July 14th

The airline will take scheduled delivery of four 737-800 aircraft in the fourth quarter of 2003 and 12 737-800 aircraft in 2004, marking the completion of Continental’s fleet replacement program, under which the airline has taken delivery of 288 new Boeing aircraft. In addition, Continental is in discussions with The Boeing Company regarding the terms of delivery of the 11 remaining 757-300 aircraft that Continental has on order. Offsetting the deliveries in 2003 and 2004, Continental expects to retire 19 MD-80 and 737- 300 aircraft — four during the fourth quarter of 2003 and 15 in 2004. The remaining MD-80 aircraft in Continental’s fleet are expected to be retired from service in January 2005. The net result will be further reductions in Continental’s fleet.

And the airline is also trying to defer all 11 of the bigger 757-300s it has on order, the newspaper said.

Continental’s plans would drive down production of the 757 to well below one a month, making it difficult for Boeing to continue producing this aircraft profitably, analysts said.

Boeing has just seven 757 orders in place beyond the 11 placed by Continental and has not booked a new order for the model since December 2001

I couldn’t find the specific reference to cancelling the 757 line only the implication discussed in the second article. So it looks like it’s in the hands of CAL whether or not the 757’s will continue to be built.

Originally posted by MSE
as i said, or wanted to, show the full thing, have a go and then focus on stopping it happening

That’s the method that I used when approached stalls with students. I just balk at the use of the term Preventative Training since it’s misleading.

still you mentioned an out of balance aircraft – i thought that it should never be out of balance?!

I never mentioned being out of CG but only having CG issues preventing a quick recovery. Hugging the rear of the CG envelope reduces your rudder effectiveness and therefor slows your spin recovery. Being far forward in the CG envelope and your ability to pull out of your resulting dive can be hampered. CG I think is the biggest variable in aircraft performance and it’s also least considered.

Thanks.:)

Originally posted by MSE
So why practice or focus on the spin its self, why not focus of not ‘loosing’ our attention, recovery actions almost before you have started to spin and stopping the spin in its tracks?

I think learning not to lose once focus or attention of the situation is an important part of training because it is what gets people into trouble most of the time. I also think that an important part of stall/spin training is learning to recover from the earliest indications of a spin not just a developed one. I think that is something that a lot of pilots miss out on. They learn all about recovering from a full spin that they lose the opportunity to learn to recover from a more real world situation, the incipid (sp?) spin.

With that being said, as much as I think it’s important to learn to recover from the early spin entry it’s also important to learn to recover from the full thing. Perhaps CG issues prevented you from recovering as early as you like and you find yourself in that full spin. Remember you can stall at any altitude/attitude and indicated airspeed so that would also hold true for spins since the first step of a spin is a stall right? This doesn’t mean that a student should be comfortable taking an airplane both in and out of a spin. If nothing else, the process should be demonstrated, allowing for them to use the memorized recovery procedures at lleast once to see what it really takes.

I’ve covered my thoughts on Preventative learning before. You can’t prevent the unexpected no matter how hard you try. Why do you practice stalls when you never plan on stalling? Why do you practice engine out procedures when you never plan on losing an engine? Why do you practice instrument flying when you never plan on flying in clouds or low visibility? The reason is that aviation is known for being full of unexpected changes and events. Look how many people kill themselves every year due to unexpectly flying into IFR conditions. If they had spent more time under the hood they wouldn’t have gotten disoriented and flown into the ground.

Originally posted by VLM Flyer
Good photo, but I hate those winglets.

Awe, I love those, big and sweeping. Beautiful.