mattk wrote:
“they’ve all go it”?!
I think my English-language parser just crashed.
Speaking as someone who is a big propronent of Part 61 training (since I went that route myself), I’d say that if you really want to be a commercial airline pilot, you should:
1) make sure you can pass a Class 1 medical *before* you spend many many thousands of dollars on training
2) go to one of the academies geared specifically towards turning people into airline pilots - in other words Part 141, not the Part 61 route I took.
Why? Because aviation overall covers a lot of different things. Even in the slightly smaller world of just airplanes, you could argue for several sub-divisions of flying. (The aviation-for-pleasure I do is worlds apart from running a 747, for instance) By going to one of the academies, your training will be focused towards achieving your goal from day 1. Under Part 61, it may not be and you’ll probably spend quite considerable time hunting down the right instructor for you and your goals and you’ll have to pick up other things on your own. At an academy you’ll be surrounded by others with the same goal as you, and comaraderie is a good thing. An academy will also expose you to intensive training (you’d better enjoy learning, because in flying it never stops) and (I presume) try to instill in you the attitudes and mental frame of mind to succeed in landing a job with the airlines. I believe they also give you some training in how to sell yourself and survive the interviews you’ll need to get through, which you probably won’t get through Part 61
FTR, I wasn’t “recommending” Part 61 training over Part 141. I was just pointing out that there are a couple of ways to get the training, both of which are expensive.
It appears that all models of 737s are larger than DC-9s, the largest 737 is significantly larger.
DC-9: 80 pax in Class II
737-100: 99 pax in Class II
737-900: 177 pax in Class II
(I’m going by ability to carry passengers as the way to measure size, physically they all have similar dimentions)
Ah, bugger. Me and my typing. Ta for the warning, tracer.
Dr. Lao wrote:
It appears that all models of 737s are larger than [i.e. carry more passengers than] DC-9s, the largest 737 is significantly larger.
DC-9: 80 pax in Class II
737-100: 99 pax in Class II
737-900: 177 pax in Class II
[/QUOTE]
Huh. I’ll be darned. I always thought the 737 was smaller.
I might also be confusing the DC-9 with the MD-80 or MD-90. I often call MD-80s and MD-90s “DC-9s” out of habit, the same way I call an MD-11 a “DC-10”.
Incidentally, a UI Design guy I know used to work in the Aviation Engineering biz, and said that the DC-9 (and presumably the MD-80 and MD-90 as well) had a pretty lousy track record for accidentally making gear-up landings. Apparently, the landing gear will not extend unless the crew remembers to switch the hydraulic system from “low pressure” to “high pressure” first, and despite the crew’s checklists and type ratings and all other precautions this step is often missed. (Which also means the crew sometimes doesn’t pay attention to the green lights over the landing gear switch. Heck, even I learned to do that as part of my GUMPS check on landing a complex airplane.)