Whispperjet
Working on the
The British Aerospace 146 took to the air on its maiden flight 40 years ago this September. Twenty years and 20 days later, the AVRO RJX100 made its first flight. Derek Ferguson recalls his time testing the quiet, diminutive quad-jet
• The prototype AVRO RJX85 in formation with the first production RJX100. The latter had been earmarked for service with British European Airlines, had the programme not been cancelled
Ibecame involved with the British Aerospace (BAe) 146 programme from December 1986 when I joined BAe as an assistant flight development engineer at Hatfield. At the time, 146 design, development, flight test and final assembly were all centred at the Hertfordshire airfield.
Initially, I was involved in data extraction and analysis along with report writing for the 146-300 – the stretched variant that first flew in 1987. In time, I began doing more and more flying and, while there was little in the way of formal training, I was gaining more and more experience sitting on the flight deck in the jump seat. Eventually, I started to conduct my own test flights under the guidance of some very experienced test pilots.
Travelling north
A decision to shift the development flight testing of all British Aerospace civil aircraft to the newly created Flight Test Centre at Woodford was made in 1988. I and many others moved north to the Cheshire airfield the following year. However, production of the 146 (which was marketed as the Whisperjet as it operated so quietly) would continue in Hertfordshire before Hatfield closed in 1994.
Woodford’s primary flight test focus was an improved and advanced variant known as the AVRO RJ. The first second-generation example, G-ISEE (c/n E2208), was the last aircraft to be built at Hatfield and my role involved performance testing the Lycoming (later Honeywell) LF 507. This included a month-long trial in Roswell, New Mexico, to take advantage of the high temperatures and altitudes for hot and high trials. During this portion of the flight test regime, we visited Durango–La Plata County Airport in Colorado as it stands at 6,685ft above sea level.