What's the 146 (RJ Family) like to fly?

[BAe 146-100]

Hello,

146 pilots, what is the 146 (RJ Family) like to fly. I have flown on a Aer Lingus 146-300 and I found it to be a very nice aircraft to fly on. Looking forward to your reply's!:p.

Kind Regards
BAe 146-100

[Hotel Mode]

Fly the RJ for BA, its very nice to handle, bit slow, bit underpowered but an absolute peach to land. Flies like a big Cessna 172 only with a more forgiving landing gear. The flight deck is pretty nice on the RJ, good EFIS etc, overhead panel is a bit 1960's. Windows are lovely and big, just wish we didnt cram so many seats in them.

[BAe 146-100]

Hi,

I often see the RJ-100 at MAN and they do seem to have a fairly long take off role compered to other regional jets.

BAe 146-100

[White Knight]

The take off "roll" is longer because it is bigger and heavier than other regional jets, and also carries far more people and freight.
As my old colleague HM points out it's a piece of piss to fly and very easy to return to mother earth.:ok: :ok: :ok:

[BAe 146-100]

Hi,

Thats probably the reason why then;). Thanks for your reply's.

Regards
BAe 146-100

[MarkD]

Any RJX testers on Proon? Did anything improve about the cockpit?

Such a pity Dornier waited until after RJX cancellation to go wallop... t'Baron might have thought twice about scrapping it, especially now that BE are expanding like billyoh!

[timzsta]

Was lucky enough to get a jumpseat ride from FRA to STN on a 146-300 when I was working for Buzz. Crew said it was a nice jet to fly- the roll spoilers made it quite "sporty" in the rolling axis. At low weights it could be a little "unpredictable" I think was the word the Captain used, but handled nicely at higher weights.

The thing was never meant to climb like a 737, and VNE on the was 265 KIAS (usually kept it to 250 KIAS at Buzz) and cruised FL270/280 (non RVSM compliant) at about 0.7.

Wasn't designed for the low cost floggin that Buzz gave them. As one of the dispatchers at Aviance said once "poor thing was only meant to go to Scotland and back". I don't think BAE had 10 sectors a day in mind when they built it. Apparently one made it to Helsinki from STN once when Buzz used to fly to Finland - must have been a bit of a slog!

Miss the whine of the whisper jet around STN though, still see the Flightline ones up at Southend now and then.

[perseus]

I flew the 146 for five years before moving on to Boeings. I have to say it was a fantastic aeroplane, simple to fly, but very reliable. What a joy to have four engines, they may be under powered, but when/if you lose one, it was not a problem. In fact three engined ferries where a none event. Happy days!!!!

[BBK]

Like perseus I flew the 146 before moving onto Boeings. I think it's a much maligned jet considering how successful it was commercially. I flew with a former BAe test pilot who made it quite clear it was designed to operate over sectors of around an hour max. At that time we operated some sectors over two hours so the poor old things were stuggling a tad.

Handling wise it was,as I recall, a delight to fly. Although the undercarriage was definitely forgiving I take issue with anyone who says they can't bounce on landing (ok I was u/t at the time!).
I can't give an engineers' perspective on reliability but to be fair I flown a brand new A320 that threw up as many 'glitches' as the 146 ever did.

BBK

[ITCZ]

My goodness, we definately are NOT in the Dunnunda section here....

"Sporty..." "Fantastic to fly..."

Very pleasing to hear:D

The 146 is almost universally sledged on the Dunnunda sections. Nice to hear some other folk remember it fondly.

"Maximum one hour sector..."
:confused:

Just signed off today after YPDN-YBAS-YPPH in a 146-100, stick time 05h24m. 3h18m of that was 1070nm from Alice Springs to Perth (AU) :ooh: and that was into a mild westerly (-35kts).

Gets a little more interesting when Perth (and the other 'dromes within 200nm) requires an alternate and 100kts hwc forecast!

Perhaps not what the gentlemen at Hatfield intended, but it does the job regularly, and most pax like the accommodation.

We run the various models with seating -100 = 68pax, -200 = 76pax, -300 = 87 pax in a 8 biz/rest econ config.

[Captain Custard]

US Air called it the Swinebat: Looked like a bat and flew like a pig. I concur. The roll channel is the worst: heavy as all @#$%.

It's control laws are completely arse about. Should be Ailerons 1, Pitch 2 rudder 4: 146 has ailerons 10, pitch 1 and rudder 4!

Still, no hydraulic elevators and ailerons to worry about servicing (until you get a pitch oscillation).

If you reckon a hushpuppy is good to fly, have a go on an FK28: you'll cream your jeans. Twinkle rolls at 50ft. Yahoo!

[PAXboy]

I have lost count of how many sectors I have travelled in 146s. Speaking for myself, universally liked as a pax.

This morning, I clocked another sector in (now) BA but formerly the Manx (JE) G-MIMA, coming down from the Isle of Man to Luton. She is a 146-100 and was (as I recall) new out of the box to Manx in December 1987? By chance I landed up being on the second leg of her first revenue rotation and it was champagne all round.

