I fly the Bombardier Dash 8 Q400. Some of us that work with the airplane refer to it as the MegaWhacker; sometimes with affection, other times with disdain. We called the Q200 my employer used to have the MiniWhacker.

The Q400 is a mixed bag. For a turboprop it has amazing capabilities. The airplane is technologically advanced and surprisingly comfortable. The Q400 sips fuel and helps airline’s bottom line.

My employer has had lots of teething pain on the Q400. We were one of the first operators. We now have one of the largest MegaWhacker fleets and have used and abused the airplanes the most.

The Q400 has been a reliability nightmare. I wasn’t here for the beginning but was told a large percentage of flights returned to field with mechanical problems. Or the airplanes never got going when systems wouldn’t work. Unfortunately, my employer has had to bear too much cost to improve the airplane. They have worked through many system improvements and modifications. The airplane is not yet where it should be, but it has improved considerably.

The Stretched Oddity is Born

The Q400 is the largest airplane in the Dash 8 line. The –100, and Q200 each hold 37 passengers. The –100 is gutless, but the Q200 makes up for that with more powerful engines. The Q300 is a 50 passenger variant which is underpowered like the –100. The Q400 is the only variant currently in production.

Bombardier updated and changed systems in addition to stretching the fuselage. Many of the systems are now automated that used to be controlled by pilots. The airplane has an advanced EFIS flight deck. Though we still have an older caution/warning advisory system and have what amounts to dummy switches that had to carry over to retain a common pilot type rating with other Dash 8s.

The Q400 can carry up to 78 passengers. My employer started out with a 70 passenger configuration, but they have inched upwards and we now seat 76 passengers. The airplane is still reasonably comfortable with 76 screaming victims.

Reliability, Urgh!

The Q400 reliability has improved. Unfortunately, my employer as well as other early adopters had to pay a hefty price to get the airplane where it is now. In essence, some airlines have had to bear some of the development costs which Bombardier and newer customers now enjoy.

The most difficult part of the airplanes past is the inconsistency of the gremlins. It has never been a single system or set of like-systems causing problems. Before my time, my employer had problems with run-away elevator trim and with door seals. Then there was a rash of engine failures and a few instances of engine seal failures filling the cabin with smoke.

During my time we have dealt with persistent powerplant messages. The powerplant message indicates a problem that could lead to engine failure or could be pretty much nothing to worry about. Usually, the powerplant message can be cleared by jiggling electrical wires or cleaning water from canon plugs.

I have had the pleasure of dealing with persistent de-ice boot problems. The dual direction valves that supply positive pressure and vacuum pressure to the boots were gumming up.

The specific problems above were the consistent ones. We have had to deal with other random stuff always cropping up. It’s often a computer freaking out.

The fleet reliability has improved from modifications developed by Bombardier and by various operators. On the pilot side we have learned to coax the airplane through some of its quirks. The Q400 likes to have switches changed at a moderate pace and in a specific order. We have learned to ctrl – alt – delete the airplane to re-assure the computers all is well. We even reset computers and systems sometimes by resetting circuit breakers in specific sequence; under the supervision of maintenance. We have learned that if the computers are having issues when turning the airplane on, to give them a few minutes to wake up.

Flying the Airplane

The Q400 has excellent performance. We can keep pace with turbofan powered airliners below 10,000 feet, though we start to fall behind above that altitude. When the airplane is light, it claws at the sky like a homesick angel.

The Q400 cruises fast. We can push 370 knots but typically cruise around 350 knots. Even at faster cruise speeds the Q400 sips fuel compared to jet counterparts. We commonly burn 2,200 lbs of jet fuel per hour while cruising.

Most turboprops are built for short legs. The Q400 can cram 11,724 lbs of jet fuel into its tanks. At the miserly burn rates 3-hour legs are do-able. We can fly 2-1/2 hour legs with all passenger seats and the cargo pits filled. My employer uses the airplane for city pairs such as Boise, Idaho to Los Angeles and Portland to Las Vegas.

