Originally Posted by Bucking Bar

TSquare,

Bid down to the 737. There is so much more to see down low. The smell of flowers, pine trees and freshly mowed grass. Watching female sunbathers and airplanes fly overhead making contrails. If you are nostalgic for your your initial training days, this is the thing to turn back the clock. I'm sure a DC-3 with half the wing blown off flies like a 737-900.

In January, in the middle of winter, we had B/O numbers and were filed for 26,000. I could not believe it, so I hit the new VNAV button, went to the second screen, CRZ (why have one button push when you can have three?) page and yeeerp 26.3 was "optimal." Middle of winter mind you (and it does not know winds higher, so that was not it).

ATL-SFO with weather on the west coast requiring alternates ... b a r e l y.

... then the real insult, we had to slow down to let MD88's out of Salt Lake in front. Apparently when they boot the thing and have that Mach trim pole hitting the sunshade, they're faster than a -900.

That joke about sitting in a dark closet for 5:29 with another man and a vacuum cleaner running is so spot on. And it is always 5:29. Another 60 seconds, but, NO FOOD FOR YOU!

I have yet for ATC to ask if we have had an engine failure, but we're constantly being asked to expedite climb (as if we weren't already thinking about throwing stuff overboard including ourselves).