Information AboutFeederliner |
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In the early days of aviation, aircraft had such short range that all airlines were generally regional in nature. With the introduction of longer range aircraft, notably Flying Boat s, these smaller airlines increasingly turned to feeding these longer range airlines by flying passengers to the developing airports. This role continued to re-enforce itself, and many of these smaller airlines were eventually bought by the larger Flag Carrier s. In order to make these short routes economical, the airlines were generally unwilling to spend large amounts of money on new aircraft. Instead, older aircraft were put into this service when they were replaced by longer-range designs. In the immediate post-war era these were typically DC-3 's, although even the De Havilland Dragon Rapide remained in service for some time. This "hand-me-down" continued, with designs like the Convair 440 , DC-6 and Vickers Viscount serving in this role while the first jets were introduced. By the mid-1950s, demand for more economical designs led to the production of the first custom feederliners. These were almost always Turboprop s, which had fuel economy on par with Piston Engine designs, but had far lower maintenance costs and often the time between engine overhaul periods was five times that of the best piston engines. Early examples of these designs include the Avro 748 , Fokker F27 and Handley Page Dart Herald . These designs were so successful that it was many years before newer designs bettered them enough to make it worthwhile to develop. There were a few exceptions, generally tailored to very specific roles. For instance, the Handley Page Jetstream was intended for smaller number of passengers at much higher speeds, displacing many smaller designs like the Beechcraft Queen Air . The Fairchild/Swearingen Metro filled a similar niche, being developed from the original Queen Air through a number of stages. By the 1970s the first generation feederliners were starting to wear out, and a massive replacement program started. De Havilland Canada started this process with the introduction of the Dash 7 , but this was tailored more to the short-range STOL role than feederliners. They were considerably more successful with their Dash 8 , which had clear economic benefits over the earlier generation machines, and was generally faster and quieter as well. This sparked off the development of a number of similar designs, including the ATR 42 , Saab 340 and Fokker F50 . With all this competition, the market quickly saturated and most of the lines shut down. Another reason for the dowturn in the turboprop market was the introduction of the first regional jets. Certainly the first real example is the BAe 146 , but as this aircraft mounted four engines, it could not compete on maintenance cost grounds. This was addressed with the twin-engine Canadair Regional Jet , which became a runaway best-seller and spawned the similar Embraer ERJ 145 . These designs had the speed and range needed to compete with much larger designs like the Boeing 737 , yet were smaller and more economical, allowing them to serve any low-capacity route. Soon they were being used in the feederliner role, although not as economical as the turboprop, they could fill both this role and the medium-range airliner role, and were generally better liked by the passengers. Today the feederliner market is dominated by the regional jets. Saab attempted to make a turboprop comback with the Saab 2000 , but shut the line down after only 54 examples. De Havilland Canada is currently offering a major upgrade to the Dash 8 design as the Q400, and seems to be having somewhat more success. The timing may prove excellent; with the tripling of oil prices in 2005, the economics of the regional jet are no longer competitive at all, and may suggest that many regional jet orders will be replaced with orders for the Q400 instead. Both the Saab 2000 and Q400 also address passenger concerns through the use of active noise canceling devices, which they claim reduces cabin noise to a level ''comparable'' to a regional jet, although precise terms are never stated. |
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