Southwest 300 / 500 question

[wood pecker]

How does training go as far as sims? A few in each or mostly the 700 s. I forget how to drive my car after vacation, can't imagine switiching flight decks every day

 

[Whataburger]

As I recall, during initial I did one sim in the -300 and my LOFT in the -300. The other sims were in the -700.

On some trips, I've flown the -300,-500, and -700. You get used to it. Exactly like riding a bike, but a little different.

 

[jball2]

I luv the way they shake!

 

[canyonblue]

I'll pass on 30-minute turns, 5-6 legs per day, Lubbock and Islip layovers and 20 year upgrades. But thanks... Enjoy your knobs.

Here we go again.....

This is just like when you are out with friends in a group, and some uninvited moron interjects his "thoughts" and you all look at each other thinking "who the fvck is this?" Please refrain from posting on a SWA/AAI thread unless we ask for your input.

 

[Lear70]

DOH! Yeah, brain fart......

The bottom line is that there's little warning when it gives up and it's not on VNAV path anymore. Most of the 300s will stay on path/speed like they're on rails. All you have to do is remember to pull the throttles to idle at TOD! The 700, not so much......

Dicko does what many of us do in the -700 (the only one we have of course).

When it goes into VNAV SPD for a profile descent then suddenly the banana is way past your crossing restriction and the speed is 10 kts high and climbing or it just gets confused and starts adding/subtracting power back and forth chasing the profile, we just go to LVL CHG and wait a minute or two. It usually figures itself out, reaches your crossing restriction a couple miles early, and is a lot smoother of a descent.

Tailwinds seem to screw it up pretty royally, no matter whether you've put your forecast winds into the box for your descent or not (I think we paid for the cheap version as well). I use LVL CHG and V/S a lot. They don't teach it, it's not in the standard profile, and I don't really care. It works, it's there, it's legal, so when the box gets confused, I use it.

For the other poster, autothrottles are nice most of the time, but guys forget how to fly smoothly without them and get really pissy when they're deferred (I usually end up offering to fly the leg). The big problem is that they can get you in trouble if you goof something up. There's been a couple accidents/incidents attributable to the autothrottles doing something and the crew just sitting there watching it like "What's it doing now?" Disconnect the damn things and fly the plane! (but I digress)

 

[Capn Butthead]

I agree with you Lear...im not a big fan of the autothrottles on descent. Also I wish more guys would use v/s to get back on the path. I love it when guys hit speed intervention or lvl change and spin the knob up 20 knots...then they say this thing is so rough as your coffee goes floating to the roof! Thats why I just hand fly a lot....gets the kernels antsy by the way I think the 300/500 hand flies better...when you find one that's not too bent!

 

[vv100]

CI 36

It will stay on path all day long

 

[waveflyer]

CI 36

It will stay on path all day long

This^^

 

[Tripower455]

Dicko does what many of us do in the -700 (the only one we have of course).

When it goes into VNAV SPD for a profile descent then suddenly the banana is way past your crossing restriction and the speed is 10 kts high and climbing or it just gets confused and starts adding/subtracting power back and forth chasing the profile, we just go to LVL CHG and wait a minute or two. It usually figures itself out, reaches your crossing restriction a couple miles early, and is a lot smoother of a descent.

Oh, I am quite familiar with how to fix the VNAV speed situation, since I get lots of practice. My hand is spring loaded to LVL CHG anytime the LNAV path is engaged, when that's not enough, it get's kicked off and CWS/speed brakes work even better.

My point was that the -300s, with their much less sophisticated systems and no AT, do a much better job staying on path than the '700s.

 

[DX Jake]

Did anyone mention the engines? Significant reduction in performance w/ respect to the -300/500 than the -700. The 22k vs. the 24k will severely limit your take-off atogs.

 

[CaptainKiwi]

try 20K vs 24K

 

[DX Jake]

try 20K vs 24K

my bad, fat-fingered, 20k

 

[wood pecker]

Thank you JD, I got your message. Once all of our transition bids close and I get an idea of a class date I will follow up. Last I heard is 717 guys will be a few months away to a year depending on what happens.

Thanks again for the email.

