I also fly the 757 for AA. I take it for granted too often. We use it for everything. The short Caribbean legs sometimes we'll do a full power takeoff and it is impressive. I also fly it to Quito Ecuador and La Paz Bolivia. Those are the cities that make you realize how great an aircraft it is. Our's have the Rolls Royce engines that produce just a little more power than the Pratt's.
Also i've flown the S80 and the 737 and the 757 all into and out of SNA. Here's my thoughts about SNA, the S80's have bad brakes. They chatter, they moan and I always wondered if it'd stop before the end of the pavement there. The 737-800 with the flaps 40 into SNA still flew a faster final than the 757, and was great at stopping, but the 757 is a dream in and out of SNA.
About La Paz Bolivia 13,318 above sea level, we land and take off unpressurized. On the descent we start the cabin press up to 13,300 and then all 3 pilots go on Oxygen. Here's where limits come into play. No flaps until below 20,000. Do not use flaps 15, must land flaps 25. In event of Go-around go directly to flaps 5. You are going very fast on short final. We touchdown at 175 knots GS. At that speed it is hard to make a bad landing. It's just weird, you think "i'm going fast fast fast."The thrust reversers seem to take forever to spool. The runway is very long.
On the ground for 1 hour, then fly to Santa Cruz Bolivia 45 minutes away and spend the day and night.
On the ground at La Paz the extra co-pilot goes out and does the walk-around. No-one takes an O2 bottle with them. As you go down the steep jetbridge stairs you do not notice, but after three steps at your normal walking pace, you think Wow! I gotta slow down. At a slow walking pace, the post flight inspection takes a while. And there's two mechanics that want to chat with you, and you're out of breath. Time to climb the jetbridge stairs. Wow, they look steep. Get to the top of the jetbridge and i'm thinking i'm going straight to the cockpit and go on O2 mask. And there to my surprise is the CA and other FO, they are smoking cigarettes. I'm all out of breath and they look at me like "What?" I shake my heard and wonder how come they don't pass out form lack of O2.
Anyway the Takeoff is flaps 5 and the limit is 195 knots max tire groundspeed. We're there everytime. The mains come off at 189 knots most of the time. We level off at 23,000 and the Autopilot must be on in order to sense Zero net alt gain or loss for the cabin to begin pressurize from 13,300 down to apprx 7,500 cabin altitude for cruise. Once the cabin altitude starts moving down then we'll continue climbing. When the cabin is below 10,000 we take off the O2 masks.
At that point, you'd think we'd go Wow! What an airplane. But at this point we're just thinking lets get to VVI and let the best part of this trip start.
I fly the 757 much more than the 767 as I prefer daytime flying. I love the 757.
I guess it's like being married to a Supermodel, after a while you take her for granted.
Heidi Klum 757-200
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