Farewell F50

[Saintly]

Today 14th of August marks the final day the Alliance F50s operate. QQ3241 just landed back in ADL. VH-FKZ conducted the last Alliance F50 flight. This brings to an end not only Alliance F50 services but a total of35 years of F50 services in Australia.

A sad day - the F50 has been a workhorse in Australian aviation first up with Ansett in the mid 1980s then its subsidiaries Air NSW, Skywest (then bought by VA) and finally Alliance Airlines

What are you memories of this great aircraft?

Cheers.

[Xeptu]

The best 50 seat Aircraft that ever flew. Way ahead of its time when it was built and stayed that way for a few decades. Does anyone know who they have been sold to and where they are going.

[Wizofoz]

Initial command on it with Ansett in 1994. Two wonderful years. All the Captains were young first commands, all the FOs new hires. Belted around rural NSW like we owned the place, a few marriges (and a few divorces!!) due to overnights in Albury and Wagga!
I was actually rostered to fly Ansetts last ever turbo-prop flight, a sku charter to Cooma, but came down sick!
Loverly aircraft and very fond memories.

[Saintly]

The best 50 seat Aircraft that ever flew. Way ahead of its time when it was built and stayed that way for a few decades. Does anyone know who they have been sold to and where they are going.

The F50s were sold to Air Panama. Total price was $4.6 million including equipment/spares etc.

[Saintly]

Initial command on it with Ansett in 1994. Two wonderful years. All the Captains were young first commands, all the FOs new hires. Belted around rural NSW like we owned the place, a few marriges (and a few divorces!!) due to overnights in Albury and Wagga!
I was actually rostered to fly Ansetts last ever turbo-prop flight, a sku charter to Cooma, but came down sick!
Loverly aircraft and very fond memories.

I still think there is a niche for the F50 in Australia still. Could they be converted to fight fires in the summer? We will never know as Alliance sold them all (five F50s in their fleet).

[Xeptu]

I always wanted to see one converted to a flying boat, fire bomber would have been a perfect application

[smiling monkey]

So what's the plan for their drivers? Off to E190 ground school?

[Saintly]

I always wanted to see one converted to a flying boat, fire bomber would have been a perfect application

Would that be even possible?

[Saintly]

So what's the plan for their drivers? Off to E190 ground school?

I assume so or F100

[Saintly]

https://simpleflying.com/alliance-air-fokker-50-sale/

Five Alliance F50s sold for $4.6 million. Includes equipment and spare parts. Air Panama will like that (new owner).

[ampclamp]

I used to work on the Ansett F50s back then. To be perfectly honest, they really were a POS in the early days. Nice to fly in, but they paid a lot of mortgages for maintenance people.

[Saintly]

I used to work on the Ansett F50s back then. To be perfectly honest, they really were a POS in the early days. Nice to fly in, but they paid a lot of mortgages for maintenance people.

Its a wonder why Qantas didn't go down the F50 route. Instead they went down the Dash 8 path, which is fine too.

[Saintly]

I wonder what the routes will be. Long way to go to Panama. I wonder if extra tanks with fuel will be installed in aircraft although the F50 is a fuel truck...can have just over 4,000kg of fuel. It has a pretty good range too (not sure in km)?

[Saintly]

VH-FKZ left ADL earlier today and is not far away from landing in BME. First leg to BME took around 6 hours and 22 minutes. Its the first aircraft to be ferried to Panama. Air Panama bought the 5 Alliance F50s - 3 of them will fly to Panama whilst 2 of them will be broken up for spare parts and transported to Panama.

VH-FKV and VH-FKW will be the other 2 F50s to ferry fly to Panama.

VH-FKO and VH-FKX are the aircraft to be scrapped for spare parts.

Aircraft ferry route will be via Asia, M/E, Europe, North Atlantic, Canada and USA to Panama.

[AerialPerspective]

Its a wonder why Qantas didn't go down the F50 route. Instead they went down the Dash 8 path, which is fine too.

