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Old 6th Oct 2009, 05:31
  #80 (permalink)  
halas
 
Join Date: Jan 2003
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The BAe3100 / J31 / Jetstream - Worst aircraft ever!

Coming off the B200 and onto the Jetstream was a huge disappointment.

Similar to the Metro it seems.

The door is at the wrong end. You can't load punters and bags at the same time. And everyone gets a chance to whiff the dunny as they get in and out.
The wing spar was designed for maximum annoyance of the punters, and maximum amusement of the flight crew. Not unusual to find a tooth or two in your nav-bag at the end of a days work.
And to leave the flightdeck during boarding was impossible. You were stuck there.
The recirc fan was in the baggage bay and gulped all the air from the dunny to the flight deck. Not good on the morning flights.
Flight controls were bizarre. It was so pitchy and light on the elevators, yet a Kenworth effort to move the ailerons.
The elevator horn balance was forever in the slipstream, and iced up beautifully. The really funny thing was you didn't notice on climb until it was time to level out. The look on the punters faces when both of you are pushing full force on the yoke and finally the ice breaks off. It's like a Mexican wave when it broke free, from the -0.5G dive.
It was imperative to do this before the stick shaker activated as it shook the whole airframe, and even more importantly to beat the stick pusher that would have put you into a -1.5G dive.
And it was an ice magnet too. Not unusual to pull up at Esperance and hear banging noises from underneath you. When you got out it was all the tens-of-kilos of ice hitting the ground.
The inlets for the heat exchangers on the packs would ice up and turn the cabin into an uncontrollable oven.
And in flight it was downright scary listening to all that ice hitting the fuselage inches from your head.
At 25,000' it was right in the ice belt.
And what were they thinking of with the manual bleed valves, and the numbering on the dials?
And water methanol. Why not put bigger motors on it? Great performance. For a minute!
50Kg of water meth, 95Kg for the plumbing, enough for four shots and five if you managed it well, two pages of limitations and two recall items that if you screwed up, you died.
Operating into the heart of WA meant 40+ degrees, dirt strips and heavy mining staff.
The water-meth took care of the first one until it ran out.
For dirt strip certification the J31 had the whole tailplane off-set by 1.5 degrees to handle a critical engine failure at V1.....classic piece of engineering.
The miners were standard weights apparently.
The punters who regularly had the window seat usually booked their chiropractic appointments in advance - post flight.
The electrics were an over-complicated disaster, especially coming off the B200. And what was with the bus-tie switch above the skippers head. It always had a brown stain around it as it was never left alone and had to be pushed a dozen times during startup.
And make sure the props were on the locks before you do start, and scare the sh!t out of the punters as you select reverse to get them off the locks. This was particularly good fun with a tail wind
Vne 216 knots - who thought up that one?
Two good points though, the Maxarett anti-lock brakes were the bees-knees.
And the automatic flap 50 on touch down was a nice thought too.
So it was good for one thing - stopping!

My progression from there was to the BAe146...just when l thought it was over!

Best aircraft? Just flew it the other day...777-200F TOGA takeoff empty, l think the space shuttle may have got a run for it's money
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