Hawker Siddeley HS 748 HS 748 Series 2B

Hawker Siddeley became part of British Aerospace in the late 1970s and the aircraft was officially redesignated BAe 748. The Series 2B was the first version conceived entirely within the new industrial structure and the main type in production during that period.

The most visible change was the wing: four more feet of span, improving field performance and allowing another gross weight increase. Engines moved to the Dart Mk 536-2 mark. Inside, the passenger cabin was modernised, and the less obvious work went into the systems, covering fuel feed, water-methanol injection and engine fire protection.

At twenty-three tonnes maximum take-off weight the 2B held cruising speed at around four hundred and fifty kilometres per hour and its ceiling at twenty-five thousand feet, figures very close to its predecessors'. What it gained was margin: more usable payload out of the same runways, which was exactly what operators a decade into flying the type were asking for.

The run was short. The regional market was about to change generation with the ATR 42 and the Dash 8, and British Aerospace was already working on the ATP, a stretched derivative of the 748 that would inherit the line. The 2B mainly kept the product alive until the replacement arrived.