Maybe Mr Whittles invention wasn't that good after- all.The timing however was perfect.10 years earlier,imagine the consequences.Maybe easyjet should be re-branded easy-prop?

stephen hulton, eure, france

Turbo planes work quite well for within 500 miles. Any more and you are better of going with a jet due to the time. It takes roughly 3 hours to go 200 miles by car, but a turboprop will do this in about 40-45 minutes. They use it a lot for small cities here in the US.

Ronald Gardner, College Station, TX, USA

Typical of British Industry, as soon as the going gets tough we bail out. 10 years ago BAe had a marketing deal with ATR to fit there J31/41/61 turbo-props into a joint company. But as soon as quick profits did not come they pulled the plug and stopped production.

adrian, aldershot, England

Bring back the Zeppelin!

caif, washington , USA

Even by the time the Bristol Britannia rolled out - it was considered obsolete.

Unfortunately none are now flying - only a few static examples remain in the UK.

Tony Saxby, Witney,

Readers may be interested to go to http://www.sbac.co.uk/pages/92567080.asp where the industry outlines what it is doing to address aviation's impact on the environment.

One of the briefing papers there looks at open rotors with others looking at reducing noise or emissions as well as alternative fuels.

Matthew Knowles, London, UK

Whatever happened to the Bristol Britannia? I seem to recall that this was a very famous and prestigious British turboprop passenger aircraft. Does anyone know if they are still flying?

Garth Rex, Glendale Heights, USA

Unfortunately the miles flown by these slow, tiny aircraft makes them completely irrelevent. I would be amazed if the miles per passenger was 1% of turbine aircraft.

The engineering challenge of making a large 500 mph plus turboprop or conversely an ultra efficient turbine aircraft, is daunting and not thermodynamically feasible with such configurations. Tip speed controls max prop size and air mass speed and volume. Both have turbines that can never match the efficiency of a piston engine, which cannot approach the efficiency of an electric motor, which cannot achieve the efficiency of a superconducting electric motor.

A new form of lift and propulsion is needed or
a new form of ultralight or green energy storage/generation or
acceptance of much slower travel speeds with consequent reduction in growth and lower number of people on the planet that can be fed. ie as ususal, innovate or people die.

Waldo Hitcher, San Diego,

Re the comment on Hydrogen, where are you going to get it from? currently its extracted from natural gas or electrolysis, both wasteful processes, never mind the storage and transport implications of this hydrogen, all far more difficult than any other fuel.

Steve, London, UK

Larry, interesting point, except I think that airline fuel is duty free anyway isn't it?

bob, london,

Maglev trains in airless surface tunnels/tubes will eventually replace aircraft. It will take many years for the costs to come down, but it is surely the way of the future.

Sean , London, UK

Newton and Einstein formulated the limits on energy efficiency and any decent engineer can tell you that there are no scientific or technical fixes when you want to convert stuff into motion. You have to waste at least 70% of it!

Go back a few hundred years and St Thomas Acquinas said "God says take what you want- and pay for it!"

Some of your correspondents must live in fairyland! We shall have to travel less and work harder- and may be not get so fat!

Derek de Brome, Northampton, UK

how about nuclear powered engines they can fly for ever ?
and may also run trains. All they have to do is to invent small nuclear reactor.

arvind, london, uk

H2 fueled turbo-props may well be the answer to ALL air travel - providing noise abatement can be realised and NASA may have had the answer as early as 1987 when it devised the 'advanced propeller swirl recovery turbo-prop' engine.
Quiet, fuel efficient and more reliable than jet engines - it could've heralded the crack of doom for petrol futures traders and the delay of 'peak oil' as far as the air transport community is concerned.
Why would US, UK and EU politicos oppose such a technology - if not for the tax revenues collected on petrol?

Larry, Middletown, USA/NY

Now we need to develop a hydrogen powered passenger airliner. Aircraft will have propellers or be UDF (Undcuted fan). Payload can nearly double for long range flights because jet fuel mass normally exceeds payload. Vapor trails will help cool the earth. Vacations overseas will be good for the environment

William Ernest Schenewerk, Los Angeles, CA