Allegheny turboprops :

Allegheny’s first attempt was the Convair 540, a little-known conversion of the good old Convair propeller twins to turbine power around 1960, using Napier Eland engines made in Lincoln, England, The Canadian military also got took a similar variant, but the whole thing was a complete failure. Allegheny converted theirs back to piston power within a couple of years, while back here in Britain Rolls-Royce bought out Napier and ditched the Eland altogether.

Allegheny next turbine step was 10 Fairchild F-27Js, most of which came new at the end of 1965. These were the only turboprops bought new. They didn’t last long either and were sold off after about 5 years. These are the Vistaliners

Allegheny then, around 1965-69, converted a lot of Convair 340s to Allison turbo power as CV 580s. This was a large programme over several years, including some of those original Napier conversions getting turboprops for the second time, and also some from acquisition Lake Central Airlines in 1968, who had conducted their own CV 580 programme. It is curious that the Allegheny programme overlapped what appears to be delivery of the comparable F-27 one; the capital investment must both have been commissioned around the same time. And these are the Vistacruisers.

Next were the Nord 262s, a smaller quite new French-built aircraft with difficult-to-support Turbomeca Bastan engines that also came in 1968 from Lake Central. These didn’t last long either before they were sold off a couple of years later. The N.262 was marketed as a “DC3 replacement”. However, by the time they came along the DC3 had disappeared from the fleets of any airline who could afford new aircraft.

Having got rid of the nuisance types, the Allegheny technical management must have cursed the board of directors who went out and merged Mohawk Airlines in 1972, bringing the Fairchild FH-227 into the fleet. This is just an F-27 variant so we were back to the Vistaliner. However, within a few months the whole quite large fleet had been dumped.

Finally around the mid-1970s a number of the Nord 262s were re-engined with P&W PT6A turboprops, and brought back into service, called the Mohawk 298. They were no better sized than before, of course, and after a couple of years they were gone again.

Now, at the end of 2012, Allegheny, Convair, Fairchild and Nord have all gone from the commercial world. Guess what – Napier, independent now, are still in business under their own name. Nowadays making turbochargers for various large engines, still in their original factory just by the train station in Lincoln.