BAe 146 - more engines!

hello aviation fans we have come a long way through the history and mother lines of many aviation programs large and small meanwhile getting acquainted with all these machines you can see that behind each of them there is some kind of strategy a certain technical task and plan the implementation of which should make the plane and its manufacturer successful at the sight of our today's hero the question immediately arises what kind of plan could make the Aviators realize such a strange project let's get acquainted with an unusual and very interesting aircraft that has become a very successful milestone and the end of the era of the epic aviation industry of the misty Albion [Music] [Applause] British Aerospace 146 or the BAE 146 in the second generation also known as the Avro RJ is original passenger jet airliner created in the early 1980s and manufactured mainly by the British Aerospace Corporation the aircraft was produced in several versions past the change of generations and was delivered in the amount of 387 units not bad for a four engine high wing regional airliner a four engine regional jet why let's find out the history of this project which later received an index 146 began in the glorious 1970s at that time British aviation companies were considering various ways of further development in an increasingly fierce competition beside the pressure from the American companies now there was also the united european airbus so no one was planning to create something big and any fantasies were being stopped by the memories of failure of the vickers vc10 project therefore aviators looked into the market of regional transportation by airplanes of small capacity neither boeing no douglas no airbus claimed this market which is already a good sign there were mostly outdated aircraft more than a thousand turboprop that needed to be replaced hawker siddeley were the most active here they had already been working on this topic for a long time besides one of these aging turboprops was the HS 748 which was in fact created by them and required replacement the experience of failures in previous british aviation programs showed that these failures were caused not as much by technical problems as by an unsuccessful strategy their planes going after the leadership in the world in practice could not handle the competition it was simply wrong marketing so this time they decided to study the market and industry in order to understand what claim is needed to understand very clearly a VA ders conducted large-scale studies interviewing more than 60 airlines around the world and learned that an optimal choice would be a 70 seat original plane the seneschal demand for them would reach almost 1500 units by the mid-1980s and their competitors would be the Fokker f28 and in some cases the Boeing 737 and Douglas dc9 but even then from the secondary market and with a lot of reservations the second condition was a jet power plant turboprops could no longer be justified but this was also a problem because the turboprops despite their shortcomings provided excellent takeoff and landing performance that needed to be preserved many potential customers were in Africa Asia and South America and their airfields were not the best in the world plus the plane from the get-go had to have the potential of turning into a freighter it would expand the demand another condition was the maximum optimization of operations regarding both the passengers and cargo as well as maintenance these were the reasons why when designing an airplane they almost immediately abandoned the seemingly obvious low wing layout with engines in the tail in favor of the not so obvious high wing layout with engines under the wing the fact is that the classic design assumed that passengers would enter an exit mainly through a door in the front of the fuselage and this slowed down the process there was no second door in the back the engines were there in addition the aircraft was assumed to have a cargo option and with engines in the tail it would be difficult to develop although as we know it is possible plus the high wing layout could give better takeoff and landing performance which is important for customers another advantage engines suspended under the wing are good for the maintenance they are high enough not to be afraid of foreign debris and low enough to be easily accessed there it is in front of you thus the HS 146 project became a high wing detail jet airliner the next obvious question is why for a jet engine is a complex heavy structure that requires attention and maintenance the installation of more powerful engines is more optimal than increasing their number and of course the fuel consumption can be decreased this is one of the reasons why for engine airliners are going extinct in our time so what's the deal here the aircraft through Seve the promising Evaro lycoming 502 engine easy to maintain economical and quiet the problem was in its thrust 31 kilonewtons to would not be enough it was possible to build a tried yet but such a scheme would complicate the structure and this was critical it was estimated that the advantages of engines would compensate their number they were very easy to maintain due to the lower load the resource would be high and the thrust to weight ratio is high too which is good for an airplane with a bunch of special requirements does that sound convincing well at that time there were no sufficiently promising engines and there was no money for modification and especially the creation of something just for this aircraft as a result they came to a logical conclusion let there be four of them under the wing with such an unusual but interesting package Hawker Siddeley came to the UK government they did not have enough money for full implementation and the practice of state support in the United Kingdom was quite classic they were not disappointed the government agreed to provide 50% of the funding for further work but it didn't go well for long in 1973 the oil crisis began fuel prices jumped almost four times in a short period