Not true......

 

What changed?

 

UAL domestic 757's do not have an HMG. That was added with the ETOPS kits from Boeing. Yes, it can be retrofitted.

As I said, it just costs money and you can have almost anything you want. Again, it comes down to how much do you want to spend, vs a new 737?

My personal opinion after several thousand hours in both types, the 757 has excellent performance and is ideally suited to island flying as well as transcons. That is the market it was designed for.

The 737 on the other hand, even the new ones, are just one band aid on top of another from the orginal design. Yes, it has the range, barely. Yes it can get off the ground in Hawaii, but not with both fuel and people.

The 757 has much more flexibility operationaly than the guppie, but some consider that excess performance that we don't need to pay for. It's all up to the bean counters....I'd rather put the money into the 757's, upgrade to winglets, computers, interiors, and WiFi. Polish 'em up and you have a new plane that no one is currently building....If I were king...but no one asked me.

However, keep in mind, FedEx is buying every 757 it can find, for a reason.

 

That used to be a -300/-500 limitation. (It actually doesn't even show as an operating parameter in the 737 FM any longer. The wording in our manual used to say for the -300/-500 APU: "Starts not assured above FL250.") However, the 737NG APU never had that start limitation above FL250. Welcome to the new and improved 737 APU.

 

Ok, I'm confused. Start Limitation or not, do you or don't you have to run the APU all the way across the pond burning a ton of gas to qualify for ETOPS? The start on the ground part is what a CAL dude told me was SOP.

SLED

 

SOP on the 737 is we start it on the ground and it runs until exiting ETOPS, so it's not the entire flight, but most of it.

However, the FAA only requires that it be running from ETOPS entry to ETOPS exit. Problem is, sometimes when we shut the APU down after engine start and then restarted it inflight just prior to ETOPS entry, it wouldn't start. Now you have to turn around and go back, recrew, passengers are late, plane is late, return flight is late, etc. That was a lot more expensive than running the APU unnecessarily from engine start to ETOPS entry, even if an APU fail to start was quite rare.

To prevent this inconvenient surprise, the company SOP (not FAA requirement) is to leave the APU running from the gate until ETOPS exit. It's extremely rare for a running APU to simply shut down so once it's running, let it run.

 

But does the battery melt?!

Now THAT is the real question..

LOL

 

A 737 with the APU running burns a lot less than a 757 with the APU not running. Which makes more money? Which will the company choose to use? It's a simple business decision.

 

Because its a good choice to replace a 727. Fedex is retiring the last of their fleet and the 757 is a good fit. Retooling an aircraft that burns more gas, has extremely higher mx costs and costs a lot more per hour to operate, well, you do the math.

 

Should be a 737-900ER replacing each retiring 757 airframe. No net loss of pilot slots...