I accumulated around 2500 on the 146 and I have many fond memories of flying her. As as been said already, she is a joy to fly and I recall when I did my type rating course and one of my colleagues who had been flying her for a number of years, said to me that what the 146 lacks in airborne performance, is compensated for by the nice handling characteristics. That was a phrase that I always remembered and thought was very appropriate. Flying it certainly maintained a sharp instrument scan, which stood me in good stead for my next type and was a technique I soon noticed had eroded significantly once flying a modern EFIS machine!
The first stage of flap was 18 degrees, which is rather significant compared to many other commercial aircraft and such a significant deployment of flap in one single motion did result in a noticeable change in attitude and drag. I personally found on departure, that it was often easier to hand fly until the flaps were up, since the rather rudimentary autopilot was at times more a hinderance than a help in managing the speed acceleration during flap retraction.
One thing I fondly remember was being able to outsmart the BAe long range cruise (LRC) published performance figures, as the manufacturer had stipulated a fixed LRC speed, irrespective of decreasing aircraft weight and most computer flight planning systems used this fixed speed for LRC planning calculations. Armed with a copy of the specific range charts from the AFM, along with some accurate thrust management, meant it was possible to fly farther than the computer flight planning system would allow. I recall assuring the ops manager in one company on a couple of empty positioning flights, that we could make it to where we needed to get to but that we would have to ‘divert’ to the intended destination, given that the computer said we could not make it!!
It was a great aircraft for STOL airports and it opened the way for jet operations to airfields that previously had only seen turboprops. It had just as many fans as it had people who loathed it for various reasons!!!!