 

[Lear70]

As of current plans, 717 pilots will not be transitioning next year. This comes directly from Mark Sutcliffe, manager AirTran Crew Planning. We just got the most updated class dates and drops on a monthly basis for next year's planning purposes, they're all 737 pilots.

Towards the end of the year, some of the 737 pilots that come out of MCO and MKE as those bases are closed down who bid to the 717 will be training on the 717 ON THE AIRTRAN SIDE OF THE HOUSE. That will, in turn, free up some 717 pilots to transition to Southwest 737 late next year or early 2013 when they start pulling from ATL again.

That said, there still is no plan for 717 aircraft moving to Southwest until Jan 2013.

 

[dicko]

Towards the end of the year, some of the 737 pilots that come out of MCO and MKE as those bases are closed down who bid to the 717 will be training on the 717 ON THE AIRTRAN SIDE OF THE HOUSE. That will, in turn, free up some 717 pilots to transition to Southwest 737 late next year or early 2013 when they start pulling from ATL again..

So the 737 to 717 transitions will not respect seniority ?
Eg: ATL 737 bidding 717, will transfer to ATran 717 after a junior MKE 737 will transfer to ATran 717.

Did that make sense ?

 

[Lear70]

So the 737 to 717 transitions will not respect seniority ?

Within base and equipment? Yes. System-wide? No.

Eg: ATL 737 bidding 717, will transfer to ATran 717 after a junior MKE 737 will transfer to ATran 717.

Did that make sense ?

In all likelihood, yes. When they pull down MKE 737's, if those 737 CA's bid to 717 CA, they would either have to force the MKE 737 CA's back to 737 CA ATL (which isn't one of the available bid choices) or put the MKE 737 CA's into the 717 training pipeline ahead of their more junior ATL counterparts.

That part isn't set in stone yet, still some tweaking to do (the transition committee is meeting this week), but why would a transitioning 737 to 717 pilot care when they go to training on the AirTran side? If I were going to have to transition aircraft like that, I'd probably choose to stay on my current equipment as long as possible unless the bidding position in the different equipment (717) was that much drastically better...?

Trying to understand the issue so I can forward it to the transition committee so they can decide if it's something we should address. We understand people unhappy about out-of-seniority transfers to SWA because of the large pay differential for F/O's, even though there's not much we can do about it, but not so sure about why transfers on the AAI side of the fence are as large of an issue...?

 

[dicko]

That part isn't set in stone yet, still some tweaking to do (the transition committee is meeting this week), but why would a transitioning 737 to 717 pilot care when they go to training on the AirTran side? If I were going to have to transition aircraft like that, I'd probably choose to stay on my current equipment as long as possible unless the bidding position in the different equipment (717) was that much drastically better...?

Trying to understand the issue so I can forward it to the transition committee so they can decide if it's something we should address. We understand people unhappy about out-of-seniority transfers to SWA because of the large pay differential for F/O's, even though there's not much we can do about it, but not so sure about why transfers on the AAI side of the fence are as large of an issue...?

An excellent question;

There are CA's on the 737 that would be junior lineholders on the 717. On the 737 they are senior RSV (PARLC etc.) They stayed on the 737 during the old contract because a 'build up line' was a pretty good deal. The new contract has destroyed any ability to make money on any RSV line, including the PARLC. Thank you PCL, I told you so Now they want to exercise their seniority and hold a line on the 717. This is the first opportunity for them to move to the 717 since the world ended last year.

Since this is a bid. It should be done in seniority.



- Apologies for the thread hi jack. I like all of those funny round thingies that look like little watches on the 737-300 instrument panel. Very retro.
(Added to make this post relevant to the thread title)

 

[DesertDuck]

Another 300 retired today. 162 300s left on property. One more goes next Monday.

 

[wood pecker]

Lear, is there any idea of how many pilots will bypass training? Sounds like there needs to be a new poll on the myseniority.com site. Thanks for the update.

 

[Lear70]

Dicko, it's a good point. I'll pass it along.

WP, I don't know. It probably WOULD be good to put that on Jamie's website, as everyone will have different ideas of how/when they want to go over and why.