Read this FAA publication regarding safety during aircraft taxi, page 4 of 5, under "HASTE"...FAA says by no means exceed 30 knots on a straight taxiway.

http://www.faa.gov/airports/runway_s...for%20taxi.pdf

I think we owe that Delta crew in MSY a debt of thanks for helping to keep SWA in compliance with the FAA's best practices for safe taxi.

 

Actually if you keep your thrust and speed low, you won't have to ride the brakes all the way to the runway...at least that's what it says in our Flight Operations Manual for all Delta pilots, and as a trained aeronautical & mechanical engineer, I agree with that statement. Remember Kinetic Energy is directly proportional to the square of the velocity.

And remember patience is a virtue. Honestly most pilots get into trouble because they run through procedures too quickly and critical stuff gets lost.

 

You shouldn't have to ride the brakes. Riding the brakes means your using improper taxiiing techniques, reducing the life of the brakes, & taxiing too fast. Try a SE taxi. That will help you save gas and reduce your taxi speed, which should be occurring @ idle thrust.

The immaturity of your post was insulting me by implying I was a child. Your immaturity also comes through in your SWA is holier than thou attitude. SWA has its flaws, as does DAL. I'm well aware of that, & share my concerns with my superiors. I'm discouraged by the fact that you may be a CA, as you seem to encourage rushing. Not a good thing to do. Rushing causes accidents.

 

pax,

Last Friday I was in MCO and we called for taxi exiting the ramp area. We were cleared to taxi to 17R. To our right was a SWA 737 taxiing fairly fast on the inner taxiway. Realizing we would slow him down if I chose the inner, we taxiied across and down the outer taxiway instead. My feeling is that was the courteous and professional thing to do.

As we taxied down the outer, ground control said "SWA 756 you'll follow the Delta Airbus to your right, contact tower on frequency xxx.x". (They had called for taxi after us). They did not respond to the transmission. Ground then instructed us to contact tower on the same frequency.

SWA 756 then called tower and announced they were ready for takeoff. Tower rewarded SWA 756 by changing the takeoff order and we had to wait about three extra minutes.

Which crew were courteous and professional, and which were immature?

 

Hey paxhauler, you posted this in January of 2010:

-------------------

"As a non-Delta pilot lurker, I certainly hope this thread and the players involved stick around APC.

This thread has provided me (a DAL hopeful) a wealth of info that I would never have had access too. It provides great ammo for my upcoming decision (hopefully at some point) of where to spend my career.

My opinion doesn't matter very much, but just wanted to let you all know that there are plenty of us out here, with no agenda, who benefit from this threads existence."

-------------------

As a former DAL hopeful, and someone who has demonstrated a good attitude in the past, please extend us the same respect & courtesy that we extend to you. Some SWA guys have an unwarranted attitude that is very unappealing.

 

you gave me an idea, maybe Boeing can make it a 72RE and put 2 GTFs on the tail...then they could actually put the 81" fan on it and not that itty-bitty 70" LEAP-X one with a flat spot and the low-rider look!

Cheers
George

 

Quick question for anyone (and I'm sure this is hidden somewhere that is accessible to the masses but I'm not sure where) how many people can training handle in a year? Given the normal mix of initials, CQ or requal?

I'd be curious to know if they truly cannot handle the retirement binge coming (in 2017?) I wonder how much they'd have to increase early outs between now and then to flatten things out?

 

I don't know. We've got four things that might influence hiring sooner than later.

1. LGA slot swap
2. Aircraft orders (though this will be down the line)
3. New FAA crew rest guidelines
4. Age 65 guys

The early outs could be absorbed by the capacity pull down but at some point we're going to need to get ahead-of-the-ball for some of these other reasons. If Delta waits until the 65ers are forced out training would be full for quite sometime just with new hires. Seems like they'd have to start hiring early and have the guys on the payroll so when the big numbers start falling we're not starting from scratch.

Am I missing something?

ranger

 

FTB, I've heard about 600 per year max.

 

Don't forget the $200m/wk that the gov't just gave up in taxes. All of the legacies have already increased their ticket prices to match the original prices, and that money is extra revenue that will provide an industry-wide cash infusion. My money is on the gov't stalling the FAA-reauth until the debt ceiling is solved, and even if it is only a week it should easily provide DAL with an extra $20-40m in revenues per week that they would not have had otherwise. Thats 400+ new-hire pilots annual wages per week right there, a nice bonus if you were thinking about getting ahead of the hiring curve.