If you go to US you see aircraft push themselves back ( DC-9 and MD-80) and I have seen it at Manchester but not for a long long time (Britannia)

I love the thought of an aircraft being able to physically "push" itself back. I think the terminology that you want is "power back" and yes I can recall a number of prop aircraft doing that at Manchester until it was, I believe, deemed to be dangerous.

Eastern used to do it with their Jetstreams at Aberdeen when I last flew out of there in 2006

Power Back
 

S19 Chopper Ops canned due low bookings

Skybus would have been better to go for a bigger fixed wing aircraft - ?

The 50 seater Dash 7 of Brymon was earmarked for the ISC route in 1980 when I handled with them at LHR, but was deemed too big back then when the island airport was still fledgling.
Today with the new longer hard runway they would have been real people movers and possibly even served a London direct service

Is it the helicopter from Penzance that's been cancelled or the one from Land's End instead ?

It's the Skybus helicopter service from Lands End only.

Last summer the Isles of Scilly Skybus helicopter / Island Helicopters operated by Specialist Aviation Services to St Mary's left from Land's End and not Penzance. My understanding was that Penzance heliport would be used for a service to Tresco maybe this year but more likely beginning next year.

So does that mean the helicopter from Land's End to St Mary's has been cancelled ? Or has something changed since last summer ? Or have I got very confused ?

The helicopter service that has been scrapped was operated by Skybus.
The Heliport at Penzance is for a different operator.

Why are they still advertising then as the advert is the helicopter that was operating from LEQ last summer

This week's "Cornishman" is reporting that the I.O.S. Steamship company are scrapping their helicopter service due to low passenger numbers. At the prices they were charging I'm not surprised. They only introduced it to get one up on the proposed rival.

Lands End to St Marys helicopter marketed by Skybus has been cancelled from 2019 season onward. It was a spoiler for the 'other' service.

The other service is the Tresco Estate-sponsored service that will operate from a new heliport currently under construction at Penzance, just metres away from the old heliport. Services will operate to Tresco and St Marys. Service and Penzance heliport open in 2020.

Could just as well have been the acknowledgement of a failed strategy to make the other proposed service to re-think the investment. Apparently this has failed, so there really is no point to continue this service.

ISC bigger a/c?
 

Following on from a discussion on Pprune rotor heads I thought here would be better to share...


I think at the time (1981?) it was thought the DASH 7 could go anywhere where the Twotter could, but St Mary's then, was found to be out of limits - I think there was one test fight with Brymon. Capt Harry Gee iirc. But they were not happy.

Today I think with it's hard longer runway built in 1991 a DASH 7 would be fine, but they are old and almost out of service, and I guess ISC would need upgraded to add security Etc and other needs to operate a 35 - 50 pax aircraft.
These costs and extra personnel would likely be not cost effective, unless some sort of exemption could be allowed for ISC?

Not sure is the smaller DASH 8 -100 or a -300 would be permitted for ISC with it's 600m - ?

Edit
re DASH performance
The Dash 8 design has better cruise performance than the Dash 7, is less expensive to operate, and is much less expensive to maintain, due largely to having only two engines. It is a little noisier than the Dash 7 and cannot match the STOL performance of its earlier DHC forebears, although it is still able to operate from small airports with runways less than 3,000 ft long, compared to the 2,000 ft required by a fully laden Dash 7.


Tyrolean Dash 7's and 8's and Olympic Dash 8 did send theirs to tiny Greek island airports - Paros (old airport 720m) and Kastelorizo (800m) but am sure the DASH 8's were payload limited.

Great video here of DASH 7 ops into old Paros around 1985 (New Paros airport built 2015 with 1400m)

Go in at 7m 00s to see the airport and landing and take off etc of a Tyrolean DASH 7 (full flight) in 1985 at Paros OLD airport
I think Tyrolean operated back to Austria via another Greek island to pick up fuel

Just read that last summer Travel Service (SmartWings) Boeing 737-700 flew in and out at Paros via Preveza !!!
The direct charter flights (Tuesday and Friday), from June 2018 . The Prague-Paros route will be served by a Boeing 737-700 with a capacity for 120 passengers. It will distribute tourists from four Czech travel agencies to the islands of Paros and Naxos.
First flight had 88 pax

The Norwegian STOLPorts served by Wideroe with DHC8-100/200 have a standard minimum runway length of 880m. A few are even shorter. 830m is, IIRC, the shortest.

Sorry off topic but re Paros airport why is it so heavily pixelated on Google earth?

ATR were working on a STOL version of the ATR42-600 largely as a replacement for Dash 8-100/200s for Wideroe, but I don't think the numbers of brand new high-cost aircraft versus keeping older Dash 8s running were fully viable (yet). Even so, an aircraft of that size into ISC will be a definite challenge.

Yes OA fly their 35 seat Dash 8-100 into Kastelorizo 800m (from Rhodes a 25 mins flight) but they are payload restricted down by about 5-10 seats iirc

''New'' Paros only opened a couple of years ago - runway lengthened to 1400m which you can see on GE - albeit highly pixalled

The old national airport is the same location and runway was 700m as seen in the 1985 video

This - and quite a few similar stories - may give you an idea:
BBC News | UK | Greek tragedy for jailed plane-spotters