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DASH 8-400 (Q400) drivers?

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I watched a Q-400 turn an 8 mile final in PDX yesterday at 4000 feet. I would have bet a lot of money that they were going to have to go around. By our TCAS readout, they had it on glidepath at 500 feet and landed in the TDZ no problem. Quite amazing.

It's always fun doing that with jet drivers in the jumpseat...if they've never flown turboprops, they squirm pretty good looking at that runway way down there!
 
I watched a Q-400 turn an 8 mile final in PDX yesterday at 4000 feet. I would have bet a lot of money that they were going to have to go around. By our TCAS readout, they had it on glidepath at 500 feet and landed in the TDZ no problem. Quite amazing.

Ummm, I know some of you kids have never flown a turboprop, but just about all of them can do that. I once turned final at 4000 ft and 5 miles in ATL in a Brasilia and made it without breaking a sweat. Had to add power at the end. 250kt to a 2 mile final... no problem. ATR-72s do it almost as well, but are a little harder to slow. Beech 1900, 250-Vref in 20 seconds.
 
And yes, the Q400 is a poorly designed piece of crap. Bombardier didn't take the time to work through the bugs and their support has been dismal since day one. At Horizon, we had to come up with fixes on a lot of bugs by ourselves, and we then told Bombardier so they could incorporate them into the production line. A bit backwards, no? The most recent group of airplanes we've taken delivery of were supposed to incorporate a lot of new fixes, but they've been just as bad as the old ones, simply with new bugs. Besides all the little annoying things, we've had two major issues with the engines that caused several engine failure & smoke in the cabin incidents and resulted in major inspection/replacement programs that kept significant portions of our fleet out of service for weeks.

Keep in mind that we have good, well-trained maintenance with six years of experience on the airplane, and our reliability numbers still aren't that great. Colgan is going to have a whole lot of fun at first, I think.

Sounds like a real POS. What do you expect from the same engineers that brought us the Barbie Jet?

Supposedly, ASA is in a toss up over replacing our ATR-72-212s with either -8 Q400s or ATR-72-500s. Here's to hoping for the Super ATRs!
 
What are the gear and Flap speeds on the Q400's?

vlo 200
vle 215
flaps 5 200
flaps 10 181
flaps 15 172
flaps 35 158
approx. normal ref ice 125 - 133
approx. normal ref 110 - 118
Here's a profile that works great for getting down:

Drop gear at 200, pitch over to 215 and get 4000 fpm at about 12 degrees pitch down. Wheeeee!
 
vlo 200
vle 215
flaps 5 200
flaps 10 181
flaps 15 172
flaps 35 158
approx. normal ref ice 125 - 133
approx. normal ref 110 - 118
Here's a profile that works great for getting down:

Drop gear at 200, pitch over to 215 and get 4000 fpm at about 12 degrees pitch down. Wheeeee!

Thanks!
 

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