah that operation was challenging too)
Now on the A320 for the last 11 years. Love the cockpit for comfort and design, but thrust levers should move, and not knowing what the other pilot is doing is a design flaw IMHO. About to move to the B737 or B757, new chapter, ask me again in few years..
Turbo props: Learned a lot flying the B1900, but that was mostly due to its design flaws, and the maintenance budget where I flew..... Dash8/300 handled best, atrocious cockpit design. F50 incredible cockpit design, but had to manhandle it.
Light twins: Citation Bravo best for landing performance, best I did was take the exit right after the 1000' markers at around 1100' landing distance. CJ3 great for climb cruise&performance, 15 minutes to FL450, 800pph in cruise, great avionics with integrated Jepps and WSI. AC kept the plane frozen in Fla in the summer. Not awesome to land, no reversers, very high tire pressure in narrow tires with bad antiskid, not what you want landing on an ungrooved, wet runway, 60x3200 at night, with only edge lights, no approaches/vasi/papi, at night..... (yeah that operation was challenging too)
Now on the A320 for the last 11 years. Love the cockpit for comfort and design, but thrust levers should move, and not knowing what the other pilot is doing is a design flaw IMHO. About to move to the B737 or B757, new chapter, ask me again in few years..
What cruises faster - F50 or Dash 8-300?
I've flown on the B737 but never the B757. Ah the 1900 turboprop...also a rugged airframe too. You must of enjoyed that one flying it.
Also guess what, yesterday June 12, i flew on the Dash 8-400 for the first time. Ive flown on the 100, 200 & 300 but never the 400. Reslly nice aircraft and as we know - quick too. I flew from Carnarvon (YCAR/CVQ) to Perth (YPPH/PER) in Western Australia. The flight only took 1 hour and 22 minutes.
You had to man handle the F50 because it was so heavy? Lol sounds like a nightmare. almost like tacklong someone in rugby haha.
What cruises faster - F50 or Dash 8-300?
I've flown on the B737 but never the B757. Ah the 1900 turboprop...also a rugged airframe too. You must of enjoyed that one flying it.
Also guess what, yesterday June 12, i flew on the Dash 8-400 for the first time. Ive flown on the 100, 200 & 300 but never the 400. Reslly nice aircraft and as we know - quick too. I flew from Carnarvon (YCAR/CVQ) to Perth (YPPH/PER) in Western Australia. The flight only took 1 hour and 22 minutes.
What cruises faster - F50 or Dash 8-300?
I've flown on the B737 but never the B757. Ah the 1900 turboprop...also a rugged airframe too. You must of enjoyed that one flying it.
Also guess what, yesterday June 12, i flew on the Dash 8-400 for the first time. Ive flown on the 100, 200 & 300 but never the 400. Reslly nice aircraft and as we know - quick too. I flew from Carnarvon (YCAR/CVQ) to Perth (YPPH/PER) in Western Australia. The flight only took 1 hour and 22 minutes.
Only flew the 400 in the SIM, and just 20 minutes. Definitely a lot more powerful and fast... We normally cruises the 50 around 14k' right at VMO (got to scissor the barber pole) of around 225IAS. D8/300 would do 245IAS up to 18k' so definitely faster. Read my reply to Heros for some F50 flight characteristics. Loved the plane, technically perfect, aerodynamically not so much...
But yeah if only the F50 was more sleeker in terms of fuselage. With those powerful engines (PW125B) it could probably cruise at 300+ knots TAS.
I knew that, but without GPS or FMS we always just thought in IAS... No one would accuse the F50 of looking aerodynamic!! But I am not sure if the design would work at higher speeds, the F50 already flew nose down at it's low Vmo of around 225. Cruising at 250 IAS would require a change in angle of incidence. But maybe a sleeker design would have allowed to cruise at higher altitude getting that higher TAS. I think it got beat by the D8 and the ATR due to its higher empty weight though. 72 seat ATR weighs about the same as a F50, when both empty IIRC.
You have to wonder why Fokker made the F50 and indeed the F27 too so heavy. Fokker probably were thinking "built to last, tough, rugged" rather than speed, despite its "reasonable" cruise speed.
You have to wonder why Fokker made the F50 and indeed the F27 too so heavy
The following users liked this post:
As it was meant to be a DC-3 replacement they perhaps were designing a truck with longevity in mind, TAA (Trans Australian Airlines for the new comers) had a big hand in setting requirements if I recall and were the first operators of the type, our illustrious CaSA predecesors being the second..
Can't be all metal surely??
Well the fact that the wings, hence fuel, detached almost as if by designed shear bolts and the fact that a high wing design means the fuselage needs extra strength to carry the wings certainly saved lives; heavy or not.
The following users liked this post:
Makes for better fuel economy and cost to run. Nobody ever asked the pilots what aircraft the company should fly....
Not an aircraft designer, or engineer. Have flown the F50/DHC8 for years, and spent plenty of time in the JS of the ATR. I honestly believe it is the sheer amount of material. Every part of the F50 felt sturdy and over designed. those double articulated door hinges for the right and aft doors where amazing. Every thing I touched on the DHC8 I was afraid I would break it. ATR was even worse, plastic fantastic.
Makes for better fuel economy and cost to run. Nobody ever asked the pilots what aircraft the company should fly....
Makes for better fuel economy and cost to run. Nobody ever asked the pilots what aircraft the company should fly....
One can only wonder if Fokker was still around today, if they would of made a newer version of the F50 - made it lighter. It would of increased the cruise speed for example. I guess heavy aircraft is good in one sense and in other ways not so good.
Probably the reason why the F50 wasn't popular in the USA, companies saw the downside: 20-30 odd knots slower compared to most turboprop aircraft in its size (or slightly smaller) where as in Europe, the F50 was really popular, so was the Dash 8 as well.
Well, the way I normally said was flew like a truck. Rotate definitely required both hands. Engine failure required so much rudder pressure I would normally use both legs, full aileron into dead engine, so uncross armes and hold the wheel upside down. Extend flaps and don't trim the wheel 3 times around and you need both hands to keep the nose down. Flew the Dash 8 at the same time, and was so much easier to control, but the cockpit was lousy.
F50 Cockpit design is still better than anything else I have seen.
F50 Cockpit design is still better than anything else I have seen.
