Should WJA get rid of AR (age +65 pilots) ?

[slob driver]

-when to hit toga on t/o
-briefing transition alt/level in domestic airspace
-speedbrake up and reversers normal call on landing rollout (imo this is a great addition for s/a)
-transition set standard call (which was previously and archaic cdn regional holdover call going through transition)
Before start checklist cleaned up from 200 times

Like I said, some decent changes mixed in with a couple changes that are kinda superfluous (imo). I’m already forgetting some of the changes. It doesn’t take long…

Many more changes coming apparently. I look forward to actually engaging vnav on the ground. That’s one that has never made sense for us (obviously).

While I like/don't mind most of the new changes, you're the only pilot I've heard mention that they like the "Speedbrake up / reversers normal" call on landing. I mean don't get me wrong, it's SOP so I do it, but I find that calling out something normal in an already higher workload situation decreases s/a. For now it seems more distracting than helpful, though maybe we'll get more used to it.

While I definitely understand your concerns and appreciate your argument against this new call, I would use two examples of 737 accidents that might not have happened had our new calls been used in those instances;

- WestJet 737 overrun in 2008 (?)in YOW
- Southwest 737 overrun in MDW in 2005

In both cases, there were (as usual) many things that led to the accidents before the overruns occurred. The YOW overrun led to changes of our SOP’s that speed brakes SHALL not be extended past flaps 10 whereas at the time of the overrun, our SOP’s stated we SHOULD NOT extend the speed brake past flaps 10. At any rate, if the captain had verbally recognized that the speed brake was not extended on touchdown and they came out two seconds earlier, would the overrun not occurred? Who knows?
On the SWA overrun, it took the crew a full 18 seconds to have the reversers fully deploy. I would hypothesize that they were task saturated from everything going on and they missed the reversers not being deployed. I think one can safely assume this had a direct result to that overrun.
As well, I know for a fact that we at WJ have had instances in the sim and on line where, even though the speed brake was armed for the touchdown, the speed brake never extended due to the wheel spin up not being detected on a contaminated surface and the crew not catching the speedbrake staying stowed. The speedbrake not extending is not an atypical situation on a slick runway as I’m sure you’re aware. Obviously if the crew recognizes this, they will manually extend the speed brakes. However, this is not always caught and the speed brake never extends on the landing rollout.
While I recognize that of course we are all perfect and would never make such serious omissions as the three examples above ( ) I think verbally verifying that we have all tools working for us for expected deceleration is an acceptable trade off to our previous SOP’s taking the above accidents and potential situations into account.

[MaxAuto]

Is it true all WestJet aircraft don't have auto call out such as "1000" "500" "approaching minimums" "minimums or 100 above" 50' 30' 20' 10'.

Does the PM make all these calls.

[JBI]

While I definitely understand your concerns and appreciate your argument against this new call, I would use two examples of 737 accidents that might not have happened had our new calls been used in those instances;

- WestJet 737 overrun in 2008 (?)in YOW
- Southwest 737 overrun in MDW in 2005

In both cases, there were (as usual) many things that led to the accidents before the overruns occurred. The YOW overrun led to changes of our SOP’s that speed brakes SHALL not be extended past flaps 10 whereas at the time of the overrun, our SOP’s stated we SHOULD NOT extend the speed brake past flaps 10. At any rate, if the captain had verbally recognized that the speed brake was not extended on touchdown and they came out two seconds earlier, would the overrun not occurred? Who knows?
On the SWA overrun, it took the crew a full 18 seconds to have the reversers fully deploy. I would hypothesize that they were task saturated from everything going on and they missed the reversers not being deployed. I think one can safely assume this had a direct result to that overrun.
As well, I know for a fact that we at WJ have had instances in the sim and on line where, even though the speed brake was armed for the touchdown, the speed brake never extended due to the wheel spin up not being detected on a contaminated surface and the crew not catching the speedbrake staying stowed. The speedbrake not extending is not an atypical situation on a slick runway as I’m sure you’re aware. Obviously if the crew recognizes this, they will manually extend the speed brakes. However, this is not always caught and the speed brake never extends on the landing rollout.
While I recognize that of course we are all perfect and would never make such serious omissions as the three examples above ( ) I think verbally verifying that we have all tools working for us for expected deceleration is an acceptable trade off to our previous SOP’s taking the above accidents and potential situations into account.

Interesting! Thanks for commenting. I didn't realize that speed brake deployment was a factor in the YOW overrun. Over the last few weeks I've definitely been noticing it become more of a 'muscle memory' type thing while landing.

And I definitely don't claim to to be perfect

[Maritimer]

Is it true all WestJet aircraft don't have auto call out such as "1000" "500" "approaching minimums" "minimums or 100 above" 50' 30' 20' 10'.

Does the PM make all these calls.

PM makes the 1000’ and 500’ call but the rest are auto called out by the aircraft. Unless RA MEL’d of course. I’ve only flown 1 ex-Lynx tail and the only thing I’ve noticed is the lack of ACARS printer. Ex-Swoop Max’s (Norwegian I think) might have slight differences too if I remember correctly but all “true” WJ tails have the auto call-out below 500’.

[ACYYC]

- WestJet 737 overrun in 2008 (?)in YOW

Yep. February 2008. I was a passenger on that flight.