JETSTREAM 25 YEARS
Written: 18 MARCH 2007

18 March 1982 the Jetstream 31 made it's official maiden flight which makes today it's 25th anniversary. The J31 is a development of the Handley Page HP137 which was conceived in the mid-60s as a 12-20 seat business and feeder aircraft.

Even though Handley Page already at the time of the first flight had 160 planes on order in 1967, they filed bankruptcy in 69 and Scottish Aviation took over production. 70 aircraft was manufactured until production ceased in 76. Scottish Aviation had at that point become a part of British Aerospace (now BAe Systems).

In the beginning of the 80s British Aerospace predicted an increase in the demand for 12-19 seat turboprop aircraft. They developed the Jetstream 31 partly because of the developing US regional market. In 81 the deregulation of the american market came into force which opened up new opportunities for the smaller carriers to feed passengers from the smaller airports to the hub airports of the major carriers.

The Turbomecca Astazou engines that were on the old planes were upgraded to Garrett engines which gave an increase in performance. In addition came improvements to the cabin. One of the main advantages of the J31 compared to its competitors is its cabin size, something the customers seemed to prefer. The certification came in June 82 which makes the plane exactly as old as me.

As a matter of fact it was a Inverness based company, Peregrine Air Services, that first got the J31 delivered and started flights in January 83.

During the development of the J31 they predicted the demand of the market to be approximately 200 aircraft. This was met in 88, the same year as the model was upgradetd to the Jetstream 32 (mainly changed the engines which again gave better performance). The production of the J32 ceased in 93. In total 381 aircraft were delivered.

Today 247 of these are in service throughout the world, which is in fact more than 3 years ago. The reason for this is mainly the high fuelprices which draws the airlines towards turboprops.

 

More info on J31/32 here:
Airliners.net

And here:
Wikipedia

The manufacturers website:
BAe Systems