Something big happening at Southwest...

BEEF SUPREME said:
Super nice paint. Some kind of special livery. I'd love to see how modern the flight deck is sometime.
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One of the ones painted dark blue?

Avionics is a Pro-Line Fusion 21 system minus a few of the really special bells and whistles.
 
Maybe the news is the announcement of redeye flights? Weirdos.

IIRC, the planning of redeye flights was one of the differences in the most-recent pilat agreement.
 
The LUV stops when OP changes their profile picture. But the should not do that,


IMG_6598.png
:aghast:
 
BEEF SUPREME said:
Super nice paint. Some kind of special livery. I'd love to see how modern the flight deck is sometime.
Click to expand...
That jumpseat was my commute for an entire summer and a half. It's quite comfortable up front. It's quite roomy. Very modern. Electronic checklists, advanced RNAV, all the alphabet soup. I'd rather ride on it than on the 737 I'm about to ride on for 5 and a half hours. The autoflight system and FMC are pretty good though it has a yearning to overspeed in VPTH descents. Sips fuel. I'd enjoy flying the thing.

Like @killbilly said it's temperamental. It's a Bombardier product and it shows: lots of stuff that you have to CTRL+ALT+DEL on the regular, better engineering achieved through pilot procedures as opposed to the brute-force Boeing approach "of course you can start the engines in this wind, what are you, silly?", and a few other things that fall under "close, but not quite" or "wow, that's a limitation here?"

I had one ride home where a flight control computer was MEL'd and I swear to god the thing was floating a spoiler with how much shaking there was at cruise mach, but nobody else seemed to be terribly bothered. I watched another crew do an APU-to-pack-takeoff (I think that's what it was—my memory is a little hazy) and it seemed almost as complex as the terminal count for the Space Shuttle. But the ECL walked them through it nicely.

It's quite a modern airplane, but there are obvious places (to me, and for us) where it's "close, not quite" compared to some of our more established fleets. Example: For some reason probably related to money probably it's incapable of both takeoff data uplink (nobody at the Air Line has ever dorked up hand-jamming takeoff data, nope, not with multiple takeoff flap settings, multiple takeoff thrust modes and assumed temperature with that, nope, not even once) and automatic waypoint position reporting, both of which even the "classic" 757/767 can do around here. So, steps forward and steps back, I guess.

Then there's this, which, well, what in the frak:

Inadvertent Autopilot Engagement during Takeoff on A220 Aircraft – Safety First

Several in-service events were reported to Airbus where the flight crew inadvertently selected the autopilot while attempting to engage the autothrottle during the takeoff roll. Inadvertent autopilot engagement may result in early rotation that can lead to a tail strike, inability to climb...
safetyfirst.airbus.com safetyfirst.airbus.com

None of this should be construed as me pooping on the thing; quite from it, every airplane I've ever met has something you can point at and go "really[1]?" Just the stuff I noticed, even in my "I'm tired from crossing the pond" haze.

[1] N/A, Boeing 757-200
 
Autothrust Blue said:
That jumpseat was my commute for an entire summer and a half. It's quite comfortable up front. It's quite roomy. Very modern. Electronic checklists, advanced RNAV, all the alphabet soup. I'd rather ride on it than on the 737 I'm about to ride on for 5 and a half hours. The autoflight system and FMC are pretty good though it has a yearning to overspeed in VPTH descents. Sips fuel. I'd enjoy flying the thing.

Like @killbilly said it's temperamental. It's a Bombardier product and it shows: lots of stuff that you have to CTRL+ALT+DEL on the regular, better engineering achieved through pilot procedures as opposed to the brute-force Boeing approach "of course you can start the engines in this wind, what are you, silly?", and a few other things that fall under "close, but not quite" or "wow, that's a limitation here?"

I had one ride home where a flight control computer was MEL'd and I swear to god the thing was floating a spoiler with how much shaking there was at cruise mach, but nobody else seemed to be terribly bothered. I watched another crew do an APU-to-pack-takeoff (I think that's what it was—my memory is a little hazy) and it seemed almost as complex as the terminal count for the Space Shuttle. But the ECL walked them through it nicely.

It's quite a modern airplane, but there are obvious places (to me, and for us) where it's "close, not quite" compared to some of our more established fleets. Example: For some reason probably related to money probably it's incapable of both takeoff data uplink (nobody at the Air Line has ever dorked up hand-jamming takeoff data, nope, not with multiple takeoff flap settings, multiple takeoff thrust modes and assumed temperature with that, nope, not even once) and automatic waypoint position reporting, both of which even the "classic" 757/767 can do around here. So, steps forward and steps back, I guess.

Then there's this, which, well, what in the frak:

Inadvertent Autopilot Engagement during Takeoff on A220 Aircraft – Safety First

Several in-service events were reported to Airbus where the flight crew inadvertently selected the autopilot while attempting to engage the autothrottle during the takeoff roll. Inadvertent autopilot engagement may result in early rotation that can lead to a tail strike, inability to climb...
safetyfirst.airbus.com safetyfirst.airbus.com

None of this should be construed as me pooping on the thing; quite from it, every airplane I've ever met has something you can point at and go "really[1]?" Just the stuff I noticed, even in my "I'm tired from crossing the pond" haze.

[1] N/A, Boeing 757-200
Click to expand...

That auto throttle thing was a cluster. I think airbus came back to us slightly red-faced saying “ha ha ha, thank you for helping us debug the software.”

Supposedly they are fixing the CPDLC problems in a software release in the fall.

The one that still cracks me up is that we have to turn off the wing anti-icing above 35,000 feet. Otherwise it can trip a fire loop problem.
 
killbilly said:
One of the ones painted dark blue?

Avionics is a Pro-Line Fusion 21 system minus a few of the really special bells and whistles.
Click to expand...

Yeah it was a few different blue ish colors, some others and the A220-300 jumped out in red. Wish I had taken a photo.
 
killbilly said:
One of the ones painted dark blue?

Avionics is a Pro-Line Fusion 21 system minus a few of the really special bells and whistles.
Click to expand...

I still don't understand why the airlines won't get with the program with it synthetic vision. It's s fantastic tool.
 
KLB said:
I still don't understand why the airlines won't get with the program with it synthetic vision. It's s fantastic tool.
Click to expand...

It’s really cool, but I’m not sure we go many places where having it would make a major difference. I suppose maybe in some of the more mountainous areas out west?

I certainly liked having it in my general aviation days, but I’ve never had it at this level so I don’t know if I’m missing out on anything.
 
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killbilly said:
It’s really cool, but I’m not sure we go many places where having it would make a major difference. I suppose maybe in some of the more mountainous areas out west?

I certainly liked having it in my general aviation days, but I’ve never had it at this level so I don’t know if I’m missing out on anything.
Click to expand...

It’s great stuff for helicopter ops, where we are often operating inside mountains/canyons on dark nights with either no moon, or a solid overcast that allows no moon and thus nothing the NVGs can magnify. Also shows not only terrain, but obstructions. Unlit/unmarked powerlines and towers that will eat us for lunch, ala the R44 helo in Houston. A great benefit for not hitting the ground, and not hitting anything attached to the ground.
 
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