![]() Since then, turboprop aircraft have undergone improvements to reduce the noise of the engines outside the windows. The first turboprop planes were manufactured by the Rolls-Royce company and flew in the mid- to late 1940s in Britain. Turboprop engines were first patented in the late 1920s, and the first prototype was built by a Hungarian mechanical engineer named Gyorgy Jendrassik about 10 years later. “It’s more like real flying,” Snell said, describing the feeling of riding on the turboprop plane. A former Horizon customer service representative based in Idaho Falls, Snell said he used his frequent flyer miles to book a seat on the farewell flight. Snell was one of those enthusiasts who quickly booked a ticket on the last flight. “Once in a while, we get applause from the back of the plane when it’s a real rough flight in and we make a sweet landing,” Dutton said, but nothing like the hero’s welcome on Thursday evening. Dutton was flying the last turboprop flight, Flight 2400, headed out of Spokane at 6 p.m. Many of those same enthusiasts applauded and cheered when Sprague said their captain would be Alan Dutton, a Horizon pilot for more than three decades who has the most flight hours of any of the airline’s pilots on the plane. “We didn’t know that until after the fact.” “That was a coincidence,” Sprague told assembled media and many self-avowed “av geeks,” or “aviation geeks,” who flocked to Spokane to board the last turboprop flight and recorded his remarks on smartphones and snapped photos. Thursday marked exactly 22 years since the Q400 came into service, said Joe Sprague, the president of the airline. Horizon, which was acquired by Alaska Airlines in 1986, estimates it’s carried more than 50 million Pacific Northwest commuters on the plane since its introduction in January 2001. “It’s one of the perfect airplanes for the Pacific Northwest,” said 57-year-old David Snell, waiting in Concourse C for his 62-minute flight over the Cascades. They lined up the perfect shots of the signature turboprop engines in the background, relishing the last time such engines, and the Q400 turboprop aircraft, will carry Horizon passengers across the state. ![]() Passengers paused for a few more selfies than normal while climbing off a Horizon flight that arrived at Spokane International Airport from Seattle on Thursday afternoon.
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