Regional Jet that never made it?
Join Date: Aug 1999
Location: Hyeres, France
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vfw 614
Touraine Air Transport was actually based in Tours, in France, not Germany. It eventually evolved into TAT with Air France taking a reasonable size stake in the business, before ending up as one of BA's and then Swissair's doomed attempts at cracking the French market.
Got my first flying job with them on B99's in the early 70's and in 1976 they actually opened a Gatwick > Tours > Poitiers route which sadly folded after a couple of years. Was always interesting to see the passengers' reactions when they went to the gate and saw our tiny 8 seater parked on stand between two DC10's....
I left just before the VFW 614's arrived, but a couple of years later I had to return to Tours to sign the documents to rent my flat there to an English guy who said he'd been sent by Rolls Royce to ' hang around ' just in case the sh*t hit the fan when the 614's were pulled from line service after no more than a couple of years and someone in TAT might want to point to the engines as a contributory cause. Even today I'm not too sure what the problems were that caused them to be grounded so soon.
Friends who stayed on in TAT and flew them later told me that the machine was a bit of dog - quite unstable and very slippery on approach. AoA of the engines, perhaps ?
The last 614's I saw were a couple stored at the airfield at Colmar ( not too sure when, but maybe 10 or 12 years ago ) which were presumably the Air Alsace machines. Not too sure what eventually happened to the TAT machines....Did anyone else take them off TAT and put them into service somewhere else ?
Got my first flying job with them on B99's in the early 70's and in 1976 they actually opened a Gatwick > Tours > Poitiers route which sadly folded after a couple of years. Was always interesting to see the passengers' reactions when they went to the gate and saw our tiny 8 seater parked on stand between two DC10's....
I left just before the VFW 614's arrived, but a couple of years later I had to return to Tours to sign the documents to rent my flat there to an English guy who said he'd been sent by Rolls Royce to ' hang around ' just in case the sh*t hit the fan when the 614's were pulled from line service after no more than a couple of years and someone in TAT might want to point to the engines as a contributory cause. Even today I'm not too sure what the problems were that caused them to be grounded so soon.
Friends who stayed on in TAT and flew them later told me that the machine was a bit of dog - quite unstable and very slippery on approach. AoA of the engines, perhaps ?
The last 614's I saw were a couple stored at the airfield at Colmar ( not too sure when, but maybe 10 or 12 years ago ) which were presumably the Air Alsace machines. Not too sure what eventually happened to the TAT machines....Did anyone else take them off TAT and put them into service somewhere else ?
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: NZWN New Zealand
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No dispute that the 328 Jet is ugly but it can operate from 4,000ft runways and 10 PCN strength. Stupid thing is they were almost always used from much longer runways and never cut free in their real forte.
Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: Birmingham, England (sometimes)
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I, for one, kept hoping the 728 would be revived, I was working for FaiDor at OP when it all went 'wrong'.
There were lots of unresolved issues with the prototype, I believe the management were trying to get something out of the door before the finances finally killed it in the hope of persuading the Bayern government to stump up more cash. Didn't work in the end, they still owe me a couple of grand ! It's the only time I got the order of the DCM - at four o'clock on Friday.
I saw the 614 at Bremen last year, one of the others was used by DLR to do the flight control testing for the 728 system - did someone already say that?
I must up the medication (from an 8yo to a 12yo).
VnV...
There were lots of unresolved issues with the prototype, I believe the management were trying to get something out of the door before the finances finally killed it in the hope of persuading the Bayern government to stump up more cash. Didn't work in the end, they still owe me a couple of grand ! It's the only time I got the order of the DCM - at four o'clock on Friday.
I saw the 614 at Bremen last year, one of the others was used by DLR to do the flight control testing for the 728 system - did someone already say that?
I must up the medication (from an 8yo to a 12yo).
VnV...