Probably something to do with the history, in that that part of 'Qantas' wasn't Qantas at that point in time, it was TAA/Australian and I believe the subsidiaries that made up link/regional ops were originally fairly independent. I don't think the Dash-8s came along until Qantas took over TN and all of those brands were brought under the same livery (if not AOC), with their original names for a while and finally trading as QantasLink. Didn't AN order their F50s in the late 80s/early 90s?? The 'merger' didn't happen until the early 90s. In fact, about 10-11 days ago was the 30th Anniversary of the handing over of the $400M cheque by QF to the Commonwealth for TN.

That's my understanding anyway, that the Dash 8s came after that, didn't the regionals have a bunch of airframes such as the Jetstream, Shorts and the like??

In any case, always sad to see a long serving and well-liked aeroplane finish its run.

[rog747]

Guess this marks over 63 years history of both the Fokker Friendship and F50 Prop-Jet operations in Australia.

The Fokker F27 Friendship series of twin-engined turboprop aircraft were amongst the most successful post-war western short-haul airliners.
While the HP Herald with only 50 orders had failed to make much headway against the Friendship, the sturdy Hawker Siddeley 748 – which first flew on June 24, 1960 – made substantial inroads into the F.27’s market; and, had it been available earlier, might have had even more success.
Fokker, along with the Dutch government, had the wisdom to enter the Dakota replacement market first and use Dart turboprops on the F27 – a major reason why it was so successful.

The Friendship quickly became popular with airline customers in Australia.
The Dutch firm Fokker had been one of the pioneers of airliner development in the 1920s with the F.VII-3m series, the most famous of which was Kingsford Smith's 'Southern Cross'.
The Production prototype flew in 1957 and was fitted with the Rolls-Royce Dart turboprop engine.
Extensive use was made of British accessories and structural processes, with Rolls-Royce Dart engines, Rotol propellers, Dowty landing gear, Dunlop tyres, Maxaret brakes, Smiths instruments, Napier de-icing, Graviner fire protection and Rumbold seats.

The first Australian order for six F27 aircraft was placed by the Commonwealth on behalf of Trans-Australia Airlines (TAA) in 1956 with deliveries to begin in 1959.
Butler Air Transport, Guinea Airways Air New South Wales Air Queensland East-West MMA MacRobertson-Miller Airlines and Ansett-ANA and -NSW all followed quickly with orders or leases mostly to replace Douglas DC-3 aircraft on country services.
The later F27-500F was an extended version of the 500 series, with 52 seats, developed specifically for Australia, which had smaller front and rear doors.

The first Friendship to arrive in Australia was TAA's VH-TFB 'Abel Tasman' in April 1959.
Sadly, this aircraft crashed in to the sea on approach to Mackay airport in Queensland in June 1960 killing all 29 people on board.
The accident investigation revealed the need for a flight recorder which was already being developed in Australia by Dr David Warren of ARL.
Flight recorders became mandatory for all larger Australian passenger aircraft in 1965, and Australia was the first country to make recorders mandatory.

The F27 aircraft was used extensively on regional routes by TAA, Ansett and some of the larger regional airlines, remaining in use well into the 1980s on some rural Australia routes, where Friendships had continued to be the most widely used airliner for country services around Australia, until when they were mostly replaced with other types including
the new Fokker F50, an updated stretched Friendship with uprated PWC engines, a new hydraulic system, twin wheel nose gear, modern avionics with a glass cockpit, and airstairs.

The last F27 delivered new to Australia was VH-EWZ in AUG 1984 for East West Airlines named City of Port Macquarie.

Fokker, building on success, was naturally very keen to sell the F50 as a replacement for F27s and the first customers were loyal F27 operators, including Ansett who signed the first order for 10 then 15 F50s in February 1985 and then at the 1985 Paris Air Show Ansett made the order up to 22 to include examples for AWAS Ansett Worldwide Aviation Leasing.
Only 10 though were delivered to the airline, with the rest NTU.
F50's went on to fly with ASW Skywest and Flight West Airlines, Virgin Australia Regional Airlines, and finally Alliance.

The Fokker F28 Fellowship is yet another chapter in Australia's long aviation history.

[Capn Bloggs]

Well done Rog, Prune needs a Like button.

