Your Airplane

[acaTerry]

Just wanted to start a thread that could not turn into an anger management class. The subject is "What do you like most/least about the plane you fly?" Let's keep it to airline aircraft so the post does not get moved.
Anyone else want to take part in this thread that may bring some fun back to flying?

 

[Jet_Dreamer]

i love my c-310r. i can beat some small 121 jets (md-80's)to the airport during vfr descents!

 

[antney]

I love the Saab. Fun plane to fly and very hard to get a good landing. I dont like that were restricted to 250 kts, for some reason the manufacturer put in some buzzing sound everytime I go over 250kts. Probabably the only other thing is all those **CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED** buses for the Saab electrical equiptment. Tough systems on that Saab!
Anthony

 

[chperplt]

The 1900 is a great airplane to fly. Very powerful and quite responsive. Not too slow for a turboprop either.. I love being able to shoot a visual and keep 200+++ till 3 or 4 out and blowing past all the jets on the parallel. Being able to land and stop in short order is also nice.

Not having a Lav or FA sucks.. Being able to smell what the pax in row 9 just did, isn't very nice. Constantly hearing people bitch about the airplane gets old. Hel!, they are lucky they have air service at all. They could drive the 7 hours to Boston if they wanted!

Have you ever had to deal with a pax who took a cr@p in a sick sack?? Not a pleasant experience. Can you say....dump the cabin and open the ram air vent for fresh air???

 

[B190Captain]

I love my 1900D. It has been very good to me. The only draw backs:

The UB/UC models suck! UE all the way!!

No FA
No Galley
No Toilet
No Jetway
No APU (just 2 over the wings)
No Autopilot (except for the FO) I don't know if that is a bad thing though.
When someone farts in row 9 or anywhere for that matter, you will get a noseful.

Comments from pax when boarding: Oh God!, Is this plane safe?, Where is the toilet?, Why did the FA sit next to the pilot the whole flight? and so on.....

Great flying airplane and easy to land and 19 jumpseats.

 

[LearLove]

Dash 8

Well guess I'll lay some comments on the Dash. I've got just under 3800 in it both as FO and Capt. I've only flown the 100 and been in the 200 JS several times.

First its quite obvious it does its job well as it been in use with U for many years now. Although some of our routes get pretty lengthly anything in the 180-200 nm range is perfect for this aircraft. A leg like this would be like SYR to PHL. blocked for about 70 to 80 min, 20 for push/taxi/TO/landing and taxi in leaving 50 to 60 min for flight. I've beat 737's leaving PHL at the same time on that route. Anyway the Dash will also work for the short 30 min blocked leg also.

As for how its designed it pretty much looks the roll. Dehav/boeing kept it simple and backed everything up. Systems are straight foward:

Hydro - gear, brakes, roll spoilers, flaps and some other crap

bleeds - a/c, press ect...

fuel - two tanks simple flow design, easy x-feed, no dumping

eng/props - PW 120 2000hp, 13ft dia props of normal design
avionics - standard six pack with tcas/vsi combo (funny note here the air speed indicator goes to 400 knots and Vne is 242, can't figure that out) Autopilot/FD work well couple to Rnav so you can read the paper or pre 911 sexually harrass the FA, haa thoes were the days. Sometimes it brakes but you can usually fix it by shutting the plane down and repowering it 90% of the time or just punch the buttons and that seems to work as well - seriously. The FD is the bar type like flying an ILS needle.

Electric - many gens, inverters, busses and all the other usual stuff backing everything up. If you ever had a total electric failure in the dash you'd really have to be trying/doing something stupid or God actually wants it to happen.

Pressurization - pretty much takes care of itself, some guys use manual mode to keep SL cabin on low alt trips but I just run auto so you never have to touch it. The Dash is only certified to 250.

APU - if their was a weak link this would be it - it runs well but seems to break in the start cycle - a mech once told me it because the APU was a corp jet apu and was not designed to be started/shut off 10 plus time per day, thats what I've benn told. Most of the time if the APU MAIN breaker is reset it seems to due the trick.

Fire detection - standard fire bottles yada yada yada

Ice protection - boots (fast/slow cycles) on tail, inlets and wings. heated props, pitots, statics, both windshields. Being downwind of the lakes we see it here and don't have much a problem, the heavier side of moderiate icing will get the props out of wack but just push them to 1050 and it comes off fine.

did I miss anything?

