44 The Aircraft of British Aerospace and BAE SYSTEMS 1977 - 2017
The Flight Test Programme
The 146 prototype made high-speed taxi
runs and short hops on the evening of 2
September and the next day G-SSSH took
to the air at 11:54 from Hatfield’s runway- It bore the brunt of the test
programme and was joined by two more
aircraft G-SSHH and G-SSCH in January
and April 1982 respectively. The fourth
airframe to fly, G-WISC, was the first
146-200 and it flew on 1 August 1982.
The BAe 146 received its CAA
Certification on 4 February 1983 after a
comparatively short test programme of
1,500 hours flying. It was also the first type
certified to the common European Joint
Airworthiness Requirements. Four months
later, on 20 May the American FAA
awarded a type certificate.
Now the BAe 146-300
British Aerospace showed perspicacity
with the 146 by launching the 100 and
200 series simultaneously and ensuring
that their flight test programmes were
completed within three months of each
other. The expectation at the time of
launch was that the 200 would take just
30% of all sales. Yet when production
ended in 2002 the final breakdown ofseries production was as follows:
● 47 x 146-100 & RJ70 = 12%
● 203 x 146-200 & RJ85 = 52%
● 142 x 146-300 & RJ100 = 36%
So the decision to produce the 200
series early on was obviously the right
one.
The launch of the Fokker 100 in
November 1983 was a potential threat to
the 146 and Swissair’s order for it a fewmonths later seemed proof of that. The
Fokker 100 was a stretched and
thoroughly modernised version of the
twin-engined F-28 Fellowship jetliner
with seating for a maximum of 122 and a
modern EFIS glass flightdeck.
To counter the threat of the Fokker
100, BAe announced details of the
146-300 at Farnborough 1984 and said
that it would be a 8ft 1in stretch of the
146 yet retaining the same performance
as the 200 series. The now privatised
British Aerospace’s challenge was to raise
launch aid from the Government, which
only earlier in the year had had to have its
arm twisted before granting BAe £250m
aid to produce the Airbus A320 wing.
Money was also being spent on other
projects; the ATP (HS 748 replacement)
and on the EAP fighter demonstrator.
Fortuitously, the designers of the
bantamweight 100 series gave it a wing
of almost Herculean capacity for
operation from short, hot and high
airfields. Not only did the same wing lift
the heavier 200 series with ease, but it
could also accommodate the weight of
the even heavier 146-300. In 1984, BAe
referred to the 300 series as a six-abreast
120-seater, yet by the time the prototype BAe 146-300,
temporarily
registered as
G-6-191, flying over
Hatfield in May- It was
delivered to Thai
Airways as HS-TBJ.
Later it flew with
Flybe and Air Libya
but was destroyed
on the ground in
May 2015.
(BAE SYSTEMS)
The first UK
operator of the
146-300 was AirUK.
G-UKID later flew
with Buzz, CityJet
and WDL.
(BAE SYSTEMS)East-West Airlines 146-300 VH-EWI and
146-200QT VH-JJZ, which although it is in TNT
livery was operated by Ansett Air Freight. The
former later flew with Flybe and was then
scrapped while the QT is now with Star Peru.
(BAE Systems)