That was when she did IOM / LHR, now to LGW. Happily, there is now enough traffic on the LTN / IOM route to justify her. We used to have the ATP which was fine but the 146 is finer!

I have read all the points about dodgy air intakes and oil smells etc. but those appear to have been dealt with? I don't read about it any more and have never experienced it on MIMA. She looks OK in the BA scheme and after 15 years is going strong.

She get's up and goes, climbs as quickly above the clouds as most others and a nice view from under the high wing. This morning I was in 6F and was staring at Nos 3+4 and it was as quiet as you like. In fact, I wish the engines made more noise - they might have drowned out the sound of the baby inside the cabin. :ugh:

[spagiola]

Minor quibble: G-MIMA is a -200. She replaced Manx's original 146, which was a -100 (G-OJET).

See BAe 146-200s (http://www.smiliner.com/status/200.shtml)

[PAXboy]

Ah, thanks for that. The transition between the two was obviously very smooth!

[RRAAMJET]

And G-OJET was the RAF's original test-bird at Brize (one of two - the other went to DanAir), used for proving flights. They were ZD 695/696. Can't remember the Flight's designation at BZN; used to do trooping runs to Germany, etc. A couple of Royal flts were carried out with them for TQF before ZE 700 and ZE 701 arrived in '86....(and 702 later).

I flew G-MIMA also when it first arrived at Manx - it was not new, can't remember where it came from ( Presidential, maybe? ).

Concur with those who like the aircraft; it's strong as an iron plank, too (some might say climbs like one, also). Bl**dy awful engine reliability early on, though...

I've flown MD-80, L-1011, 727, 747-400, 757, 767, 777 since then, and still put the 146 high-up on the list for handling qualities. Strange, I disagree with the previous poster who said the aircraft has poor control harmonisation.... :suspect:

[sprucegoose]

I....I.....just can't help myself. Oh God.

Roomy flightdeck. Thats good. Roomy cabin. Thats good. All the more space for pumping noxious gasses to the masses.

The -300 was by far the best handling of the lot but you might expect that with the longer fuselage and higher weights. I would assume the same might be true of other types/models of varying sizes.

Engines were resonably relible in my time on the aircraft but the low temps the 502 engines were flat rated to meant tropical operations could be sorely lacking. Nothing like putting on the engine and airframe anti ice at FL240 on a -200 and then having to request lower because the aircraft could hardly handle the bleed load and maintain speed.

I can't say I found the handling in general to be so good. I don't find appealing an aircraft that will climb 2000 feet vertically at the first stage of flap extention unless you start applying nose down trim continuously through the first eight or so degree's of travel. Then again going from 0 to 18 degrees in one fell swoop would probably make any aircraft do the same. I never really understood why they designed it that way. Whats wrong with flap 5 or 10 as a starter just to keep control loads down a bit. But having said that I guess the first 8 degrees was the killer so it might not have made any difference! Likewise on retraction only the opposite direction. I found it rather heavy in pitch compared to the 737 and 727 but thats really an apples and oranges comparison.

Great undercarriage. Yes you can bounce one! Just about needed a second landing clearance....

I can see the point about being designed for one hour sectors and I would never blame the manufacturer for the nail biting that occasionally went on on one of those ASP-PER sectors. That was an operator thingy. I recall once a crew that was flying across that very sector into weather conditions that required holding in PER and KG. The -100's were particularly bad with quite low max take off weights and on this day the skipper had to fly ASP to AYE ( Ayers Rock) to get enough fuel to fly AYE to KG and land again to pick up a bit more fuel so he could then complete the mission to PER. This was not a common occurence but did highlight the range problems encountered when flying a short range aircraft over a reletively long distance.

General mechanical reliabilty was average at best. Mostly small stuff.

The -100 and to a lesser extent the -200 were miserable to fly in windy conditions on approach. Just as it has been said that they fly like a 172 the same can be said in windy conditions. And anyone who can't see a problem with that hasn't flown a 172 in recent years. A 30 tonne airplane shouldn't wabble all over the place like a bowl of snot.

One very redemeing feature was the relatively low ACN. It did allow operations to many airfields where pavement damage would otherwise have been to severe.

Did I mention that you COULD bounce the thing?

The 146 IMHO was a mission specific design that has been operated by many well outside the confines of that mission. I can't say I rank it all that high in my list of aircraft that I really like. And whats more you didn't have to go all the way over to "Dununda" to find that out!

Cheers.

[White Knight]

Well the RJ100 had a "flap trim compensator" which trimmed the aircraft automatically with flap 0-18 and vice versa.
I felt that the controls were nicely harmonised, the aeroplane feels "right". Quiet flightdeck, lot's of space - unlike you poor 737 lot.
Never bounced it either.:cool: :cool: :cool:

[BAe 146-100]

Hello,

Thanks for all your reply's. Very intresting to hear people's diffrent comments about flying the 146. :ok:

Regards
BAe 146-100