BAE / AVRO 146

[treadigraph]

Three flights on 146s, with Dan-Air to Dublin and back, and on a Belgian registered example back to Heathrow from Brussels. Recall the flap noise on the Brussels trip but not Dublin, though that was over 30 years ago! Do recall walking somewhere in Greenwich one evening when a 146 went overhead inbound Heathrow, startling my companions with the flap noise!

[JENKINS]

Glad to note that Debonair is not forgotten amongst the respondents. During one of my 146 interviews, ground school wizard asked me to discuss high-speed flight. Response that such was not relevant on 146 somewhat discombombulated the individual. Next question on anhedral of 146 wing elicited response that two engines underneath each wing caused the downward slope of the wings. Chief Pilot, aware of my pedigree, smiled benignly and the job was mine.

Didn't last long enough, but a Barbie-jet swap was too good to miss.

[chevvron]

Don't forget it was the only 'jet' which could operate in/out of Berne, Dan Air using it to replace their '748s on that route ex Gatwick.

[BDAttitude]

Originally Posted by India Four Two

I remember the weird noise when the flaps went down, both when on the ground and in the cabin. When traveling on Air BC (now Jazz) 146s, the cabin crew would make an announcement about the flap noise, just so it didn't scare the passengers!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNZ92B7QsOA

Explanation here: Bae 146 / Avro RJ banshee flap extension noise

Miss that sound. Sent me to bed every second night. Last flight in from Zurich short of 2300 just before night break.

[possel]

Originally Posted by chevvron

It was originally designed by the De Havilland part of Hawker Siddely ie nothing to do with BAE originally.
I recall that there wan't enough interest in it when first proposed in the '60s so it was put on the back burner until Wedgie Benn (the bloke who gave government money to build the DeLorean car in Northern Ireland) 'discovered' it and pushed for its development.

Well it was designed at Hatfield but de Havilland had long become Hawker Siddeley by then. And actually Wedgie Benn was the person who refused govt subsidy for it in 1974, when it was then shelved for a few years.

Originally Posted by Allan Lupton

We had quite a bit of interest in it in 1972/3, but that was a period of high inflation. Our potential customers wanted a fixed-forward price to remove the uncertainty but we were unable to offer such a price as too much was unknown.
We re-launched at about the time that the industry was nationalised to become BAe (1976) and it still carried its de Havilland type number . . .

Yes Allan, the type number was in a DH series (as in 106, 121, 125) but it was never the DH146, was it? Always the HS146 from the start. NB I worked with you in 1973-75!
Matthew

[Fly.Buy]

Thanks so much everyone for your contributions and replies, all very interesting. Some of you have made comments to the 'forgiving' hard landings. Reminds me of one such landing at LCY London City, (see link below). In all fairness I think that there was an element of cross wind involved in this one? Needless to say just goes to show how robust the aircraft was!

You Tube

Thanks again everyone. Please do continue if you have more memories to share.

[longer ron]

Originally Posted by PDR1

We had a couple as company coms aircraft, and they were great. I guess I must have had over a hundred flights as a passenger, and they rarely went tech in my experience (certainly far less so than the ATP
PDR

Yes I spent a year 'commuting' on the company a/c between Farnborough and 'somewhere in Lancs' - if we were lucky we got the 146,if unlucky we got the ATP (80p) although the ATP was not as bad as the hired in ATR,the only good thing about the ATR was the lovely hosties
The only thing I didn't like about the 146 was the Engine Oil Fume/Smell in the cabin from the APU (as previously posted) .
I also did a couple of 146 trips with Buzz from Stansted to Marseilles/Marignane whilst visiting friends - great little airline and exceptionally nice crews.I had a really nice jump seat ride for the landing at Marignane on one occasion,we were landing to the NW so it was a nice pictureskew approach from over near the Chateau d'if

[WingNut60]

Originally Posted by pilotmike

.... It had a very strong and forgiving undercarriage, so most landings were classed as 'good' by the passengers, even if it was rather plonked on...

That trailing arm arrangement gave a soft landing every time.
A bit like a VW beetle front end.

