Southwest Airlines PFD

Okstate Pilot

Okstate Pilot

New Member
Does anybody know why Southwest Airlines uses traditional style round gauge instruments on their electronic flight displays? They are the only ones I have seen that use that configuration.

M
 
They wanted it to be common to the B-737s that they already had. Less training on the differences meant streamlining things and saving money at the same time.
 
It is for commonality. On their -300s and -500s it is round. They don't want someone who is flying a -700 leg one and two have to change his scan on an aircraft swap to a -500 on leg three and get flustered.
 
They do it for commonality with their "Classic" -300 & -500 series 737s which were there first. I reckon Continentals does it as well.

There's a pie-in-the-sky plan to convert the remaining classics into regular PFD/ND-equipped aircraft so they can do RNP flying (like the 767 FPDS stuff ABX and AA are doing on their 767s). For SWA, my bet is that those planes will be flying around Indonesia long before anything can be certified and funded.
 
I answered this within 3 minutes on a Friday night, but I just finished 14 hour workday and I'm going to bed momentarily. Seggy here ought to have a similar good reason. Such as, spent 14 hours shaving back hair and now too tired to go out for the night etc.
 
Don't worry, it's all going away very very soon. My dad calls me up on a weekly basis to complain about all the new "gee whiz" stuff in the plane now that they're going to acquired navigational performance (I believe that's the term). He then goes on to bemoan about how he had to learn the F-14s computer in 1977 and he didn't really want to learn about any computers after that. Then I talk him through signing back into his Itunes account....
 
They are in the process of switching over and training for RNP approaches. My Southwest information ended when I lost jump seat privileges in November.
 
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