Hobbit64

I saw his post as a former regional lifer thinking he could take easy shot at another airline.

shoelu

One of the few ways that SWA deviation from industry norms actually was far superior to the way everyone else does it.

Walk arounds were performed by ground crew members specifically trained for the job moments before push. After all doors and access panels closed. After all equipment removed from the aircraft. After all cargo doors closed. After all belt loaders and baggage carts pulled away from the aircraft. After all lav servicing trucks removed. After jet bridge pulled back, etc. etc. etc.

The ground personnel took the job very seriously. I always found them to be meticulous about the job and were interested in being extremely thorough accomplishing the task.

Mozam

kind of concerning that he feels he needs to walk around every time he lands to make sure he did not over rotate or slamming it on so hard he put a flat spot on the tire. I will definitely look at his post in a different view for now on.

flyguy81

They’ve said twice now that with all the new people they’re hiring…they don’t know WTF they’re looking at/for. So they want someone qualified on the plane to get it done…and that the ramp will still do theirs after all equipment is clear. So who knows?

Hobbit64

The last few years remind me of a unit I was in where a bunch of E-6’s & E-7’s ( experienced NCOs) left and the whole place fell apart. Tribal Wisdom is hard to come by and harder to replace.

Over the years I’ve had a few rampers come up and tell us about something. More often than not it was already know or nothing, sometimes it needed a write up. Like damage to a baggage door or dents.

shoelu

I read the RBF and saw no mention of the ground crew continuing to walk around the aircraft before push?

hoover

they are. Right as we were ready to push we had a guy have us come look at a fan blade. This after we've done the walk around but because we may have missed something we had to stop the push and delay to go check out what he said. Wasnt anything but ya still need to check it out cause who knows. So seems not everyone has the memo or they are still required to do it also

JDFlyer

In full disclosure I allowed my initial experiences as a SWA FO determine my first flight of the day and plane-swap walk around procedure. Early in my career at SWA a CA yelled at me for not promptly doing the walk around duties immediately after arriving at the aircraft. He said, should I find anything, it would take a while to get the paperwork completed and properly reported and he did not want to take any kind of delay because of a late reported walk-around issue. I now admit I have been wrong all these years in using this walk around method. I will now be changing my procedure.

For absolute safety reasons, it would make much more sense to do the pre-flight walk around only at a point in time just before the jet bridge is pulled away from the aircraft. All vehicles, carts and extraneous persons would be removed and away from the safety zone of the aircraft at this point. Should any dents or other damage have occurred, or any panels of the aircraft be remaining open, this would be the only time to verify the aircraft is ready to push back, safely. It should be a meticulously completed inspection and any discrepancies noted should be reported to the CA and MC so that all thorough documentation and log book entries can be made and recorded in our maintenance control software and systems. There really is no other way to assure the safety of this inspection.

Remember, each and every pilot at SWA is representing and essentially guaranteeing the safety of the plane every time we take it airborne. You career depends on the quality of the work you do for SWA.

Safety is our number one priority as SWA pilots. So lets all make SWA the safest airline flying.

flyguy81

The NOC CP said, “we’re missing a lot of bird strikes. MX is noticing feathers on the horiz. stab and other places”.

We said, “we can’t see that high at night because the ramp lighting sucks and my handheld flashlight isn’t that bright.”

He said, “well during the day you should notice it. And that would give time to patch through to Mx control to get the ball rolling to prevent a bigger delay. Then ramp will do their walk around before push also”.

So if something happens between our walk around and the ramps’….we still take a delay. Whatever…not my circus, not my clowns. I’ll take a few walk arounds during the day if I don’t have anything else important to do to help out the FO and set the box up while I still remember how.

Grumpyaviator

You’re gonna be delayed whether you do it at the beginning or end of the turn because it takes forever to do the paperwork.