[Harry Wayfarers]

There's an operator down this way that has an unfortunate habit of putting them off the end of runways, 3 so far, as many accidents as they have aircraft in their fleet

[BlankBox]

Druk used the 146 into PARO....made that trip a number of times....Glorious!!!

[Corrosion]

Spent 11 years with RJ85/100, as aircraft engineer on line maintenance. Then 1,5year more on heavy maintenance with these beasts. Need to say it was good time, not easy but gave loads of experience because this aircraft is not "reset and go"-type of machine. After all it was not that bad aircraft from maintenance point of view, but you need to know it or it will bite you and it is not helping you much when trying to troubleshoot some weird symptom...

Engines were bad at the beginning. I was one of the boroscoping guy on our company and at some point with our total 11 aircraft fleet i was doing inspections after inspection and very often you drop the engine. Later on Honeywell get biggest problems fixed and life was much easier. (better combustion chamber, oil consumtion/oil leaks fixed by changing oil type to better type which didn't cook hot end bearings/seals -> oil problem moved to auxialiary gearbox but this was piece of cake if you compare it to eng change)
They were newer problem free, but ok-ish. Eng change for this aircraft is actually very easy and quick, if you have built ready engine to go in.

Fuel system is very sensitive to icing and FQIS suffers contamination. Lots of work with fuel tanks, at some point our hangar was smelling more kerosene than fuelling company.

Landing gear position indication system/WOW, very bad quality proximity switches with too sensitive system... this was another huge workload before Eldec managed to get those switches to work relatively well. After many years...

One may think it is awful aircraft to maintain, but as said earlier, have a good team of competent guys and it will work.

Still missing those noisy brake fans.

[Herod]

Corrosion: yes to the proximity switches. Spent a couple of days once with the engineers. Aircraft on jacks, retraction test OK, wheeled out, test flight, persistent red light, back in hangar etc.

[Onions]

What flies into London City and has 6 engines? 2 BAE 146's

[renard]

Six years flying the RJ and in general it was a very nice aeroplane to fly.

A smooth ride and responsive to the controls and a flattering undercarriage.

Airstairs were a nice feature.

It could go down very quickly when it had to. On the other side, it did run out of puff in the climb.

What I don’t miss is the air system. Lots of switch changes after take off and before landing. The air conditioning was poor. After a turnaround in Spain in the summer months it would be about 40 minutes after take off before the temperature became bearable. In the winter if the aircraft had been de-iced before you arrived then you could use the APU to power the packs until after landing so the aircraft would be very cold till some time after take off.

[sam dilly]

I was fortunate enough to be invited on a few of the customer acceptance trials with flights to Jersey, from Southend via Hatfield.
After it went into service our company used this airplane for charters with Dan Air from both NCL + LGW.
Later we then used it with BAF, and then BWL as BAF later became.
After BWL closed we then used the 146 for charters as supplied by Titan for quite a few years.
In 2019 we came back to Southend and did a 25 flight programme with Jota on the 146 again.

yes there have been a few challenges along the way, but it has been very rare to have had a customer complaint, even in 2019.
For 2020 we have again about 25 flights booked with Jota.
SAM

[Brookmans Park]

146

I flew it for a couple of years with Debonair. One of our routes was MUC/MGL and a few times in winter with snow and sub zero surface temperature we encountered an inversion during the climb,which led to ice melting on the nosewheel leg and then refreezing. On one occasion I could not get the nosewheel down until I used the alternate procedure
The following day it was decided to ferry it to Exeter with the gear locked down. This took about 2-5 hours and a full tank of fuel. It would fly smoothly at 184 kts but any increase led to buffeting

[Corrosion]

Originally Posted by Corrosion

Spent 11 years with RJ85/100, as aircraft engineer on line maintenance. Then 1,5year more on heavy maintenance with these beasts. Need to say it was good time, not easy but gave loads of experience because this aircraft is not "reset and go"-type of machine. After all it was not that bad aircraft from maintenance point of view, but you need to know it or it will bite you and it is not helping you much when trying to troubleshoot some weird symptom...

