I fly a lot, and flatter myself that I know more than the average bear about airline operations and such, but I’ve been wondering something that I haven’t found an answer to in my limited efforts. What’s happening with all of the turboprop aircraft that have been replaced with regional jets in the last several years? It used to be that if you were flying into any smaller regional airport, you’d go hub to hub on heavy equipment, and then from the hub into the small airport on a turboprop plane with anywhere from 15 to 50 seats, mostly Brasilia 120s on the Delta- and American- affiliated routes I flew most frequently. Since their introduction in the mid-1990s, 40-70 seat regional jets from Embraer and Canadair have replaced the turboprop craft on almost every route; I don’t think I’ve been on a turboprop in six or seven years now. I don’t miss them – the RJs are quieter, more comfortable, faster – better in nearly every way. But I do wonder where they’ve all ended up. I know Atlantic Southeast Airlines, the Delta subsidiary that operates most of the regional routes out of Atlanta, has a bunch of them in storage, but surely they’re not all mothballed at their former operators? On the other hand, it doesn’t seem like there’s a market for them in the U.S. at least, since even the smallest regional airlines seem to be flying regional jets now. Are they being sold overseas in markets where the runways and infrastructure won’t support the regional jets? Being converted into crop dusters?
Skywest still uses Brasilias on the Santa Barbara to San Jose hop. I’ve taken that trip countless times.
Haj
I know that at least in the case of one airline, American Eagle switched their ATR72 (65-seater) props to their Caribbean (SJU hub) and Bahamas (MIA hub) routes – the smaller islands may not have the infrastructure for the RJs, many of which require runway lengths comparable to those of a small “regular-size” airliner. Plus, of course, there are union contract issues re: jet routes.
What you will also see happen is that the US-domestic routes that are left where a non-RJ market is still viable will be such low-volume routes or into such a small airfield that even the 30+ seaters are overkill, and they will get flown on such equipment as Beech 1900s. Or economics simply means the major-airline subsidiaries stop flying there altogether and you fly “Wings”, as it were (e.g. Ponce, PR).
I never managed to fly anywhere in a turboprop driven plane though I’ve always wanted to. I think they have a certain archaic quality that appeals to me, much like a 1930 Dodge. This is partly because I live in L.A. and, pretty much, have only ever flown to other big cities. On one occasion though, when we flew from Santa Barbara to San Francisco, the plane was originally supposed to be a turboprop model; I was disappointed in the end, when the airline decided to combine two flights into one and put us on a (yawn) 737.
For short range flights within California, it seemed to me that all the routes were entirely taken over by jets very early. Certainly by the time I was in college (late 1970s) and travelling between San Diego and Burbank, the airlines always used jets on that route, and it was the same when travelling between LAX and SFO. I never even saw a single turboprop aircraft at the airport. But when travelling from or through airports in other parts of the country, I would take a stroll through the terminal and always notice at least a couple of turboprops on the tarmac. It seemed that if you were going to fly from Columbus, OH to Detroit, you might well travel on a DC6. But from San Diego to San Jose, you’d go on a jet.
But lately, as I drive through LAX every day on my way to and from the office, I frequently notice turboprops, mainly the twin engine models used by American Eagle.
You’re not missing anything. Turboprops are really loud. You have to shout to make yourself heard over the noise. And they’re typically small, which means that the seats are small and uncomfortable, even moreso than in a normal jet. Really, jets are superior in every way.
I thought it might actually be more fun to look out the window of a turboprop, since it flies much lower than a jet and there’s theoretically more to see. But I suppose it gets old at 15000 feet the same as it does at 38000.
The only one I’ve been one (an ATR72, I think, British Airways-franchise operated) was pretty much identical to being in a small jet. No unbearable noise, same sized seats, same meal, same magazine. The only difference was it was slower (but over 400 miles that hardly matters), and it flew below the clouds so even Scottish October skies provided something to look at.
OK, my t-prop experiences:
DeHavilland Canada DHC-6 (“Twin Otter”)
DHC-8 (“Dash-8”)
ATR-72
SAAB 340 (before any wags say anything, SAAB was FIRST an aviation outfit, THEN made cars, sold the car plant to GM; they make some hot fighters for the Swedish Air Force)
The “Twotter” was the more rough, old-fashioned, barnstorming-style ride. It’s a 19-seater (at best) non-pressurized plane with a single cabin (no segregated cockpit), and boy was I properly tenderized by the time we got from Harrisburg to DC the first time I flew one. You can still find the Twotter on some of the more “back country” routes. Equipped with floats, they do the SJU-STT-STX seaplane-shuttle route these days.
The ATR-72 (a 64-seater) was almost indistinguishable from a ride on a smaller jet except for being slower and lower. (BTW the the key to pain minimization on a prop is to sit well behind or ahead of the propeller disk plane… the cavitation is murderously loud within a few degrees thereof…)
The Dash-8 and Saab 340 (30 seaters) were an intermediate experience. Quite agreeable, actually, if I stayed away from the propeller disk.
