A weekend in the Bro

Nice pics man. The variety of the a/c waiting for takeoff is really neat.

Much bigger, to the point that they're not comparable in most ways. The Bro is a 34 seat turboprop, where even the largest King Air (the 1900D) only seats 19.

Also, who in their right mind would buy a personal airplane with that stupid yoke the -120 and -145's have!? I never got really used to the thing, to tell you the truth. In my mind it's only of the only serious drawbacks to either aircraft.

They look so awkward to me.
 
That's so funny how perceptions can change between person to person. Everyone else I've talked to that has EMB time loves that rams horn. What didn't you like about it specifically? Anything come to mind or was it just akward in general?

-mini

PS
To the OP: Absolutely amazing pictures man. Well done!

Not everybody I know! There were lots of people I worked with that hated it more than me.

The thing is incredibly annoying in a crosswind. I.E. When you're sitting in the right seat and need to drop the left wing, you need to lift your arm up to get the yoke to go to the left. Now imagine having your hands on the handlebars, and to turn to the left being required to lift your entire arm up in the air to drop that left wing. You're basically doing all that lifting with your thumb. If you fly it with two hands all the time (you only do this on takeoff) it's not that bad to deal with, but trying to get that left wing low was always a pain in the butt.

There's also a huge difference between models. In the EMB-145 EP/ER/LR's the airplane flew like a mack truck. The control forces were incredibly heavy and I think those planes were rigged horribly (EMB's fault). The EMB-135 was much closer in size to the original EMB-120 that it was designed off of, and thus the control forces seemed to be more in sync with how the aircraft should fly. The EMB-145XR on other hand, was probably the best hand flying of the bunch. It flew the way, I believe, EMB wanted the thing to fly. Where the -145 in many ways seemed like a -120 with a swept wing and jets, the -145XR seemed to just be put together a heck of a lot better. Control forces were better, higher payload, more fuel, yada yada. Personally, I'd love to hear from somebody flew who the EMB-120 and then the -145 and then the -170 to get their input on how each airplane flies, but there are probably not a ton of people that have flown all three aircraft (though there are a few on here that probably flew the -120 and the -145 at Express).

I don't know how the EMB-170/175/190/195's fly, but I thought the -145 was an absolute hog when you were hand flying it, and I think that's what really made me hate the rams horn yoke. In addition, yeah I just think it's awkward and I don't know who in their right mind thought it was a good idea when they thought it up.
 
The thing is incredibly annoying in a crosswind. I.E. When you're sitting in the right seat and need to drop the left wing, you need to lift your arm up to get the yoke to go to the left.

Wait...I don't get this...

Are you saying you turn the yoke to the RIGHT to lower the left wing? Or do you mean you're lifting your right arm to roll left since you're one-handing it with your right hand?
 
You always keep one hand on the throttle when you're on approach, right?

Left hand on the thrust levers playing the trombone (the EMB-145 is also the most unstable aircraft I've ever flown when it's at Vref+5 (the target speed we flew on approach) and flaps 45 out) and you're using your right hand to fly the plane. So to turn to the left, you need to move the yoke to the left, which means you need to lift the right side of the yoke up to turn to the left.

Make sense?
 
First flight of the day
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Foggy runway
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View of the Golden Gate
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Over the City
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Enjoying Work
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Looking Back
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Crater Lake
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Rush Hour Traffic
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Waiting on MX in Medford, OR
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:drool:
 
Nice pics! I'm pretty sure we've flown together.

The yoke is fine; it's only crap in strong gusty winds on the ground. Then your knees will take a beating.
 
I can only think of three airlines that fly the Bro. SkyWest, Great Lakes, and AMF. Am I missing anyone?

I wonder if they will paint the Bros in FedEx paint on our new routes.


Cool pics!
 
Nice pics! I'm pretty sure we've flown together.

The yoke is fine; it's only crap in strong gusty winds on the ground. Then your knees will take a beating.

You're crap!

When did you guys release the gust lock on the thing? We didn't let it go until we were just about to get on the runway so getting beat up on the ground wasn't much of an issue.
 
At both companies I've flown the bro for, it was one of the very first things you do upon stepping into the plane.

I don't think there's anything specifically prohibiting its use on the ground during taxi, thankfully it is impossible to advance the power levers much beyond flight idle with the gust lock installed. I generally just hold the hold the yoke, though.
 
At both companies I've flown the bro for, it was one of the very first things you do upon stepping into the plane.

I don't think there's anything specifically prohibiting its use on the ground during taxi, thankfully it is impossible to advance the power levers much beyond flight idle with the gust lock installed. I generally just hold the hold the yoke, though.

Ah, gotcha. They fixed that on (most of) the -145's. The gust lock was moved up far enough that you could taxi with the gust lock on, and even on the ones that it wasn't, there was a notch that allowed for it when taxiing on number 2.
 
Ah, gotcha. They fixed that on (most of) the -145's. The gust lock was moved up far enough that you could taxi with the gust lock on, and even on the ones that it wasn't, there was a notch that allowed for it when taxiing on number 2.

On the bro you still have full taxi authority (ground idle - flight idle) with the gust lock installed. You just can't go above flight idle... sounds like it would be pretty much the same in practice.
 
You always keep one hand on the throttle when you're on approach, right?

Left hand on the thrust levers playing the trombone (the EMB-145 is also the most unstable aircraft I've ever flown when it's at Vref+5 (the target speed we flew on approach) and flaps 45 out) and you're using your right hand to fly the plane. So to turn to the left, you need to move the yoke to the left, which means you need to lift the right side of the yoke up to turn to the left.

Make sense?

You need to man handle the yoke during gusty conditions, but that's probably for every jet. And most jets are naturally sluggish at vref+5. I was kind of skeptic of the yoke but I had one approach one day and it was pretty windy and bumpy and there were wind shear advisories by the tower. After manhandling the yoke all the way down I had probably the best approach and landing that I've had to this day. After that day I didn't think twice about the ram horns and liked the natural feel when you just rest your hands like a bike in steady flight.

By the way an ERJ can be landed with only flaps 22 and I did those more than 45 landings but there are some airlines out there that still require crews to land with 45 only, not sure if Xjet is one of them. THAT can make a big difference with the approach.
 
Also, who in their right mind would buy a personal airplane with that stupid yoke the -120 and -145's have!? I never got really used to the thing, to tell you the truth. In my mind it's only of the only serious drawbacks to either aircraft.

You're the first person I've ever heard of not liking the rams horns. In addition of most EMB products having them, a very large chunk of British airplanes have them, such as the Hawker family, and of course the most awesomest airliner ever........

cockpitbaconcorde1.jpg
 
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