Comments on: Qantas’ Canberra Run

By: Anonymous Coward

Anonymous Coward — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 03:57:15 +0000

“I cant see anything about the engines on the wings. Where does it imply that”

It’s the Crikey story at fault, not your post. The message the story seems to put across at a quick glance is that props are unsafe, when really this a problem with the Q400′s undercarriage, not the fact it’s a propeller plane.

Crikey use the undercarriage problem to bitch about props in general (“a stuffy, slow tube crammed with absurdly small seats flying at low speed and low altitudes that maximise turbulence and discomfort”). They’re being deceitful, and unfair to other prop manufacturers who have (I assume) safer undercarriages.

By: Nicholas Gruen

Nicholas Gruen — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 01:43:46 +0000

Robert, I can’t see anything about the engines on the wings. Where does it imply that.

And the view is also much better because the wings are above, rather than below the windows.

By: derrida derider

derrida derider — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 23:44:00 +0000

There’s a reason competitors flying to and from Canberra can’t beat Qantas despite being a lot cheaper on the Sydney and Melbourne runs; Qantas has most of the Departments locked into contracts. In turn Departments agree to those contracts because Qantas has a monoply on most of the places other than Melbourne and Sydney that you’d want to go from Canberra.

By: David Rubie

David Rubie — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 22:26:09 +0000

I’m not a big fan of the Dash 8 – they use the smaller version on the Sydney-Armidale run and occasionally you’ll get one that feels like it’s vibrating to pieces (like the old joke about the plane that was 200,000 parts flying in close formation). If you get really unlucky, you’ll find yourself on one with a shocking hangover, flying into a metric butt-load of turbulence. That’s 90 minutes of eye-rolling discomfort.

Yes, the seats are also kinda small (not an issue for me so much, but you do get the odd XL passenger on there impinging on personal space). I liked the old Fokker Friendships better, although I was only a kid when I went on one and this recollection may be coloured by how exciting plane travel seems to a 10 year old, especially when said Fokker is lining up the red-dirt runway at Inverell.

By: Robert Merkel

Robert Merkel — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 21:07:18 +0000

Nick, whether the Q400 is “second rate” or not, what gives me the screaming willies about that post is that the clear implication is that it has anything to do with the engines on the wings.

There’s nothing whatsoever inherent with turboprops that makes them more vulnerable to a landing gear failure.

Over short hauls like Melbourne-Canberra, the difference in speed between a Q400 and a jet is probably less than the half-hour you mention; the Q400 is a fair bit faster than older turboprops.

The other thing I used to like about flying short-haul in a turboprop was that the view out the window was a lot better than in a jet because they flew at a lower altitude :)