As far a flying it goes it straight foward easy to hand fly if you want but the autopilot work well and is easy to program if your lazy, just don't forget the alt sel button. Above 200 kts the controls are alittle stiff in roll but pitch force remains linear with speed. The big props/tail require trim input for and speed change. You can fly approaches at 200 to 180 kts outside the marker, once inside slow to 158 to config gear and then 148 flaps and hold that until 2 to 3 mile final or whatever atc needs. With the props it makes it easy to go fast as slowing is easy also staying high and dropping it in works well with the 13 ft dia props. Use flaps 35 below 130 kts and you can stop it on the numbers. Speaking of stopping reverse is not needed just pop it into disking and thats enough to slow it to taxi speed without touching the breaks in 3000 to 4000 ft langing roll.

A past thread discussed the landing chara of the dash so enough said there, Two words though - WET RUNWAY.

As for takeoffs I've never seen it use more than 3000 ft even on 98 degree day max TOW yada yada yada. Flaps 15 empty ferry flight takeoffs are fun, hold brakes to 80%, release, set max TO power rotate at about 85 kts give or take a few and weeee, elevator ride.

As for comfort - the cockpit is wide with enough room for flt bag and enough to get up and stand in flight with the door closed if you need to streatch the legs. For turbo props its quiet as the props are at 1050 for TO and 900 for cruise. Even in the cabin its pretty quiet compaired to others.

The seating in the back gives the same as any jet (rj or mainline). My only complaint there is our seats have this molded lower lumbar buldge to them which I personally don't like and I also think the middle seat in row 9 needs to go.

Another complaint is the galley being up front. When swapping crews or just starting out its like rush hour traffic, everyone in eachothers way, the galley should be in the rear so the FA can set up and recater without the pilots and everyone else in thier way. One thing that nice though is the closet can actuall fit 3 crew bags plus other stuff so you don't need to put your stuff in the back. Some guys still put thier roller bag in the overhead, I don't understand why and think its rude, showing lack of respect towards customers. Its one thing to stick your hat and coat up there but a whole roller bag is rediculous if you have a closet for that.

Overall it a comfortable money maker ( I guess) thats been around especially in the NE. Except for the pax seats, galley position and APU starter I have no complaints about the Dash.

 

[BTDII]

As far as turboprops go, the DO328 is a pretty fun airplane. You'd swear it was a jet until you see a jet go by.

She trues out @ 335kts(on a good day) @FL310, very quiet and comfy. Has the same size coach seats as larger jets instead of the usuall thin RJ seat. If we're heavy the climb can be a little slow at our normal climb speed of 200kias, after awhile you have to pick the nose up and start doin 170kias to keep the climb goin.

Coming in is probably the only part of flying that is actually any fun anymore. With the dork you can do 250 to the marker than 180kias to 500' and still be able to stop in a fairly short distance, though ATC very rarely lets us do it anymore. All too often were getting slowed for traffic 40 miles ahead and 150 miles from the airport. Oh well.

The real nice thing is the glass cockpit. I never thought this stuff was that cool until I started working here. Now I don't know how I ever flew without it. All in all I give the plane an A+, just to bad the public hates flying on planes with props.

And for all the other turboprop and SJ flyers remmember this when people say that your plane is small:

"They would'nt think it was small if it ran over their foot!"

P.S.
See Terry, we can all get along somtimes.

 

[BTDII]

You guys I just read Learloves post, and he mentioned a lot of good and bad stuff about the dash whereas I only mentioned the good and gave the 328 an A+. Well he made me remmember all the bad things about the 328, so now I'll just say the 328 does have its system issues and leave it with a new grade of a B-. Still a good plane, but definately has issues.

Gotta run now take care.

 

[kommutrdog]

J41

The Jetstream -41....a great airplane to fly, tough to get consistently good landings. If you've rolled it onto a dry runway, you're really earned it.

Fun airplane to fly, 250 kias anything (except climb) below about 12,000.

Good FD/AP system, so good in fact in makes you real lazy.

The biggest drawback is that it's too f*****g LOUD. I mean those Garretts are pretty reliable, but there is not a better machine to convert kerosene to noise out there. Anyone who has been within 100 yards of a running Jetstream can attest to that.

Cabin is kinda small, but who cares, I don't sit in the cabin. Nice, heavy new cockpit door (post -911 modification)...keeps us from having to hear the pax bitch.

Easy systems. Great airplane, plus it pays the mortgage.

That's about it.

 

[antney]

FlyChicago yes those stupid O2 mask always fall when i land, and some over head binds do as well. As far as memorizing the buses, im still trying to learn them, instead of what is on them, lol. Going on some other good notes of the saab.
Flight Attendant, cant deal with most of them, but cant live with out them!
Good autopilot
Somewhat spacious cockpit
Nice efis set
It also has a bathroom!!!

Bad things
NO APU, to hot in the summer in chicago, got to have your portable fan!
Electrical system, just to much!
Hot summer days fully loaded the plane climbs as good as a 172
You get that god awfull thing at the end of a 7 day leg called saab ass!

Anthony