16 Blades (+ Allisons, but no standby horizon??): the technology on "our" fleet ( among several, the oldest) is the same vintage
. Our autopilot only holds altitude, as we find VOR frequencies and radials on a crammed chart. So many cities are served from three hubs, that we still must look up all of the routes, along with the STARs and SIDs, to verify or become 're-acquainted'. On a few SIDs, a certain altitude must be reached by a certain DME (O' Hare is one), depending upon the initial heading. None of this is accomplished by pushing (FMC) buttons or opening (MCP) mode control panel windows etc.
By the way, world-famous Southwest Airlines had the Boeing company create the Southwest 737-800, only for them
, with flight instruments which depict information with ROUND Gauges, as with the older 757! I don't know about the US Navy Reserve's VR squadrons which have retired the DC-9
. SWA did this in order for safety to be the priority. I have no idea how many 737-200 or -300s are left. If the newer displays are indisputably better, then why did Southwest choose the older, STANDARD flight displays, and train pilots to use only a PORTION of the available automation
? There must be a reason which improves flight safety, no?
Of course many Ppruners "drink the manufacturers' 'poisoned' Kool-Aid" about aviation's future, ignoring the past which produced aircraft whose higher demands were placed upon constant attention to power settings, heading, altitude level-offs and VOR tuning+watching course drift, and a much higher workload to operate hydraulics, APU, cabin press. and anti-ice etc. (no holding page). Comparing storms on weather radar to two additional, different gauges, in order to determine just where the VOR and airport should be is added to the above...And the past was not built upon modes and NASA's control laws, nor condensed "glass displays".
Boeing did not design those into the original 737 New Generation aircraft.
If the Lowest Cost were the only King (besides the advantage of ordering many aircraft at once) , then would the airline not have forgotten the entire concept of using the older style displays?
Southwest pilots seem to use only a small part of their actual automation in the newer 737s, which seems to enhance safety. If fully-automated lateral and vertical navigation systems are always safer, then why do their Flight Operations bosses NOT allow their pilots to use all of the automation? It can't just be standardization. Some airlines flew the 737-2 and newer series, which have numerous differences in equipment. The Southwest policy is a totally unique situation for any airline-they seem to be the only airline in the world which makes standard displays the highest priority, not to mention having only one fleet type (rating, also). And Boeing pilots can watch the throttles move, in order to quickly notice what the engine power trends are, along with MD pilots (or pilots must always move them full-time, in "real time", in X-GenerationSpeak
).