LDH after DH8B?

[Kent Broadhead]

LDH is part of NSW, and I can't see a government allowing the air link to be broken in this day and age, whether that meant supporting an operator to take a weight penalty or, if forced to, extending the runway.

[Richard H.]

Originally Posted by Damian N

What about a Caribou in Rex livery????

Perhaps they should resurvey the lagoon and Jetstar should aquire a couple of Be-200s?

[Rob R]

Spot on Richard.
Jetstar=Impulse=Oxley=B200's and PA31's, problem solved.

[Jakef]

Interesting thread.... You don't really think of commercial operations which need some good STOL characteristics... I'm sure some of those Caribou's the RAAF has gotten rid of could be converted and easily handle that runway

[Richard H.]

Actually Rob I was being far less subtle than that.
I was referring to the Beriev-200 Altair jet flying-boat, not the far more sensible King Air...

[Kent Broadhead]

Originally Posted by Richard H.

Perhaps they should resurvey the lagoon and Jetstar should aquire a couple of Be-200s?

That'd be so much fun taking off from Rose Bay - I still have vague memories of the Airlines of NSW Shorts doing the LDH run form Rose Bay.

But I reckon a subsidised DHC? run is a million times more likely....

[Hugh Jarse]

Why would Eastern cease operations to Lord Howe, especially when it's such a cash cow for them, Rowan?

The youngest of the -200's would have close to 40,000 hours now, with no sign of giving up. I suspect they have a lot of life (and a lot to contribute) to Eastern's bottom line for quite a few years yet.

Hypothetically ridiculous if you ask me

[Rowan McKeever]

I agree, the DH8 is going really well and has some nice little niches carved out for itself. Honestly, I doubt QLink would cease LDH and I've never thought that they might. That wasn't really my point.

The reason I put this up was to confirm my understanding (and satisfy my curiosity) that there really IS no alternative to the DH8 given the STOL and range requirements. As I originally said there isn't a lot of stuff on the net about performance for the ATR, etc unlike Boeing/Airbus/Embraer. That's all this was about.