Originally Posted by
Roadkill
Buzz, you liked the WDR upload? I just used it 4 or 5 times, and found it to be more pain than gain. We got runway changes several times and it would have been easier to just enter the data, rather than accepting/reviewing or rejecting/entering. Also, it always gives you very very close to a balanced field, which IMO is not a good thing. If your Capt is slightly more conservative, the auto chosen WDR nums don't work and have to be rejected before manual entry (to get rid of the prompt). I kinda felt it was one more thing removing me another step from being in touch with the jet, right at the time when we're trying to boost hand-flying pilot-brain-deciding-engaged.
OTOH, I can see that if you do accept the suggested WDR, it could speed things up. It was pretty neat-o, and it gives you something to look forward to if you're bored around D04.
We call it TDU on the fifi fleet... does it default to line 2 for the runway desired for yall? I've found that typically gives a couple thousand pounds of pad on the weights, and the process saves me 25-30 key strokes.
My technique to keep engaged: I press print, write down pax and zfw directly from the acars screen, then go straight to the perf page, verify the correct ZFW (and ZFWCG on fifi) and calculate current actual weight. I write that down- by that time the printer is finally finished, I glance at the weights on line 2 for the desired runway, make sure that's good and dive over to the TDU and insert it. That way all the info is in, I've reviewed it, and the data is ready and waiting for the captain to verify it.