Originally Posted by
sailingfun
A bigger factor then RW slope are obstacles in the departure corridor. They can have a huge effect on runway allowable weight. As far as taxi speeds you noted the two extremes. I have seen several taxi way incidents with SWA. Sooner or later they will have a serious one and slow down. If you have a incident and are going faster then the Boeing book speeds you can expect lots of trouble from the FAA. 30 knots on a straitaway, 15 knots on turns less then 90 and 10 knots on 90 degree or more turns.
SF,
Thanks for pointing out the Boeing taxi speeds again. They are exactly what is in the SWA FOM. While this thread was started to gather information, this subject always seems to turn into bashing SWA. I first heard it from a Captain (1989) at Pan Am as we were descending into MSY. He went off on a rant against SWA that seemed endless. When I cut his dialogue off and informed him about how much better SWA was in every category compared to Pan Am he shrunk down into his seat and never said a word about SWA again. I also mentioned that I had one foot out the door waiting on SWA to call with a class date. BTW I was just the flight engineer and was still on probation. Even on probation you don't have to listen to stupidity.
It is inevitable that this subject always brings out the "I was almost run over by a reindeer" crowd who may or may have not experienced an "incident." Even with pilots the difference in perception about an impending collision with a SWA "cowboy" is questionable. I believe there might be some bias that would lead them to possibly embellish their stories. There certainly was some bias with the Captain I dressed down. It turned out he, as many would, was disappointed how his career was going and needed to vent. He just picked the wrong guy to express his frustrations.
The Oscar