733 was a huge improvement on the 732. 732, I suspect like many jet transports of its generation, was a bit of a challenge to the tyro jet pilot. Very ‘twitchy’ is the best summation….speed unstable (especially on the approach), just breath on the rudder and the machine would roll dramatically (secondary effect of rudder with a swept wing). Plus nothing like FMCs or anything like that. Blasting off towards the Canaries across the water involved pointing towards a strong commercial radio station on Tenerife, and cross checking position from VOR beacons in Portugal and Morrocco….nothing like now when almost every jet tracks the airway centreline to within a matter of metres!

733, handled like a larger jet I always thought. With (reasonably) big fan engines, just set the correct power setting on the approach and the speed was correct. Much easier to handle….most of the ‘twitchiness’ of the 732 seeemed to have been designed out. Plus, of course, FMC, with all its benefits

However……….as a first jet to fly, 732 was just fine, as the Mark 1 brain had to used to a large extent. It was a great learning experience!

Thanks for that, very interesting.

It seems though that the B737 NG’s aren’t a great improvement from the classics. I have heard that they aren’t built as well, not nice in crosswinds, unforgiving landing gear, a bumpier ride in turbulence becuse of the thinner wing, not as nice to hand fly as the classics.

Flex 35

Nice to get two pilots professional viewpoint on it. Quite interesting.

Moondance,

A bit off topic here but did you enjoy flying the 300?

Flex 35

Ryanair’s maintenance procedures are equal and better to many national carriers flying today. Unless you are a qualified engineer and have inspected Ryanair aircraft I wouldn’t pass judgement if I were you. 😉

Flex 35

First I’ve heard of that, any specifics?

They have gone for the “Classic” setup of the B737NG (which tries to recreate the older models but fails miserably, quite a few airlines have gone for the option – Kenya Airways, Air Berlin and Air Europa spring to mind). Also the B737 classics (300s/500s) are built like the B737-200s with the steam gauges. None of them have autothrottle or VNAV enabled. But they do have an FMS unit with some sort of lateral navigation available.

Regards
Flex 35

Well its not in Flight Check, you sure you have got the time right?

Flex 35

erm ok i stand corrected on the reg. on the gear down twice i can definatly vouce it was the gear and nothin else the reason being is that the flaps wernt going down at the time and i had a wing view and no flap were deployed, the reason i no at quarter to midnight is he has the landing lights on so i could see the movement of the wing and vibrations came from the floor.

Righty. On the 757 and almost every aircraft on the planet with a retractable landing gear, the crew will not even begin to consider of lowering the landing gear with no flaps selected. Doing this will damage the airframe.

Let me try to illustrate this with the following two images.

Flex 35

Nice report. Hmm… putting the gear down then back up again, sounds a bit far fetched. You must have heard something else extending, maybe the flaps or just some spoiler to bleed the speed off. They can make quite a bang on the B757.

Flex 35