Used to fly on these puppies a lot out of HPN, we'd get a DC9 occasionally but it was mostly Mesaba and the RJs. F/C seats kinda small, and rows 5 and 6 had sucky overhead bins cause of the overhead wings, but it beat a lot of the alternatives, and I can't say it was any worse than the DC9-30s...

We used to joke about the little "jump jets" we had to fly all the time (our HQ was in MSP, a few of us did a lot of shuttling), til one flight out of there, we flew straight into a flock of birds - mustnt have been a few hundred feet off the ground. Pilot declared emergency, brought it back 'round nice as you please, put 'er back on the ground nary a whimper. Found out later we lost two engines, and I saw one hell of a dent in the nose cone. I heard they had to ship in replacement engines just to ferry it back to MSP for repair.

Right about then, I decided it was a fantastic airplane. Good pilot, too.

Michiflyer - remember there are two pilots up there and in an emergency, the nonflying pilot is really busier than the flying pilot! Good to hear the outcome was safe. I haven't heard about our planes having double engine failures, but she actually flies quite nice on 3. Our FC seats have 37 inches of pitch and are 21 inches wide. The same size as the 757 and larger than the restof the domestic fleet. There are still a few DC9s that serve HPN from DTW, I think 1 a day, the rest are avros and 1 new flight this summer in the CRJ. All ARJs to MSP.

By the way, that dive in that picture is either an optical illusion or something was going nasty wrong on that approach. That isn't normal procedure. We do have our nose pitched down until about 40-50 feet when we start the flare, but not to hat extreme.

AZJ


[This message has been edited by azj (edited 05-10-2002).]

This is an excellent thread. Thanks everybody.

I was suprised by that comment -- I like the F seats on the Avro. (Does F/C mean something different that First Class?).

Here is a related thread:

Test: Which NWA-operated aircraft has the widest seats?

How does the reduced capacity work in the Arvo's? They are meant for 85 people I believe, right? But NW only operates them at 69 seats due to pilot contracts. When they initially ordered the Arvo, did they plan on operating them at the maximum capacity or did they know then they couldn't have maximum number of seats? Won't the Arvo be even more of a money maker if they could fly with more seats?

One interesting thing about the Avro/BAE146 is that they were designed to be configured with 4,5,or 6 seats across. That's why these planes are so roomy with 2-3 seating, but you can find some picutres at airliners.net of Avros configured with 3-3 that looks pretty tight.