Dash 8 Q400
Bombardier (de Havilland Canada) · Canada · first flew 1998 · airliner
The Dash 8 Q400 is a stretched, high-speed twin turboprop regional airliner, the largest and fastest member of the de Havilland Canada Dash 8 family.
Recognition (WEFT)
| W — Wings | High-mounted, straight |
|---|---|
| E — Engines | 2 × turboprop, wing-mounted |
| F — Fuselage | Long pencil-thin fuselage |
| T — Tail | T-tail |
WEFT is AircraftIQ's four-point recognition method — how it works.
Spot it by:
- Long pencil-thin fuselage
- T-tail above swept fin
- Six-blade props on high wing
Look for the very long, slender fuselage, a tall swept fin topped by a T-tailplane, and big six-bladed propellers slung under a straight high wing.
Specifications
- The Dash 8 Q400 has a length of 32.8 m (108 ft).
- It has a wingspan of 28.4 m (93 ft).
- Its maximum speed is 667 km/h (414 mph).
- Typical crew: 2 flight crew.
Figures are for the representative variant described above; marks differ. See how AircraftIQ sources figures.
History
Developed by Bombardier from the earlier Dash 8 Series 300, the Q400 first flew in 1998 and entered service in 2000. The 'Q' denotes the Active Noise and Vibration Suppression system fitted across the later Dash 8 line. Production later returned to the revived De Havilland Canada brand.
Variants
The core passenger variant seats roughly 68 to 90 depending on layout, with the higher-density Q400 NextGen offered later. Cargo, combi and firefighting conversions extended the type's working life.
Where you'll see it
Flybe was the Q400's flagship European operator, basing large fleets at Exeter, Birmingham, Southampton and Manchester before its 2020 collapse. The type remained central to UK regional links, and Loganair has continued turboprop operations into eastern and northern UK airports such as Aberdeen and Inverness.
In depth
The Q in Q400 stands for the active noise and vibration suppression that defines the passenger experience, and the system is more sophisticated than the name suggests. Accelerometers distributed through the airframe detect the vibration generated by the propellers, and actuators built into the fuselage frames generate counter-vibrations precisely out of phase, cancelling much of the noise before it reaches the cabin. The result is a reduction of roughly 6 decibels against the earlier Dash 8 aircraft, enough to transform the interior from the characteristically loud turboprop cabin into something far closer to a jet. The system's external components, small sensors and antennas, are occasionally visible on close inspection but give little hint of the electronic work going on inside the structure.
Power is the Q400's other defining quality. Each Pratt & Whitney Canada PW150A is among the most powerful turboprop engines in regional service, delivering around 5,071 shaft horsepower, and that abundance lets the aircraft cruise at approximately 667 kilometres per hour, faster than some early regional jets and comfortably quicker than any other turboprop of its class. The speed is what allows the Q400 to hold jet-like schedules on regional networks, and it is a key part of why operators chose it over slower turboprops.
At the fence the Q400 is told from the ATR 72 by several clear features. The Q400 carries a conventional low tailplane where the ATR wears a T-tail; it turns six-bladed propellers against the ATR's four; its fin is more swept; and its fuselage is longer and more tapered, with a distinctly pointed nose. Any one of these settles the identification, and together they make the two aircraft, superficially similar as high-wing turboprops, quite easy to separate. The undercarriage retraction is another point of interest for the close observer: the nose gear retracts aft into the fuselage while the main gear folds inward and aft into the engine nacelles and wing.
The Q400's British history is inseparable from Flybe, and it makes an instructive case study in regional aviation. At its peak Flybe operated 54 Q400s, the largest fleet of the type in Europe, weaving together more than 80 UK destinations on a dense web of regional connections that stitched together airports the mainline carriers ignored. When Flybe collapsed in 2020 that network fractured, and Loganair stepped in to absorb a number of the routes, carrying the type's UK story forward on a smaller scale.
Today the aircraft remains a familiar sight at a handful of regional fields where it still earns its keep on thin sectors. Aberdeen, Inverness, Southampton, Belfast City and Manchester continue to see the Q400 on regional services, and at several of them it is the only turboprop of its class that the airport still handles regularly. For a spotter, those fields offer the chance to watch the aircraft do precisely what it was built for: fast, frequent, short-sector regional flying into airports where a jet would be economic overkill and a slower turboprop would fall behind the schedule. Watching a Q400 sweep in with its six broad blades and settle onto its long-legged gear is a reminder of an aircraft that briefly knitted together regional Britain more comprehensively than anything before or since.
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