Originally Posted by
aeroflight
I have seen some Shorts Skyvan aircraft advertised or described as being version Skyvan "3-300" or "3A-300".
Since the only certified Skyvan versions are 3-100 and 3-200, what is a 3-300? Are they some sort of uncertified modification?
Also, what is a Skyvan "3-400"? Is this a de-militarised 3M-400? Again, this does not appear to be a certified version, how is it allowed to fly?
Shorts had a rather confusing series of "variant" descriptors (also used on the 330 and 360) where a suffix indicated the certification requirements a given aircraft was intended for. From memory, "200" indicated a UK-certificated aircraft, "100" was an FAA-certificated one, etc. Alas, I don't recall which jurisdictions "300" and "400" related to.
This led to situations where, for example, a 360 intended for a US customer could be a Series 300, but a Variant 100. I suspect something similar is what's being described for the Skyvan, and the 100/200/400 refer to the intended certification authority and not the aircraft series.