and the four engine scheme rebelled against its owner in 1974 the HS 146 project was about to be shut down it was an epic battle between many structures with opposing positions some were saying that because of the high consumption of expensive fuel no one would need such a plane and it would never pay back the expenses that were only growing others defended its fading net with its performance it had no direct competitors and would be in demand in addition it was a matter of national pride Great Britain a great aviation power at that moment had only one completely its own airplane project to close it now and to ruin the already barely living Hawker Siddeley as a result the project was officially frozen but the work was continued within the walls of the company with limited support from authorities but it didn't help the hawkers on the verge of collapse in 1978 they were next analyze and became a part of British airspace which resumes the project naming it BAE 146 the new cooperation vividly presented the advantages of the aircraft design excellent flight performance environmental friendliness and silence even then the world paid attention to the excessive noise of airplanes and the four engine scheme allowed to maintain minimum thrust making flights quieter an excellent replacement for the roaring turbo props finally things started going well and the airline is realizing that the plane will be released began ordering it the Assembly of prototypes started at the Hatfield plant north of London the form of de havilland site finally in September 1981 the first prototype made its maiden flight and soon through more aircraft joined it tests and certification began the flight performance of the aircraft was impressive and the noise level in all modes was minimal of which British airspace did not forget to remind they planned to sell more than 300 planes while stating that 250 units would be enough to fully pay off the expenses the BAE 146 certification was completed in the early 1983 well since you've already met the plane it's time to look at it closer according to the general scheme BAE 146 is an aircraft with a high located low smooth wing four engines suspended on pylons and a t-tail a classic scheme for cargo planes but it was also fitting here the plane and all of its elements were created on the balance of maximum simplicity of design the best flight performance and economy everything excessive was discarded in addition the aircraft was created taking into account the mass production elements we ordered the existing parts and other things this allowed the operators to reduce maintenance costs in terms of simplifying the design engineers were actively working with the wing assembled from a minimum number of parts fortunately the experience of creating the Airbus a300 wings turned out to be useful mechanization took some balancing to the low sweep wing was equipped with quite large Fowler flaps throughout almost the entire length of the trailing edge and remaining space was occupied by eller ons plus the interceptors this was enough to ensure controllability and low minimum speeds enough the aircraft was not equipped with slats one hefty mechanism less the tail of the aircraft is quite classic t-shaped without any complicated bonuses except for one which I will talk about a little later the ideology of building a landing gear for a jet aircraft of the scheme is classic three legs the main gear is hidden inside the fairing at the bottom of the fuselage all legs were equipped with two-wheeled bogies quite simple and durable and also with carbon brakes a fashionable bonus at the concourse they showed themselves very well engines ever lycoming al F 502 a classic for our time turbofan with a high bypass ratio for its time very advanced and popular in addition to the BAE 146 they were also applied on the Canadian Challenger Jets the feature of these engines was the ability to reduce the fan rotation speed with a significant reduction in noise level the reduction in thrust was compensated by the number of engines this made the al F 502 on the BAE 146 record quiet the plane turned out to be very handy for airports located close to or inside cities where noise regulation is tight they did not forget about simplifying the design and maintenance the al F 502 was one of the earliest representatives of modular power plants parts of which were easily replaced in addition the engines are not equipped with reverse thrust braking was being performed by interceptors will brakes and another bonus of the aircraft a huge air dynamic brake made up of two vertical flaps also in the tail and auxiliary power unit was being installed optionally as British airspace boasted incredibly lightweight economical and reliable all of this together technically gave the indicators that the British were counting on the basic BAE 146 weighed about 38 tons at a range of more than 3,500 kilometers or 1,900 miles and speeds of about 750 kilometers per hour or 404 knots not very high but not bad for a regional plane especially since it was replacing mainly turboprops flying even slower besides the takeoff and landing performance was good the necessary runway length was less than 1,200 meters of 4,000 feet whereas most of jet airliners required almost twice as much let's look inside the BAE 146 received a cabin 342 centimeters or 11.2 feet wide huge widths wider than the dc9 cabin for example in the mid-range Boeing 737 a plane from another leak has a cabin wider by only 5 inches all this space allowed the operators to play around with seating schemes the usual layout suggested a 3 + 2 scheme as it should be for the originals but sometimes we can't find cabins with 6 seats 3 + 3 an unusual method of compressing the layout the cockpit is designed for two pilots and can probably be considered the most ordinary part of the aircraft standard set of equipment and standard layout it's even somewhat unusual for British airplanes often filled with all the features that can be found in the industry ok let's see what options were offered the very first modification