Fokker F27 Friendship/Troopship

[Mossie]

These might be useful, found them when researching the Kingbird.  There were two versions the Mk.1 based on the F.27 and the definitive Mk.2 version based on the Fokker F.50.

It's worth entering Kingbird into the Flight Arcive, there's several articles.  Interested parties included US Army, USMC, Turkey, RAAF, India, Singapore and the Gulf Cooperation Council (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Barhain, Oman, Qatar, UAE)

General Arrangement, found on the Flight Archive
http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1992/1992%20-%201090.html?search=Kingbird


Fokker artists impression


Larger version of the pic from above

[McColm]

I could re-shape my resin JSTARS pod to fit the Airfix model, thanks for the pictures

[rickshaw]

Does anybody have the dimensions of the Erieye pod?

[Captain Canada]

Cool. The F-27 is a beauty...love the new nacelle shape as well. Looks like a double Tucano

[luft46models]

hi guys,

no one seems to have mentioned my overwhelming impressions of the friendship, ear piercing engine noises and a strong smell of kerosene, it was the first plane i ever flew in at about seven.

William in Oz

[McColm]

I've never been that close to one.

[Hobbes]

Yup, it sounds awful at close range. I was visiting the Aviodrome museum a couple of years ago and they were doing taxi runs with the museum's F-27 (which is painted in a very nice 1950s KLM livery). You can get right up to the edge of the apron, so I was standing close by as they started the engines. Fingers in ears!

[AS.12]

hi guys,

no one seems to have mentioned my overwhelming impressions of the friendship, ear piercing engine noises and a strong smell of kerosene, it was the first plane i ever flew in at about seven.

Ah yes, screaming centrifugal compressors!  And props that seemed to fall out of sync just for mischief.

Edit: just did a search and discovered that the Dart compressor turns at 11,000 to 15,000 RPM.  Wowsers!

Not the most conducive environment for sensor operators trying to track a sub; at least on the Alize the screaming Dart was out on the nose.

The Tyne was a much more civilized engine, I was on the Merchantman at Brooklands when they ran-up the engines.  Noisy, but not painful as the Dart could be.  I could see why the Atlantic / Atlantique was said to have a relaxing cabin.

[PR19_Kit]

The later Kingbird proposals were based on the Fokker 50, you can tell by the small windows, the F27s windows are HUGE, a bit like a Viscount's. And if so they had PT-6 engines, so it's not surprising they looked like a Tucano clamped on each wing. 

I have a good story about whining Dart's on Friendships..... 

In the late 70s I used to commute back and forth from EMA to Schiphol every other week trying to clear a huge backlog of work for our customer systems in Holland. I flew by BMA Viscounts originally but after a while they bought a couple of F227s, the Fairchild built versions, which were WILDLY uncomfortable after the Viscounts as the seat pitch was a lot closer and the seat mountings were in the CENTRE of the seat so your feet had to straddle the damn post!

One Monday morning I took my usual seat in an F227, just aft of the wing as it had the most legroom being an emergency exit, and another guy came and sat next to me. We gave each other the usual 'Good mornings' and settled down for the flight. After a while the Capt. started #1 and I could just see the prop blades start to turn with the usual Dart whine. The prop had just about got to the invisible phase, and the whine reached a level of physical pain, when there was a BIG bang from the engine and a whole lot of bits of smoking junk fell on the ground from the engine nacelle! 

My fellow passenger looked a bit sakance and asked 'Do these things usually do that when they start up?' I assured hime that they didn't and this was confirmed by the Capt. who came up on the PA in a very calm and sauve voice saying 'Those of you on the left side of the aeroplane will have  noticed that we have a bit of a problem with the engine on that side. Our cabin crew will escort you all back to the terminal and we'll try and find a more reliable method of getting you all to Amsterdam today!'

When we de-planed we had to walk well clear of some bits of still smoking metal lying on the tarmac undeneath the VERY second-hand looking exhaust port of the port side Dart and after about half an hour they rustled up another aircraft for us.

It was a Viscount!! 

[rickshaw]

IIRC the Dart was described as being rather "agricultural" in its construction.  My own experience with the Friendship was one of my early travelling experience and pretty much as Luft46 described it.  What surprised me I remember was the god-awful "THUMP!" when the undercarriage came up!