[Mumbai Merlin]

The F-27 gave sterling service in Papua New Guinea, with PX

The F-50 followed on with short lived Travel Air PNG

[Global Aviator]

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/2000x1504/d8bb5015_949e_42ac_b3d8_fbe393fadbfe_f08f0d24f1a123779ccc235 cf4861641be1d960e.jpeg
Sent to me a few days ago, on its journey through Indonesia.

[Stationair8]

When Ansett operated the F50, was it flown by both Ansett and Ansett NSW?

[Captain Dart]

Yes. I was MEL based F-27 then did F-50 line training with ANSW due to training constraints. Then the 50 out of MEL before leaving during the Year that Dare Not Speak Its Name. The 'Fifty' was 'Star Wars' compared to the old Friendship! I take my hat off to the ANSW pilots who flew multiple, short sectors. I found it hard work even in the new 50.

[Saintly]

Second F50 (Alliance) on its way to Panama from ADL. One more to go whilst the other 2 will be scrapped for spare parts and sent to Panama.

[ricketyback]

A new F50 being ferried from Holland flew Darwin to Melbourne non-stop! It was about a six hour leg.

[Saintly]

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/2000x1504/d8bb5015_949e_42ac_b3d8_fbe393fadbfe_f08f0d24f1a123779ccc235 cf4861641be1d960e.jpeg
Sent to me a few days ago, on its journey through Indonesia.

Looks good

[Saintly]

When Ansett operated the F50, was it flown by both Ansett and Ansett NSW?

Yep that's right

[Saintly]

A new F50 being ferried from Holland flew Darwin to Melbourne non-stop! It was about a six hour leg.

When was this?

[SOPS]

Yes. I was MEL based F-27 then did F-50 line training with ANSW due to training constraints. Then the 50 out of MEL before leaving during the Year that Dare Not Speak Its Name. The 'Fifty' was 'Star Wars' compared to the old Friendship! I take my hat off to the ANSW pilots who flew multiple, short sectors. I found it hard work even in the new 50.

I joined Ansett in 1986 . It was my life time dream, I wanted to be a Ansett pilot since I was 7.However I digress. I joined on the F27 in ANSW. When we did a DME arrival, we were not allowed to touch any of the steps, I spent hours with graph paper ( no computers in those days) working our decent profiles for each airport to put on the Route Data Cards.

Then I went home to the West on the F28….to find that they ha turned a beautiful well designed and thought out Jet Aircraft into a Space Shuttle to operate. If you were really keen.. every aircraft had its own descent planning profile!

[Capn Bloggs]

I take my hat off to the ANSW pilots who flew multiple, short sectors.
It only took me a couple of months to work out how to do all the loadsheets for the whole day before leaving Sydney! Even then, one-armed paper hanger stuff. Hot, noisy, pressurisation/cabin temp a nightmare but loved the growl as the water meth kicked in.

SOPS, it'd be interesting to find out who came first with x300 DME arrivals (and other NPAs), the West or the East? And I believe the rocket scientists from the East pulled the AOA gauge on the F28 coz the Diesel didn't have one... :}

[Dora-9]

I joined on the F27 in ANSW. When we did a DME arrival, we were not allowed to touch any of the steps

o find that they ha turned a beautiful well designed and thought out Jet Aircraft into a Space Shuttle

And they both wondered why they were forced to accept a centralized flight standards regime (from Melbourne)....

[Saintly]

At least the F50s did find a nice niche with Skywest/VARA and the aircraft served WA and the communities from the mid 1990s right up to 2016.

There's probably still a need for them in Australia even though they don't fly in Australia anynore. Alliance, the last F50 operator, retired them in August 2022.

[ricketyback]

The F50 flew non-stop Darwin to Melbourne in 1988.

[Saintly]

The F50 flew non-stop Darwin to Melbourne in 1988.


Was that with pax or empty? How long distance wise is that? Must of taken a while.

[Capt Fathom]

Was that with pax or empty? How long distance wise is that? Must of taken a while.

See post #23 (1700nm)

[Saintly]

See post #23 (1700nm)

Thats a fair way

[kitchen bench]

Must of No.

Must have Yes.

[ricketyback]

It was a new F50 ferry from Holland - my understanding was the crew comprised 3 pilots and 3 LAME's.