Are turbo props here to stay?

Found this article this morning about airlines hanging on to turboprops. Can anyone confirm or has heard anything similar?
I'm just curious if SkyWest and Eagle are going to hang on to their turbos a little while longer. I would also like to see if CO is going to utilize any turbos out of EWR.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/story.aspx?guid={6017CD37-6FE9-4ACF-AA62-D81053AF1165%
7D&siteid=rss


Colgan Air has been flying the Q400's out of EWR as Continental Connection since the beginning of February. Guess how I know that?! :p ;)
 
Colgan Air has been flying the Q400's out of EWR as Continental Connection since the beginning of February. Guess how I know that?! :p ;)

Oh I dont know, you probably heard that on the news or from a neighbor or somthing! :sarcasm:
Yea it would make sense to provide turbo prop service for short hops I would say within 500 miles of EWR.
 
Yes.

In fact, if this gig goes away on me, I plan on buying about 1000 of them. Prolly Next Gen ATRs and the new ones from the snowmobile maker.

I'll be rich. My life yacht hopping with my fellow BoD buddies will start at that point. I'll be hailed a visionary, and ya'll will curse working for me.

Although, we will wear shirts, ties, no hats, backpacks for flight bags (Jepps on board, ya'll), and flashy-wheel rollers.

Muhahahaha.....
 
The turboprop: Bringing you 1960s technology today! All hail the mighty sortajet. #1!

Personally, if I'm flying an airplane and it's not capable of dismembering someone at any moment, I feel like somethings missing.
 
Really? I didn't know that--although I've seen them at CMH and had some of their pilots come on board our Q's to check 'em out.
 
The turboprop: Bringing you 1960s technology today! All hail the mighty sortajet. #1!.

Actually some of the TPs have more technology in them than some of the jets. Although it came at the wrong time and got caught between the t-ps and the RJs, the SAAB 2000 had many innovative and technologically advanced features including active anti-noise in the cabin (later retrofitted to the 340s) and the props and engine locations were created from a couple of Cray computers so the airborne and structure borne noise would be at a minimum. SAAB just got caught like Lockheed with its Electra... very advanced but a bit late in the rush to go jet.
 
sure, why not? There a hell of a lot more efficient on short haul routes than RJs.

And if you look at some of the new engine proposals, they are being referred to as 'open rotors' when in the 80s they were referred to as the 'prop fan'. Lockheed modified one of NASA's Gulfstreams with a prop fan and McD0ug also reconfigured an MD-80 with a huge set of counter-rotating 'prop fans'. They referred to it as the UDF for UnDucted Fan.

McDUHB-3.jpg


And the Russians have long worked with propfans. Their new hauler, the AN-70 is a prop fan as well as the A-400 now being prepared for flight test. Lots of good reasons the turboprops or whatever marketing dreams up to call them will be around.
an70_6.jpg


FWIW, note the C-130 tail in the background.
 
TPs are WAY more economical than RJs on some routes. Crazy to fly an RJ from MEM to Tupelo, MS. First off, you'd never get 50 people on it. You'd probably wind up weight restricted a lot of the time since it's a short flight, which wouldn't let you take 50 anyway. We all know economies of scale suck on an RJ, so if you can't get the thing at least 80% full, you're losing money. Tupelo's not exactly a booming town, so odds are you aren't feeding many connections in MEM with that RJ, so you're losing money on the route. Put a TP on the route, and the economies of scale get better.

So, it doesn't make sense to use a CRJ on routes like DTW-LAN, DTW-MBS, or.....oh wait. :)
 
TPs are WAY more economical than RJs on some routes. Crazy to fly an RJ from MEM to Tupelo, MS. First off, you'd never get 50 people on it. You'd probably wind up weight restricted a lot of the time since it's a short flight, which wouldn't let you take 50 anyway. We all know economies of scale suck on an RJ, so if you can't get the thing at least 80% full, you're losing money. Tupelo's not exactly a booming town, so odds are you aren't feeding many connections in MEM with that RJ, so you're losing money on the route. Put a TP on the route, and the economies of scale get better.

So, it doesn't make sense to use a CRJ on routes like DTW-LAN, DTW-MBS, or.....oh wait. :)

Would you believe red tail mainline used to run 727's from MBS-DTW and they still run -9's and Airbii from FNT-DTW-EWR?

We took a 727 from MBS-DTW on red tail when I was a kid (say 13 years ago), then a 757 from DTW-SFO.
 
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