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Update – Shorts 360-300
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When the board of Shorts decided during the early seventies to pursue development of a 30-passenger low-cost commuter airliner, little did they realise that they would be setting the scene for an aircraft that would sell over three hundred examples in a little over a decade of series production.
Much of the success of the Shorts, and indeed every other aircraft in the commuter class, is owed to the effect that airline deregulation in the US had on the disposition of airline assets. When deregulation came in in 1978 many small towns were quickly abandoned by the jet operators in favour of the more lucrative larger cities and hubs. By the end of the decade though, it was soon realised that this in turn had created a defacto commuter market of unprecedented proportions that really had little in the way of modern airframes to satisfy its rapid growth.
Very quickly a number of manufacturers sought to launch suitable airliner programmes to fulfil the needs of the growing US regionals. Saab (then with Fairchild), De Havilland Canada, Embraer, Fokker, British Aerospace and Aeritalia/Aerospatiale all embarked on programmes that were merely design office drawings while Shorts was already in the field with an operational product. This scored the boxy, but very spacious, Shorts 330 numerous customers at a time when many saw it as the closest thing ever to that mythical DC-3 replacement.
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