BAe 146 - The making of an Airliner

[Chris558]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AYAKH4jOUw

[Kevin Farnell]

Thanks for that, Chris. Most enjoyable.

Note - there are (as far as I can tell), 9 parts to this - all available on YouTube.

Kevin

[Chris Trott]

Very nice! I love the 146 and I wish Airbus hadn't canned the RJX because the Vacuum Cleaner Wonder deserved to live on and had the orders for it. As it is, they cancelled it for a model that sold for what, 5 years and has already had almost half the fleet scrapped or put in storage now just a decade after introduction?

Oh well, at least there's half a chance I'll see one of the aerial tankers one of these days.

[dutchman2]

Was it one of the single aisle A-bugs?

[Chris Trott]

The RJX was cancelled to prevent competition with the Airbus A318. I overstated slightly on the half the fleet being in storage or scrapped, but there were 80 built before Airbus officially ended production, including A318ACJ production, and 11 were scrapped (the entire Frontier Airlines fleet) because no buyer could be found when Frontier removed the fleet due to being a major loss maker for the airline. That makes 20% of the airline fleet (20 of the A318s were "ELITE" or "ACJ" models delivered to delivered to charter or private operators scrapped already after less than a decade of service.

[TobyV]

I posted this in June. If it's of use, I have direct links to each of the 9 parts:

http://cbfsim.co.uk/cbfs_bb/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=28086

[cstorey]

I was always under the impression that the RJX had no connection with Airbus at all, but was exclusively a British Aerospace venture as a development of the 146 . It was not, as far as I know, Airbus which "canned" the venture but the change of heart of B Aerospace which wished to leave the civil market altogether ( including its substantial stake in Airbus ) and concentrate on military projects particularly of an unmanned variety

[TobyV]

The NRA was cancelled to avoid competition with the A319, but not sure about the later RJX. I heard one reason for that was to make room in Woodford for the (at the time foreseen to be more lucrative Nimrod MRA4!) There was a study called RJX in the mid 90s using a 146 fuselage, with a new low wing, conventional tail and I would imagine, CFM56 or V2500 engines, producing something resembling a Bombardier CSeries / Embraer EJET.

NRA:
http://www.flightglobal.com/assets/geta ... emid=15927

RJX (study):
http://smg.photobucket.com/user/CMVH/me ... 3.jpg.html

[TSR2]

As i understood it, BAe canned the RJX as they were at the time, a significant partner in Airbus. Airbus saw the RJX as a threat to the viability of the A318. As Toby rightly points out, there were forces quietly at work in BAe at the time who were keen to move away from civil work. It should be said that there were some significant supporters of the civil aircraft division too. The word is there was much horse trading between Airbus and BAe, with the civil supporters within BAe seeing the civil future as part of airbus, and thus, pissing them off by continuing with RJX wouldnt have been a goid idea. As it happened, 9/11 happened and they had the perfect excuse to can it.