was the BAE 146 - 100 which was the one that took off in 1981 and in 1983 was transferred to the fleet of the domestic Dan air it was a basic board accommodating 70 passengers in a single-class layout and up to 82 maximum and had a range of approximately 3,800 kilometers or 2,000 miles plus on the basis of the 100 several government modifications were created to transport the country's leaders and of course Queen Elizabeth a big fan of aviation the second major option was the BAE 146 - 200 it received a stretched fuselage capacity of up to 100 passengers and increased takeoff mass and a little shorter range - 200 kilometres nothing comes for free it appeared almost immediately the first flight was in 1982 when the basic model was still being certified the largest one was the BAE 146 - 300 the aircraft was announced at the Farnborough air show in 1984 when two of its brothers were already flying the fuselage was stretched again which allowed to increase the capacity to 112 passengers yes in terms of dimensions it was almost like the Airbus a 220 - 100 not such a baby the weight of this one is already 44 tonnes although the range is the smallest in the family approximately 3,300 kilometers or 1,800 miles naturally the freighter potential was not lost all models had the quiet trader QT modifications equipped with large cargo doors on the side of the fuselage behind the wing so Denair garras first plane in 1983 their planes were flying mostly from London to Europe using not the main airports but the less loaded regional ones then the place went to the United States and then to other countries around the world the aircraft was loved by regional carriers its takeoff and landing performance and low noise level allowed the operators to easily adjust routes flying to more airports in 1987 the plane was given permission to fly to the London City Airport for some time it was almost the only commercial jet airliner that could fly there without restrictions the popularity on regional lines was also added by the fact that the aircraft was performing very well on short routes with different traffic densities the reliable and maintainable design coupled with a high resource power plant made it possible to drive the aircraft all day with a large number of flights and the 60 to 70% passenger load provided good profitability but it was necessary to move forward and it was done yes Boeing was not the only one to be developing the next generations in the early 1990s British airspace carried out a large-scale modernisation programme and released technically the second generation of airplanes they were almost completely similar to the basic ones but due to introduction of innovations optimization upgraded engines and avionics with a new glass cockpit they became more efficient in operation names were also changed in 1992 the parent corporation underwent reorganization and the rigid airliners business was transferred into the separate Avro regional jets company which is why the bae is now called Avro RJ so the name BAE 146 - 100 was replaced by Avro RJ cemani - 200 by rj 85 and the model 300 respectively became r.j. 100 the aircraft were in good demand in the 90s despite the seemingly strange layout of a dress produced 166 second generation planes in addition to 221 at the first but even then the pressure was getting too serious at least the Brazilian and Canadian regional jets were pushing hard other aircraft modifications were also planned the heavier RJ 115 the third-generation RJ X and many other versions there was even a plan to create a twin-engine model the airplane is also not leaving the scene of technological progress a few years ago the bae 146 was chosen as a flying lab to test the concept of a hybrid aircraft powerplant the idea of Airbus rolls-royce and Siemens is to replace one of the engines yes when there are four of them at once it is much simpler with an electric motor meanwhile the two megawatt engine will not be working clearly on the battery like a Tesla but will be powered by batteries and a generator in theory all of this called the FM acts should take off soon but this is a flying lab not a classic transport most of the projects did not reach production and Avro limited themselves to upgrading of existing aircraft such work is still relevant the planes continued to fly it didn't go without incidents the planes of this family were participants in 14 disasters with the death of 294 people plus one I'm not sure it can be called a terrorist attack in 1987 on board the Pacific Southwest a fired employee attacked the crew the gun captured the cockpit and threw the plane into a dive the airliner crashed into the ground at a supersonic speed no one on board survived by the beginning of the 21st century it became clear that the era of BAE 146 and Avro RJ is coming to an the aircraft performed very well in the 1980s was quite competitive in the 1990s but the emergence of a new generation of regional jet airliners drove it out of the market demand fell to zero and modernization plans were not realized as a result in 2001 Avro closed the production a total of 387 BAE 146 and Avro RJ airplanes were assembled the figure is not particularly impressive but the program itself was initially not very expensive so it did pay off and can be considered alone odd breakthrough but quite successful in addition despite the obsolescence airlines are not in a hurry to get rid of these airplanes in the beginning of 2020 about 90 aircraft continue to fly around the world successful solutions and short takeoff and landing capabilities are holding the aircraft in the sky another veteran that is leaving the service but remains in our memory well soon we will return to something modern and inspiring and for now subscribe to the channel not to miss this return pass flights and soft landings to you

Channel: Skyships Eng

Views: 770,054

Rating: 4.8883195 out of 5

Keywords: bae 146, bae 146-100, avro rj, british aerospace, hawker siddeley

Id: nHEefch3iqg

Length: 20min 0sec (1200 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 23 2020