Engines were bad at the beginning. I was one of the boroscoping guy on our company and at some point with our total 11 aircraft fleet i was doing inspections after inspection and very often you drop the engine. Later on Honeywell get biggest problems fixed and life was much easier. (better combustion chamber, oil consumtion/oil leaks fixed by changing oil type to better type which didn't cook hot end bearings/seals -> oil problem moved to auxialiary gearbox but this was piece of cake if you compare it to eng change)
They were newer problem free, but ok-ish. Eng change for this aircraft is actually very easy and quick, if you have built ready engine to go in.

Fuel system is very sensitive to icing and FQIS suffers contamination. Lots of work with fuel tanks, at some point our hangar was smelling more kerosene than fuelling company.

Landing gear position indication system/WOW, very bad quality proximity switches wih too sensitive system... this was another huge workload before Eldec managed to get those switches to work relatively well. After many years...

One may think it is awful aircraft to maintain, but as said earlier, have a good team of competent guys and it will work.

Still missing those noisy brake fans.

Didn't mention good things. Roomy and relatively well organized + clean cockpit (compare 737 still on these days, and Douglas), very nice feature is the possibility to enter aircraft via e-bay and floor hatch on cockpit. Electrical bay located under cockpit, roomy enough to work there, nice and "clean". Hydraulic equipments have own compartment between fwd cargo and MLG bay, not most enjoyable place in the earth but at least it is inside of the aircraft and not in dirty wheel well. ECS-bay on the rear, you need to climb there but then you can stand straight when doing work with packs and some valves. Again clean and nice enviroment to work even in winter.
Excellent airstairs, hydraulically operated, these are very good piece of equipment.

Low aircraft, basically all daily items can be done from ground without any ladders or steps, fueling panel on wing l/e... well that is fueling guys problem.

About that floor hatch on cockpit. Good memories from days when get called to aircraft after departure preparations and even after engines running -> get in via E-bay and that hatch. Crawl up in to cabin from that small hatch when all passengers are looking at you if CCM forgets to close curtains on galley.
This hatch is located just after cockpit door, so it is bit dangerous when left open. If you enter cockpit from front entrance door area you need to turn 90 deg before entering narrow corridor to cockpit door area and at that point you may already looking forward to cockpit and miss open hatch on the floor... OUCH! This happens few times, luckily without any serious wounds. I personally got once gate agent to my shoulders when i was doing something with that famous flap computer. It was quite a surprice when two legs drops on you without any warning, not bad, gate agent was young lady. Luckily she didn't hurt seriously, only some scratchs and bruises to legs.

Cockpit C-window can be opened just like a window at home, very simple handle-locking-hinge, made communication between ground-cockpit very good. About this window, compare it to 737 or DC-9/MD-8x extremely complex over engineered sliding window which is REAL PITA to get adjusted air/water tight. Only thing, it is bit too aft.

White "ivory" rocker switches on roof panel, at least on RJ they worked well. On J31 and J41 they have similar swithes but at least on J31 they failed frequently, can't recall is it same switch. Propably not.

Need to say i have had good luck, or is it just a "luck", being connected to these unique british made aircrafts. RJ, J31 and J41. Maybe this explains why i loose some screws from my head...

[RVF750]

Best years of my life spent flying the venerable 146. The Engineer's head popping up behind us, Hosties disappearing, coffee in hand suddenly. Brings back many happy memories.

[Herod]

Jogging memory cells here, Corrosion. I recall one very windy day in Amsterdam. We got the pax off OK, but the wind increased to the degree that we couldn't open the cabin doors. In fact, 747s were being blown sideways on the apron. I needed to get to ops, and that hatch to the bay below the flight deck was the answer. I doubt I'm agile enough now. I last flew the type in July '92. Gosh, is it really over 27 years?

[safetypee]

Where did the 146 come from; internal magazine article. None were realised.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/uwc3ptut3k...0from.pdf?dl=0

A 25 yr review; 40 yrs soon and an ‘electric’ 146 yet to come.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ytx9v77p8s...Ae146.pdf?dl=0

And one of several ideas that did not make it.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9a7jyz9lk4...20NRA.pdf?dl=0