Prior Dash 8 variants had impressive takeoff and landing capability. The Q400 is not as good as its predecessors in the airport environment. Ground role for takeoff and landing is around 3,000 feet. We sometimes take far more runway though, especially in high hot conditions with heavy loads. It is common in Reno during the summer to rotate after a 6,000 foot acceleration role only to have our main landing gear stay on the runway for another 1,000 feet. The airplane is more of an airliner and less of a rough and short landing airplane over other Dash 8s variants.

Most of the flight controls are hydraulically powered, so we do not have a direct feel. Rather, there is an artificial unit providing the control pressures that from a human factor’s perspective is necessary. I have not had issue with the feel as the engineers did a descent job designing it, except for the rudder. The airplane has a powerful rudder but with almost no direct feedback.

The only airliner I have lots of experience with is the Q400. The pilots that used to the fly the Q200 said it handled far better than the Q400. The pilots transitioning from our regional jets say the same thing. I believe the airplane is a little truck-like, but don’t mind the handling.

We use the rudder far more often than other airline pilots, even other turboprop drivers. The Q400 is more rudder consuming than even other turboprops, because of the gobs of engine power. Whenever we make a power change, we have to actively change rudder input in coordination with the power levers. Experienced Q400 pilots will typically not go directly from a lower power setting to a higher one, or the other way either. Rather, we will change the power levers incrementally and then adjust rudder trim before moving the power levers again.

The Q400 has the same issues as other airplane types that have been stretched from earlier variants. We have to be alert to not strike the tail on takeoff or landing. We have an 8 degrees pitch up limit until clear of the ground. On landing we have a 6 degrees pitch up limit in the flare. We have mandatory callouts where the pilot-not-flying has to announce ‘5 degrees’ in the flare and the pilot-flying has to respond ‘correcting’.

The Q400 landing technique is different from most airliners. We cannot pull the power to flight idle in the flare. If we do, we will hit the ground very hard when the airflow over the wing from our 13 foot props is suddenly cut off. Rather, most pilots have developed the technique of pitching up slightly in a flare, usually around 2 to 3 degrees and letting the airplane settle onto to runway. If we float in the flare we will start to very slowly pull the power back. Because of the geometry of the main landing gear, if we pull back abruptly on the controls while in the flare the main wheels will hit the runway hard.

The Q400 is slippery and heavy. We have to plan our descents well in advance to give ourselves time to slow. Even though our flight management software gives us the ability to plan a seamless descent from cruise to landing, most pilots will plan a short level off to bleed off speed to configure for landing. The Q400 isn’t nearly as slippery as jet airliners. But we don’t have speed brakes like the ‘jets’. We can adjust the pitch of the propellers to turn them into giant brakes, but we try to avoid this as it makes it louder in the cabin.

Capabilities

The electronic geeks at my airline have considerable influence. Our Q400s are better equipped and more advanced than most mainline jetliners.

Our Q400s have heads up displays (HUD) for the captain. Someone had to get cute though and call our system a heads up guidance system (HGS) instead. Using our HGS we are able to land the airplane with instrument landing system (ILS) category 3 minimums. Most airliners are limited to category 1 or at best category 2. With category 3 minimums we are able to land at equipped airports with as little as 600 feet visibility. Our decision height on the approach is just 50 feet off the ground. I have not flown a missed approach from a category 3 ILS in the airplane. Those that have said the airplane actually has enough downward inertia that the main landing gear touches the runway briefly during the missed approach.

We get to lower the minimums used for category 1 ILS approaches below what is published at airports that are not equipped with category 3 ILS systems. The HGS allows us to takeoff at some airports with as little as 300 feet visibility. These 300 and 600 foot visibility numbers likely don’t mean much if you haven’t seen just how crappy it is. We often can’t see well enough to taxi in these conditions.

Our tech geeks have equipped our Q400s with required navigation performance (RNP) systems. RNP ties together all navigation resources available and gets the most accurate navigation possible. Our flight management system will tell us how accurate it is at any given point, which is called actual navigation performance (ANP). Within the RNP system, as long as our ANP is better than the minimum required for a specific segment we can use RNP procedures. RNP approaches are really neat. They take advantage of the accuracy of the system to get us to lower minimums and to use alternate courses from the normal air traffic system.

