By today's standards it was slow, noisy and thirsty. By the standards at the time it was good. It had a couple of challenges to those used to hydraulics (such as on the DC3), like the pneumatic nosewheel steering and brakes. To taxy smoothly took a bit of anticipation.
If pilots had come from the DC3, its crosswind handling was generally no problem. But for those brought up on more forgiving types and who did not master the proper technique, it could bite quite badly in anything over about 20 knots of crosswind. On an icy runway it got quite exciting at even 15 knots of crosswind.
The instrument and radio layouts on the early ones were awful because every operator had their own ideas about where to plant stuff in the cockpit. Later on Fokker got their act together and came up with a fairly standardized layout, discouraging operators from too many modifications.
In the air it was very stable and very, very manoeuverable. Also very strongly built. More than one was rolled during post-production test flying and one was stall-turned and looped during demonstrations to the military. Some were sold with hard points on the wings but I don't know whether any were ever actually armed, though some that went to military service were fitted with wide rear doors for meat-bombing.
The HS748, which appeared later on the scene, handled better and started out from day one with a much better cockpit, but was not quite as fast for the same fuel flow and never made the sales figures of the Fokker.
All eclipsed of course by the Dash 8 and ATR.
Last edited by Mach E Avelli; 16th Oct 2010 at 11:26.