USMCFLYR

I was just watching a show on the Discovery Channel and they showed a strange looking airplane that I had not seen before. A tri-motor piston driven prop plane called the Britten-Norman Trislander. Has anyone come across this airplane before?

Britten-Norman Trislander - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

USMCFLYR

SkyHigh

I use to fly the Islander BN-2 in Alaska. VMC was often lower than stall speed. When preforming a zero G maneuver both engines would quit and it took a long time before they started running again. The plane was very noisy. It shook and vibrated a lot.

It had incredible short field performance capabilities. When empty on take off you could hold the stick all the way back and with full power the nose would rotate to an extreme angle of attack. In just a few feet the plane lifted off the ground like a magic carpet. The dust cloud that the maneuver created obscured the plane and it appeared to levitate out of the dust.

The landing gear was incredibly strong. The plane had a negative angle of attack on take off roll. Unless you lifted the nose up soon after 40kts it would begin to fight itself. Acceleration would begin to slow down with the increasing in drag. We used it off airport a lot. Quite a fun plane to fly, but miserable for passengers.

SKyhigh

Inbluskyz

I've never heard of the Trilander until I was talking to this FO who used to fly one out of Seattle. The exact one he flew was featured on airliners.net. He said that the local conroller was always queried by other pilots as to what type of aircraft it is. He said the operator sold them to an overseas company and that they are no longer operated in US.

This is the one he flew:

Photos: Britten-Norman BN-2A Mk3-3 Trislander Aircraft Pictures | Airliners.net