Stretching the stretches

When small 75 to 100-seat regional jets first appeared, many predicted the end of the line for larger turboprops. Wrong, there has been room for both, with several more regional jets on the way, while large turboprops are firmly on the drawing board.

Jets and turboprops compete on a range of different sector lengths, with Virgin Blue’s E‑Jets on short routes and Qantas Q400s on traditional jet routes. It was ever thus as the first F28 jet briefly operated the 40 minute Sydney-Dubbo sector, while stretched F27-500s with centre section long range fuel cells did Sydney-Norfolk Island in four hours and Sydney-Alice Springs in six until replaced by longer legged F28s.