One “very special” thing about the smaller props that I do NOT miss is the final approach dive. With the jets you kinda descend on a very flat glideslope with the airplane more or less level, at least relative to the internal frame-of-reference. With the smaller planes, on the contrary, it feels to you like you’re gonna end up eating the threshold markers, or swimming the Delaware. Sure, RJs also dive, but it’s over quicker. And the weather! The one time I flew from Boston to Portland, Maine, on a Saab 340 in a windy March day was the day I committed myself to henceforth DRIVE that distance.
(Interestingly, in my recent flying I haven’t drawn any other RJ for my short hops than the Embraers. Those Brazilians have done their marketing homework with the Jungle Jet!)
Spectre, what you really, really want is to find a way to get a ride on the Real Deal of old-school prop transportation… a DC-3 Dakota. They only haul freight and mail any more out of this town, but they are beautiful visions on final approach.
Ironically, many of the short routes that you wound up flying regular jets in, are probably now downsized to RJs and the regulars are probably complaining about the smaller equipment (unless the high volume still requires 100+ seats a pop…)
I’ve seen prop commuter planes still active with major carriers on feeder routes such as Hartford (BDL) to La Guardia (USelessAirways, Beech 1900) and Baltimore to Philadelphia (again USAir, Dash-8). I’ve seen Delta Connection Dornier-Fairchild t-props doing LEX(ington, KY) to CVG (Cincinatti), a really trivial distance, as late as last summer.
Then again you can take a vacation to Vieques or Culebra islands in Puerto Rico, or to some of the smaller West Indies and your final leg will be on a Norman-Britten Islander, a piston-engined AvGas-powered 10-seater where you climb in through side doors for each row, as in a minivan; or even a Cessna 414. Those are, I’m told, more fun than I want to know about.
American Connection (one of the AA feeder lines) is still using tuboprops on a lot of shorter/small airport routes in the Midwest.
Let’s face it, when you’re flying to a college town of 20,000 people that’s maybe 120 air miles from a major hub, the airlines are probably sorry they got rid of DC-3’s.
Delta Connection/ASA flies ATR-72’s out of Atlanta to little airports around the Southeast. Whenever I’m in one of those, I always think back to the one that crashed in an Indiana cornfield after it got iced while waiting to land at O’Hare or Midway.
Last time I flew out of DFW, I noted that the American Eagle satellite terminal was surrounded by mostly little turboprops rather than RJ’s. Eagle flights out of LAX seems to be more RJ’s than turboprops (greater distances & larger number of passengers in general, I suppose), but if your popping over to Santa Barbara, it’ll likely be via prop.
Aha! The couple of times I’ve flown on turboprops, they invariably put me right next to the wing. Damn, those were unpleasant flights! :mad:
I’ve flown several times on a Brasilia. That used to be all that ASA flew from our airport. The incessant roar made the one hour flight from Atlanta seem like days. Since I’m tall, the painfully tight seating area turned my knee into hamburger. I remember one trip, I sat next to the emergency exit, and it made a sucking sound the whole trip. I had visions of being sucked out of the plane. If I never see another Brasilia it’ll be too soon for me.
I’ve seen the ATR72s taking off and landing from Hartsfield (saw one just yesterday, as I was catching my CRJ flight to White Plains), but even with 100K miles flown in the last 18 months or so I’ve still never been on one. Guess I’m not flying to small enough markets.
Man, you’re not kidding. Add a bowl of hills around the airport, like the old Drake Field in Fayetteville, Arkansas (before they opened the new NW Arkansas Regional), and approaches feel like you’re in a Luftwaffe Stuka over Poland in 1939. And the turbulence over north Texas on DFW-FYV flights had me questioning whether this trip was really necessary more than once.
That was one thing that surprised me in the brief research I did before posting this question; since most of my flights are on either Delta or AirTran, who’re both using the Candadair RJs, I had the impression that the Embraer RJs weren’t doing as well as the CRJs, but it seems that Brasilia has actually sold more of them than Bombardier has CRJs – it’s just that my experience is skewed by the fact that the two major airlines out of my home market aren’t flying them.
A colleague of mine had a chance to take a flight in Delta’s restored Spirit of Delta DC-3 a while back and raved about the experience.
Manchester NH has several of these types of turboprop aircraft there. I used to fly to Washington DC every week, but the direct flight was at a time which didn’t work. I took a turbo prop to LaGuardia from Manchester (MHT) then the shuttle to DC National. I loved those planes. They also use the planes to connect to Newark. There are 3 or 4 small “associate<?>” carriers that feed the big US airlines operating out of MHT with them.
-Butler
(I’m also that wierdo that loves to sit at the end of the runway and watch. A bit of an aviation junkie sickness)