Peter wrote
but nobody seems to be making big turboprops anyway.
You called Sir?
RobertL18C wrote:
You called Sir?
Production of the Tu-95 stopped in 1993.
The current Dash-8 version and the ATR-72 are still in production. I would count them as “big turboprops”. They sell quite a few of them each year.
How about the A400M, does that qualfy as a BIG turboprop in production?
And, though it has been out of production for even longer, how I miss the Bristol Brittania.
The C130 has been in continuous (batch) production through evolving variants for 60 years.
In militaries around the world, tactical air transport is dominated by turboprops, the only exception being the upcoming KC-390 from Embraer.
In CAT, turboprops seem to be on their way out – not because of technical or aesthetical reasons, but because the growth of loco’s has made it increasingly uneconomic to operate aircraft below 100 PAX with their higher cost per seat.
In militaries around the world, tactical air transport is dominated by turboprops…
Around here, I see more of these than turboprops:
Around here, I see more of these than turboprops:
But that’s strategic transport, and very few airforces can afford (or need) this capabilty. Impressive maneuvre BTW 
…
I thought the argument against turboprops in CAT was also one of speed – if you have a £20,000,000 aircraft flying 4 short haul flights a day, it will lose out economically to one that can fly 5 or 6, even if the operating costs are considerably lower.
aart wrote:
serious increases in solar cell and battery performance
What evidence for this? Batteries are essentially the same as they were in the early 20th century. Solar still cannot exist on it’s own without heavy subsidies and that after 25 years of them. The future is not solar, it’s fusion power. High weight aircraft will never be electric powered.
