I saw this plane taking off while I listened to the last minute of "Turn Up The Sound" by "The Brooks". The music was really fitting to the plane taking off.
The winglets are there to increase fuel efficiency. Winglets increase the aspect ratio of the wing without significantly increasing the span. They also significantly reduced induced drag by reducing and slightly redirecting the wingtip vortices. The blended winglets on this particular airplane are worth a roughly 3% increase in fuel efficiency. The NG series (700 like this one and 800) which have the Split Scimitar style winglets are good for another 1.5% on top of that. The AT design on the MAX's are a little better still.
Is there anybody in the comments here who flies for either Southwest, Delta, or JetBlue? I want to be a pilot, but I also wanna make sure I can see my family a lot and I’m trying to figure out which one of the three are a good fit
I've been at SWA for 19 years. I have friends from college and previous flying jobs at all the other airlines. SWA has the most schedule flexibility when it comes to QOL issues, for a number of reasons. 1) They have the most (by FAR) domiciles, which = less commuting. Commuting sucks. Period. 2) Line bidding vs PBS. PBS is the Devil. PBS is designed for bean counters, not for crew members, and don't let anyone ever, ever, ever tell you differently. The legacy carrier pilots will always say "Oh it's not that bad once you get senior" but when I show them what we can do with line bidding and especially things like trip trading and vacation drops, they can only shake their heads and say, "How is that even possible?". There is not even a little bit of comparacions. Line bidding is what you wat as a pilot. PBS only really benefits senior guys and accountants, and depending how it's programmed, mostly only accountants. 3) Our trip rigs, duty rigs and daily minimums are higher, which translates into longer, denser works days and higher paying trips. Which matters a LOT for QOL. Denser, higher paying trips = more days at home for the same pay as less dense trips. For roughly the same credit pay, I average 2 or 3 more days off every month than my narrow body friends at the legacies. That's on non vacation months. On vacation months, because PBS will put a trip on either end of a vacation block, but line bidding does the exact opposite if you want it to, I can typically turn 1 week of vacation into 2 or 3. That's impossible under PBS, unless your specific carrier has programmed their PBS to allow it, and I don't know of any that has. (I may be wrong though, ask a legacy pilot). The trade off is SWA trips are "harder" than most other airlines. Our trips are denser and more productive. We fly more, we have longer days and sometimes, shorter nights. If you're one of those people who want to have long, luxurious trips lounging on the beach at some hotel, then fly one or two legs to another long, luxurious overnight, SWA may not be your ideal. Compared to the legacies, we come in to work, we fly a lot, we go home, where we have more days off and probably don't have to commute unless we just want to. We don't have a widebody path, and that's a big deal to some guys, but QOL is higher here than anywhere else for a narrow body pilot with equivalent seniority. Once our new contract is signed, expect it to get even better. I'm certainly not saying you can't have a wonderful career at Delta or jB, they are both great places to work. But if work/life balance is a high priority for you, SWA Is hard to beat. The most domiciles, no PBS and really good work rules. Those are the factors you need to evaluate when selecting your career destination carrier.
