Not rated on it, but have positioned in it more times than I care to remember - every working day for over a year. My conclusions:
Awful undercarriage that guarantees a hard ride (or maybe the pilots are just all gash, 'cos none of them could land it gently)
Vibrates like a tuning fork unless you balance the props every few days. Particularly bad in rows 4-6.
Fragile. Stuff breaks or falls off regularly. Worst I heard of was a genny that failed after 16 hours on the engine.
Unreliable. Spent half my life covering for tech Q400s. Got called out on every single standby for a year, to cover for a dead Q400.
Badly designed. Any aircraft that needs to go back to the factory for three months "remanufacturing" to fix the structural issues that the launch customer discovered, was never designed properly in the first place. Makes you scared just thinking about it.
Old technology. Props are for boats. (not all may agree with that last one of course!)
On the plus side, it has nice toilets, and.... errr.... no, that's about all that's nice about it. I suppose the EFIS flight deck looks nice - well, until you see a CRJ or a 737 cockpit, that is.
You don't have to fly it to see it for what it is. In that respect, it's a lot like a Skoda (an old one, the new ones are better).
The prosecution rests. Let the defence commence...
