"I didn't [fill-in-the-blank] to one day fly a tailless Airbus, a retread Douglas jet, a jet made by a prop company or for [redacted] fly a real prop at Delta Air Lines!?!?!?"

I think that's how an email or two will go to the negotiating committee.

Although wasn't that kind of the goal of Airbus with Embraer? Try to keep Embraer from encroaching in on larger aircraft territory than the E-190 and instead get them to saddle up with ATR and build that 100 seat prop under a consortium led by Airbus. The Airbus E-205/ATR. Made that name up. Can you tell?

 

But do they get STPS?

I do. Actually, I just have shiny scope syndrome.

And I don't even really care if its shiny.

 

Under Bids/Initial Bids/PBS Reserve Golden Day Bids

 

A prop? Gawd no. Ew.

No, we should never fly a prop. But a next-gen geared external whisper fan...

Besides a quick wiki says the C-130 can hold 92 pax in what I'm sure is a cattle car config. Spread it out with modern exit row requirements and whatnot plus install a first class and some galleys, etc and its probably close enough to 76. We wouldn't outsource a Herc, would we?



Then again.....



and........

 

Ahh...the DC 9-10, the "Original RJ's". I flew it, loved it! Much more fun than the Mad Dog ever was!

Now, tell me again why we let those routes (flown by newer versions of the same thing) get contracted out to someone else?

Raise you hand if you voted Yes to that...then slap yourself across the face with the raised hand.

 

Stock split and CEO calling it quits at Alaska.

 

Much Thanks!

 

Actually the ATR-72-212 burned about half the fuel of the CRJ200 (1,600PPH v/s 3,200) and also came with active noise reduction. The CRJ earned it back at altitude where it would routinely scoot along at .80 to .82 in the the days when time was considered more important than efficiency. So, for a 1/3 increase in speed you got a smaller airplane burning twice the fuel. The Dash 8 Q 400 is really a different animal. A lot more power and a lot more fuel burn.

Inside the ATR, it is an Airbus product. What appear to be the same bins, overhead panels, etc as the A320. Cockpit was also very "Airbus." It is wider than any of its regional jet competition.

On routes within the "400NM ring of death" where ATC commonly assigns flow control into major hubs, the ATR could be the FASTER airplane, since it operated in UN-congested airspace (10,000 to FL180). The ATR had runway data from anywhere and could often take off mid field if ATC needed separation for jets on the same RNAV departure.

ATR sold the airplanes with nice pamphlets explaining it was a thoroughly modern airplane which was much more environmentally friendly, bigger and more comfortable. Delta immediately had these removed (since they pointed out the drawbacks of the CRJ fleet Delta had just committed 11 Billion for)

The ATR-72's draw backs were its lack of power for hot, high, mountainous areas. We had to watch SE drift down numbers to get to Tennessee from Atlanta. You will never see that airplane out west. It's packs used to freeze up and block air flow. The un-intuitive trick was to run them full hot for a couple of minutes during the summer, melt the ice out, then go back cold. While melting, gobs of ice would get blown out into the distribution manifolds. A creative pilot could let the ice build behind their vent until they had a nice snowball, aim across the flight deck and try to score a direct hit on the other guy.

The ATR flew like an MD88 and had a similar number of mechanical idiosyncrasies. It was easy to load the thing aft CG and put it on its tail.

 

Looks like they are making it cheaper for someone to buy......

 

Interesting. And frustrating with the bold part.

I wonder how the -500 series 72 is? I know the -500 series 42 was a nice plane. The Coex guys loved that thing. And what's not to love of about a 6 bladed prop?