Britten-Norman Islander

John Britten and Desmond Norman, then partners in converting agricultural aircraft, began work in 1963 on a simple and inexpensive piston twin. Their reading of the market was shrewd: the emerging commuter operators valued payload above range or cruising speed, so the new aeroplane traded performance for capacity. Wings and tail surfaces were given constant chord and thickness and every wing rib was made identical, choices taken purely to cut manufacturing cost. The prototype flew on 13 June 1965 behind a pair of Rolls-Royce/Continental IO-360B engines and appeared at the Paris Air Show only four days later; testing led to a greater span and to the more powerful Lycoming O-540-E engines that became standard. The first production aircraft flew on 24 April 1967, British type certification followed in August of that year and American approval in December.

The Islander is a shoulder-wing monoplane with a rectangular fuselage and fixed tricycle gear, and it has no centre aisle: its seat rows exploit every inch of a cabin barely over a metre wide, served by two doors on the left side and one on the right. That cabin can be rearranged quickly, which accounts for the type's range of trades — scheduled and charter flights, freight, air ambulance work, agriculture, aerial surveillance, para-dropping and law enforcement. A military version first flew in 1970 as the Defender, adding underwing hardpoints, while the Maritime Defender was aimed at coastal patrol and search and rescue. From 1980 the aircraft could be ordered with Allison 250 turboprops as the BN-2T, the first of which entered service in 1981.

Demand quickly outran the Bembridge factory on the Isle of Wight. Production spread across Europe — assembly in Romania, finishing in Belgium after Fairey bought the company in 1972 — and a Philippine licence followed in 1975; more than 500 airframes came off the Romanian line. In 1974 sales passed the 548-order record then held by Britain's best-selling multi-engine commercial aircraft, and in 1982 the 1,000th Islander was delivered. Sales then declined, partly because the aircraft already sold lasted so long: by 2016 the manufacturer counted roughly 500 operators in more than 120 countries, and in October 2019 some 800 examples remained in service. The type also holds an unusual record, flying Loganair's Westray to Papa Westray service, the shortest scheduled flight in the world at 2.7 km and about two minutes in the air.