The British Aerospace ATP or Advanced Turbo-Prop was built by British Aerospace as a development of the Hawker Siddeley HS 748 medium-sized turboprop airliner. It performed its maiden flight in August 1986, introduced in 1988, and still in active service today. The aircraft was produced from 1988 to 1996 with a total number of 65 units built.
A few ATP versions were proposed and built for civilian and military purposes. The Jetstream 61 was an updated development of the ATP with interiors of the Jetstream 41, updated cabin, and more powerful engines. The Maritime ATP was a proposed version for military naval roles; it was supposedly built with a surveillance radar located under the fuselage, forward-looking infrared, and internal sonar buoys. None of this type was produced. The ATP-AEW was supposed to be an Airborne Early Warning aircraft proposed for Australia; none of this type was built.
The ATP can accommodate two crew members in the cockpit and sixty-four passengers plus two flight attendants on board. The cabin height is 1.92 meters, the cabin length is 19.2 meters, and the cabin width is 2.48 meters. It has an external length of 26 meters, an external height of 4.2 meters, and a fuselage diameter of 2.95 meters. The wingspan is 30.63 meters and the wing area is 78.3 square meters. It has a tail height of 7.14 meters and a wheelbase of 8.75 meters. The empty weight is 13,595 kg, the maximum payload is 8,000 kg, and the fuel tank capacity is 1,681 US gal. The maximum takeoff and landing weight is 23,678 kg and 23,133 kg, respectively.
The aircraft is powered by two Pratt and Whitney Canada PW126 engines. It is a turboprop engine with two-spool two-stage centrifugal compressors, reverse-flow combustors, single-stage low pressure and high-pressure turbines, and two-stage power turbine, and a self-contained oil system. The engine produces a maximum takeoff thrust of 2,653 shaft horsepower each and drives six-bladed BAe/Hamilton Standard propellers.
The ATP has a cruise speed of 268 knots at 15,010 feet. It has a standard range of 985 nautical miles with sixty-four passengers and a ferry range of 2,200 nautical miles. The aircraft can fly up to 25,000 feet and can climb at a rate of 1,000 feet per minute. The takeoff distance is 1,460 meters while the landing distance is 1,130 meters.
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