Originally Posted by
Big Pistons Forever
I don’t understand why they can’t just keep operating the Dash 8 200? Find the lowest time lowest cycle one out there and buy it as a dedicated airplane for this route. This is massively cheaper than extending the runway.
Heck look at the Basler Turbine DC3. 80 year old airframe and still going strong and more than capable on the existing runway
The basler is not the best thing to use as an argument there. Hell it even had to be grandfathered to meet the nascent safety standards of the FAR in 1954. Don’t be fooled by the marketing - it’s only the modifications (ie engines) that are certified to modern aeronautical safety standards not the whole aircraft.
The idea of stocking up on -200s isn’t a bad stop gap measure (if they’re not doing that already ) but it too will have a finite end time, hence this thread.
The TCDS shows -200 and -300 have an underlying certification basis of 1965 - almost 60 years old.
The -400 is 1995.