The Aircraft of British Aerospace and BAE SYSTEMS 1977 - 2017 27The 748 and iTs successor – The aTP
But the Manchester team remained
confident of a market for this size of
aircraft and believed that the ATP
(Advanced Turboprop) could achieve at
least 25% of that.
Matters were then delayed for two
years as the ATP’s go ahead became
inextricably linked to Government launch
aid for the Airbus A320. The BAe Board
was willing to fund the ATP if the
Government provided the A320 funding.
Fortunately Mrs Thatcher’s Government
provided £250m support for the A320 so
1 March 1984 British Aerospace gave the
ATP the go ahead using internal funding.
First flight was scheduled for August 1986,
with deliveries beginning in 1987 but by
now even more competition was on the
horizon, for the Fokker 50 was due to fly
in 1985.
The design
The project team options were clearly
confined by the Board’s decision. Thus the
Advanced Turboprop or ATP had a light
alloy structure based on the 748 putting it
at a weight disadvantage with the ATR’s
composite structure. The ATP could
accommodate 72 rather than its
predecessor’s 44-48 passengers and this
was achieved by lengthening the 748’s
fuselage by 16ft 6in both fore and aft of
the wing. The wing of similar dimensions
to the 748 used a strengthened version of
the wider centre-section of the RAF’s
Andover to move the engines outboard
and reduce cabin noise from the ATP’s
larger propellers. Whereas the 748s flying
controls were retained, unlike the 748 the
ATP had smaller windows though twice
as many per passenger.The reasoning behind the decision to
stretch the aircraft was that BAe could not
afford to build a developed 44-48 seat
aircraft for a cost per seat mile that was
economical. A bigger aircraft would not
cost much more to build, but by
stretching it could charge more and bring
cost per seat down. It can be argued that
the right thing to do would be to drive
down costs to produce what the market
wanted.
As Rolls-Royce was no longer
developing turboprops, BAe chose the N851AW was the
first ATP delivered
to Air Wisconsin in- After ten
years’ service, it was
sold to Westair
Sweden and was
converted to
become an ATP
Freighter.
(Avro Heritage)
BAe ATP logo.
Four of Air Europe’s ATPs. The airline briefly operated a total of 17 ATPs from 1998 until 2001 when it went out of
business. (Avro Heritage)