Not Unsafe
It's a blaady silly thing to say, however, saying it's a perfect flying machine is an overstatement. To put it mildly.
When it came, some genious had removed the Main gear shimmydampers. Saved some kiloes. That gave you a 20 % chance of getting a severe shimmy if you did a smooth landing. Tried that. Scared the shat out of the SLF's. And me. Panels falling from the roof. General mayhem in the cabin. Thank you for flying with us, etc, etc. I hate making excuses when it has nothing to do with me, or the way I operate. Until that one was fixed we were under orders not to make smooth landings. Had to change a few landing gears too.
DAC engines? This was an engine thing, and not really a Boeing problem. So, we had to operate them (engines) either at idle, or at the setting required in order to avoid failures. Ok. No V/S or intermediate settings during descent or climb.
De-ice. Vibrations after take off. Of course, we didn't know what caused it, but automatically I disconnected the autopilot and autothrottles, and believing it was engine related, I pulled back the throttles. Speed came back, and the vibrations stopped. Didn't stop one F/A offloading herself at destination, the vibrations were really bad in the back of the aircraft. Who am I to blame her? It was bad enough up front. So, speedlimitations in effect.
Never had any vibrations with the speedbrakes though, but limitation max 300 kts in effect.
Fuelpumps? In all fairness, Boeing didn't design them, but they are a big pain in the butt. Landingweight. Say no more.
Rudder anyone? X-overspeeds? The -800 can match the heavy jets approach speed anyday. Limited runway, full load, flaps 40, dodgy wind conditions. Hands full keeping the speed somewhere between stall and overspeed.
I don't want to talk about flight control module failures. We got them fixed. Some aircraft grounded before that happened though.
Don't change MAP mode/range during approach, as the displays may go blank. Or disagree. Or fail.
Leaving the navlights on during daylight will crack the glass. So don't.
Using the retractable landing lights without a special procedure will crack the glass.
It's to blaady noisy! It's beyond me how they can change everything except the nose of the plane. This has become a loss of lisence issue. Doing 320 kts it's as noisy as a turboprop. It s*cks!
The cockpit is beautiful! After you've manhandled yourself into it. 6 large screens. Just don't look up! I'm drooling for a 60's Mustang. Not a 60's overhead panel. It works, but it sure is ugly.
Ice, ice, baby. At least it doesn't enter the engines. A lot of operators with dents in the leading edge of the tailplane. Big surprise. Land with less than 4000 kgs.
Oh, the logo light reflectors will crack of you leave them on in a warm climate.
The taxi light is totally useless. Even the big one, and it's really expensive.
Go around on a single autopilot ILS or any non precision approach, you're on manual controls. It's not a problem, but it's not Next Generation either. In some airlines a manual go around is an emergency procedure. No names mentioned.
Autoland? It will do one very nicely. After touchdown the autopilot will say bye, bye, and you are left on you're own. Not smart. It's 20 (at least) years since autopilot rollout guidance was introduced. What do you prefer when you are running into second seqment 0 visibility?
If I ever kept speed control as poorly as the NG autopilot, my examiner would have failed me. No doubt.
No, it is not unsafe. We, as professionals are very good at developing procedures to make up for the shortcomings of the equipment we operate. We just have a lot of procedures for the NG at the moment.
2 stickers, Fowler. 2. So far.