May I present....the BAe 146! One of my favourite regional airliners! 
As a matter of fact, I've gone on this aircraft type at least a dozen times, all but once with Air BC, shown above in the 1980s colour scheme (the other airline was with Air Nova, which was based out of Halifax, NS), partly because it was used quite a bit on the Edmonton-Vancouver route during the 1990s and the early 2000s.
For a civilian passenger jet aircraft, to have four engines for plane that small sounds like overkill, especially for one which went into production in the early 1980s. It was originally the HS 146, since it was first designed by Hawker-Siddeley before it merged with Vickers to become British Aerospace. But from what I've read, one reason was stricter noise restrictions at many airports which were coming into effect. This meant coming up with four smaller jet engines instead of two larger ones to make less noise overall. The noise level was astoundingly low for a jet aircraft from the outside. Inside the cabin, it was definitely louder but not horribly so - more like inside an Airbus A319/320. I used to live in an apartment only a few km from Edmonton City Centre Airport (Municipal Airport), very close to the one of the flight paths out of that airport. Whereas the 737-200s would actually rattle windows in my apartment (not exaggerating here!), the 146s used there by Air BC were often almost so quiet that you almost didn't notice them! This was especially true when they were landing.
It seems to have had fairly good range compared to other RJs - I know they were used on long domestic routes in Australia such as Darwin-Perth and also routes in North America such as Edmonton-Denver. Later production models were known as the Avro RJ-70/85/100 series.
I've heard it was supposedly designed as a hot-and-high aircraft, or in other words, designed to operate out of high-altitude airports and in very hot weather. However, I've see contradictory reports about this. Even then, it was used extensively in hot countries like Australia. It was even supposed to have been a STOL aircraft, but I don't know - four engines would've made it a little heavy for very short runways.
I find it very odd that British Aerospace never went on to produce a twinjet version of this plane, although BAe did come up with such proposals in the early 1990s known as the NRA series, a model of which is shown below alongside a BAe 146-100. It would've been cool to see BAe/Avro actually put a twinjet version into production.
But at least, the Ukrainian aircraft design bureau, Antonov, has come up with a twinjet 146 lookalike. That plane is the An-148, first developed in the 1990s and first flown in 2004.
As a matter of fact, I've gone on this aircraft type at least a dozen times, all but once with Air BC, shown above in the 1980s colour scheme (the other airline was with Air Nova, which was based out of Halifax, NS), partly because it was used quite a bit on the Edmonton-Vancouver route during the 1990s and the early 2000s.
For a civilian passenger jet aircraft, to have four engines for plane that small sounds like overkill, especially for one which went into production in the early 1980s. It was originally the HS 146, since it was first designed by Hawker-Siddeley before it merged with Vickers to become British Aerospace. But from what I've read, one reason was stricter noise restrictions at many airports which were coming into effect. This meant coming up with four smaller jet engines instead of two larger ones to make less noise overall. The noise level was astoundingly low for a jet aircraft from the outside. Inside the cabin, it was definitely louder but not horribly so - more like inside an Airbus A319/320. I used to live in an apartment only a few km from Edmonton City Centre Airport (Municipal Airport), very close to the one of the flight paths out of that airport. Whereas the 737-200s would actually rattle windows in my apartment (not exaggerating here!), the 146s used there by Air BC were often almost so quiet that you almost didn't notice them! This was especially true when they were landing.
It seems to have had fairly good range compared to other RJs - I know they were used on long domestic routes in Australia such as Darwin-Perth and also routes in North America such as Edmonton-Denver. Later production models were known as the Avro RJ-70/85/100 series.
I've heard it was supposedly designed as a hot-and-high aircraft, or in other words, designed to operate out of high-altitude airports and in very hot weather. However, I've see contradictory reports about this. Even then, it was used extensively in hot countries like Australia. It was even supposed to have been a STOL aircraft, but I don't know - four engines would've made it a little heavy for very short runways.
I find it very odd that British Aerospace never went on to produce a twinjet version of this plane, although BAe did come up with such proposals in the early 1990s known as the NRA series, a model of which is shown below alongside a BAe 146-100. It would've been cool to see BAe/Avro actually put a twinjet version into production.
But at least, the Ukrainian aircraft design bureau, Antonov, has come up with a twinjet 146 lookalike. That plane is the An-148, first developed in the 1990s and first flown in 2004.
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