Aurigny's old Trislanders sometimes used the grass runways when wind conditions prevented landings on the main tarmac runway. However this is less of an issue with the current Dornier aircraft, which have better cross-wind performance.
Not
quite the version you hear when you wander around the island and chat to former Trislander pilots. They might tell you things like
* the Trislanders could fly (yes, using the grass if necessary) on days when the Dorniers now can't
* actually the Dorniers can land on grass ... it's just that they need an engineering inspection before they're allowed to take off again
* the Dorniers' unimpressive crosswind performance, which leads to so many no-fly days, is made worse by an even lower operating limit from Alderney because of the "narrow" runway
and from the last of these it is not astonishing that when I clicked through to the article I found, as I expected, that this is basically about widening the runway to remove the extra crosswind limitation so as to try to get the Dorniers dispatch rate a bit closer to that of the Trislanders.
Plus I observed for myself that the Trislander only needed one pilot whereas the Dornier seems to need two. I know an aeroplane isn't a bus, but as a pax I was always happy with the one pilot (after all, I could have hopped over the seat back and helped with the flying myself if necessary), and surely the second pilot does add quite a bit to the operating costs?
FLYER Club Member
