Originally Posted by
edmundronald
Didn't they have a way of training pilots without sims when the 737 was first certified?
Why is this suddenly not appropriate now?
They did have cockpit mockups. They also had considerable actual aircraft resources devoted to training. I believe Lufthansa (No 1 737 operator) had at least one 737 in Arizona for years used wholly for training, as did the Japanese operators have 727s in Washington State, these used to go down to TWA in Los Angeles periodically for maintenance checks.
But the key thing was they just trained for line operations rather than sustained problem training. And still the landing gear and structures used to take a pasting.