grumman

So, SWAcapt - have you ever used VNAV/auto-throttles in commercial aircraft before, or are you just one of the many that completely buy into Crummy and others in flight ops mgt that put out this "more engaged with the aircraft" b.s., but have never used them?

Southwest is my third 121 carrier and we used VNAV and AT at both. SWA is a great company, but our procedures need a lot of work. There is far too much left over from the -200 old school philosophy in our operation, and not using vnav/autothrottle is a perfect example. "Not engaged" is pure b.s. There is plenty of empirical data out there that VNAV and autothrottles save gas far more than manually engaged pilots. Southwest is very cost efficient, but our lack of using VNAV and AT is not a contributor - just the opposite. I would also bet that we wouldn't stall the handful of aircraft at cruise altitude each year or overspeed as many flaps as we do if we used AT.

And, over the course of year, how much extra wear do we put on our engines at takeoff because we manually set the N1 power setting - common practice being to accept something higher than the calculated N1s as long as it's close, but more often than not, not "exact" like it would be using AT for takeoff. And then there is VNAV/LNAV non-precision approaches rather than the archaic "dive and drive" that we still do, and the list goes on.

I've mentioned autothrottles and a couple other suggestions to a few other "SWAcapt's" but quickly learned that F/O input is not really too welcome around here. The general feeling seems to be "nobody flies more 737's than us so why should we listen to outside input?” It's too bad, because there is much that could be learned from throughout the industry. Maybe the eventual changing of the guard in flight ops leadership would allow us to widen the lens and see where we could benefit from change.

So, despite the "we're the best" propaganda that gets put out, and many blindly buy into, it's just not true. Having flown here now for a bit over a year, I don't share your thoughts that SWA pilots are more engaged with the aircraft because we don't use autothrottle/vnav. There is the same group of pilots with the same mix of backgrounds here that you'll find throughout the industry. Some are better sticks and better guys/gals to fly with than others, but there is generally the same level of skill, professionalism, SA or "engagement" at SWA as anywhere else, despite our self-promotion otherwise.