Originally Posted by
Corrosion
Spent 11 years with RJ85/100, as aircraft engineer on line maintenance. Then 1,5year more on heavy maintenance with these beasts. Need to say it was good time, not easy but gave loads of experience because this aircraft is not "reset and go"-type of machine. After all it was not that bad aircraft from maintenance point of view, but you need to know it or it will bite you and it is not helping you much when trying to troubleshoot some weird symptom...
Engines were bad at the beginning. I was one of the boroscoping guy on our company and at some point with our total 11 aircraft fleet i was doing inspections after inspection and very often you drop the engine. Later on Honeywell get biggest problems fixed and life was much easier. (better combustion chamber, oil consumtion/oil leaks fixed by changing oil type to better type which didn't cook hot end bearings/seals -> oil problem moved to auxialiary gearbox but this was piece of cake if you compare it to eng change)
They were newer problem free, but ok-ish. Eng change for this aircraft is actually very easy and quick, if you have built ready engine to go in.
Fuel system is very sensitive to icing and FQIS suffers contamination. Lots of work with fuel tanks, at some point our hangar was smelling more kerosene than fuelling company.
Landing gear position indication system/WOW, very bad quality proximity switches wih too sensitive system... this was another huge workload before Eldec managed to get those switches to work relatively well. After many years...
One may think it is awful aircraft to maintain, but as said earlier, have a good team of competent guys and it will work.
Still missing those noisy brake fans.
Didn't mention good things. Roomy and relatively well organized + clean cockpit (compare 737 still on these days, and Douglas), very nice feature is the possibility to enter aircraft via e-bay and floor hatch on cockpit. Electrical bay located under cockpit, roomy enough to work there, nice and "clean". Hydraulic equipments have own compartment between fwd cargo and MLG bay, not most enjoyable place in the earth but at least it is inside of the aircraft and not in dirty wheel well. ECS-bay on the rear, you need to climb there but then you can stand straight when doing work with packs and some valves. Again clean and nice enviroment to work even in winter.
Excellent airstairs, hydraulically operated, these are very good piece of equipment.
Low aircraft, basically all daily items can be done from ground without any ladders or steps, fueling panel on wing l/e... well that is fueling guys problem.
About that floor hatch on cockpit. Good memories from days when get called to aircraft after departure preparations and even after engines running -> get in via E-bay and that hatch. Crawl up in to cabin from that small hatch when all passengers are looking at you if CCM forgets to close curtains on galley.
This hatch is located just after cockpit door, so it is bit dangerous when left open. If you enter cockpit from front entrance door area you need to turn 90 deg before entering narrow corridor to cockpit door area and at that point you may already looking forward to cockpit and miss open hatch on the floor... OUCH! This happens few times, luckily without any serious wounds. I personally got once gate agent to my shoulders when i was doing something with that famous flap computer. It was quite a surprice when two legs drops on you without any warning, not bad, gate agent was young lady. Luckily she didn't hurt seriously, only some scratchs and bruises to legs.
Cockpit C-window can be opened just like a window at home, very simple handle-locking-hinge, made communication between ground-cockpit very good. About this window, compare it to 737 or DC-9/MD-8x extremely complex over engineered sliding window which is REAL PITA to get adjusted air/water tight. Only thing, it is bit too aft.
White "ivory" rocker switches on roof panel, at least on RJ they worked well. On J31 and J41 they have similar swithes but at least on J31 they failed frequently, can't recall is it same switch. Propably not.
Need to say i have had good luck, or is it just a "luck", being connected to these unique british made aircrafts. RJ, J31 and J41. Maybe this explains why i loose some screws from my head...