In an ironic twist we have lost our RNP certification. When I first started flying the airplane we were blessed by the FAA to fly RNP approaches. But, we updated the software in our flight management system and are no longer certified. My employer has been working now for several years to get certification back, though I am not sure what is taking so long except to say they are dealing with the FAA. We are still training for and being checked on RNP approaches in the simulator in the meantime.

Our tech geeks still have enough pull after the above two things to get us electronic flight bags (EFB) too. The EFBs are tablet computers. There is one for the captain, one for the first officer, and one mounted in the cabin for the flight attendants. The EFBs give us up-to-date weather reports and forecasts. We are able to communicate with dispatchers, mechanics, and other airplanes with the tablets. Our dispatchers will be able to better track us with information the EFBs send. And will we eventually be able to use the EFBs for our instrument charts rather than having to lug the charts around in binders.

We only have 1/3 of our fleet equipped with EFBs right now. There are some holdups keeping us from moving forward, but I would imagine they will be worked out, eventually. And maybe even before I retire.

It is funny as we often get major airline ‘jet’ pilots commuting on our airplanes. Most usually swing by the flight deck to say high before going to their seats. And most are amazed by the technological complexity of our dirty, nasty little turboprop.

Environment

The blessing and curse of the Q400 is in the type of flying it does. At my employer we fly 2 1/2 hour legs. And we fly 10 minute segments. We fly into small airports where we have to be very careful to keep our airplane on small taxiways, and where we are the biggest plane seen all year. We fly into large international airports where we are the smallest airplane. In each trip and each day is a wide mix of flying.

It is fun and makes for a great deal of work variety to have such a wide mix. We use the abilities of the airplane to the fullest and fly many different types of approaches, into different terrain, and with different weather. It is fun to fly from a small airport with no controllers heading to a large international airport.

My silver lining needs and dark storm cloud though. Because of the many shorter legs we often fly many legs in a day. It is not uncommon to fly 7 or even 8 legs in a long duty day. This is exhausting; especially in the variety of terrain and with flying the hyper-accurate approaches to low minimums in bad weather.

We also don’t get as much flight time in a day as many ‘jet’ airline pilots because of the shorter legs. We have to spend more days at work to accrue our minimum pay.

Passenger Perspective

I hear many differing perspectives from passengers about the Q400. Many, through a lack of understanding of airplanes, see our Q400 and think it to be an old, dirty turboprop. We often hear comments to this effect as well as many making comments about how small our 107 foot long airplane is. Many are nervous to get on the airplane.

But, passengers are usually surprised once they get in. The comfort is on par with large ‘jet’ economy seats. We have an active noise and vibration suppression system. When it works, it makes the cabin quiet and smooth. The airplane has more passenger room than equivalent size jets.

One neat thing we are able to offer for passengers is dual-door en-planning and de-planning. Because of our door configuration we are able to use the front passenger door and one of the rear doors for passengers. So it takes very little time to board 76 passengers. And it usually takes less than 5 minutes for everyone to get off the airplane.

The GigaWhacker

Not sure what to call it just yet, so I’ll just refer to it as the GigaWhacker. But Bombardier is actively studying a stretched variant of the Q400. They are thinking it will seat between 90 to 100 passengers.

The Q400 uses considerably less power than its engines are capable of, so there is room to consider using the same powerplant. One of my bored co-workers did the math and figured they would need to raise the landing gear less than a foot to keep the same tail-clearance angles.

I can’t help but think at least a few airline executives are giddy at what the even larger Dash 8 would mean for the bottom line. Variable costs would likely be close to the Q400, so it would be a profit machine.

If the airplane becomes a reality I feel sorry for flight attendants. Because of our short flights our two flight attendants are constantly busy with the 76 passengers we carry now. It would be that much worse for those same two flight attendants with almost 100 passengers.