Remember the 200s?

I consider myself lucky because when I first got hired on at SWA we still had 737-200s. They were old and cantankerous but most everyone loved them. The flight crews loved them because they were fast. "It's a real jet" as they told me, and apparently they flew pretty fast. We had a cadre of older flight crews who only flew the 200s, I guess that was their favorite.

On the maintenance side it was a pretty simple plane. No E&E bay jammed with computers oh no, the E&E bay had something like 8 or 10 boxes and a simple auto pilot system. I remember the Roll Computer and there must have been a Yaw Computer or something like that. They were made of METAL (remember that stuff?). You could beat that plane with a hammer and it would be ok, you could walk on almost any surface and it would be ok. There were mechanics who loved working the JT-8s. I never had a chance to do much on them but add oil and do simple service checks and A checks. The senior guys really liked the old birds and seemed to know every nut and bolt, all the tricks to get them humming. One of the coolest moments was when I first got my taxi ticket and got to taxi the 200s around (they were fast). As with all things time brings about change and in 1997-8(?) SWA decided to stop using 737-200s all together. For those of us who had the privilege to work on those graceful jets the memories will last a life time. A pure jet. A money maker. A legend.