Inside the incredibly elegant cockpit of Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-800
- Check out this incredible POV of the Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-800 cockpit
- The number of screens, knobs, and buttons is unbelievable
- However, despite being numerous they also look highly organized
Published on Jun 07, 2024 at 4:48 PM (UTC+4)
by Amelia Jean Hershman-Jones
Last updated on Jun 08, 2024 at 9:24 PM (UTC+4)
Edited by
Tom Wood
It’s a POV usually reserved for qualified, commercial pilots, but this rare peek into the Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-800 reveals how complicated, yet elegant its cockpit is.
The aircraft is 39.52 m (129 ft 8 in) long with a wingspace of 35.9 m (117 ft 10 in), and it has a maximum of 210 seats.
All that is powered by a LEAP-1B from CFM International engine with 3,500 km (6,480 miles) – and this unique footage shows where the flight crew sits in charge of it all.
READ MORE! Airbus A380 versus Boeing 747: we put the giants of the sky head to head
The cockpit of the Boeing 737-800
The video, shared by aviation and flight-simulator content creator, Jviation, pans across the cockpit showing the complex array of knobs, buttons and screens both in front of the pilot and co-pilot and overhead.
While it’s complex it appears perfectly organized – it’s certainly far more spacious than the SR-71 Blackbird’s tiny cockpit.
The Boeing 737 family
Zooming out, the Boeing 737 MAX family ‘delivers enhanced efficiency, improved environmental performance and increased passenger comfort to the single-aisle market’.
It combines ‘advanced technology winglets and efficient engines’ to be cutting edge.
Speaking of efficiency, check out this spectacular cockpit view of a Boeing 777 landing in torrential rain.
The result: ‘excellent economics, reducing fuel use and emissions by 20 percent while producing a 50 percent smaller noise footprint than the airplanes it replaces’.
Financially the 737 MAX family offers approximately 14 percent lower airframe maintenance costs than other planes within the same category.
The passenger experience
What’s more, passengers are kept happy in the air.
They’re treated to ‘the Boeing Sky Interior, highlighted by modern sculpted sidewalls and window reveals, LED lighting that enhances the sense of spaciousness, and larger pivoting overhead storage bins’.
And it’s such an iconic flight deck that this dad built a Boeing 737-800 flight simulator in his garage with a cockpit that’s seriously close to the real thing.
DISCOVER SBX CARS: The global premium car auction platform powered by Supercar Blondie
All Supercar Blondie contributors undergo editorial review and fact-checking to ensure accuracy and authority in automotive journalism. After gaining her BA Hons in French and English at the University of Nottingham, Amelia embarked on a vocational diploma from the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ). This led to numerous opportunities, from interning at Vogue to being on the small team that launched Women’s Health magazine in the UK, which was named the PPA Consumer magazine of the year for three years running. As Health, Beauty and Fitness editor, Amelia personally received a Johnson & Johnson Award and was shortlisted for both PPA and BSME titles. Since then, Amelia has created content for numerous titles and brands, including the Telegraph, 111 Skin, Waitrose, Red magazine, Stylist, and Elle, as well as being Head of Content at Vitality and Editor in Chief at INLondon magazine. “My superpower is translating technical jargon about the mechanical workings of a supercar into a relatable story you’ll want to share with your friends after you’ve read it.” After joining the SB Media family as a senior journalist in September of 2023, Amelia’s role has evolved to see her heading up the SEO output of the editorial team. From researching the most ‘Google-able’ key terms to producing evergreen content - it’s been a time of hard work, growth, and success for the editorial team and the Supercar Blondie website. “I like to think of myself as a ‘method journalist’. In other words: I live and breathe whatever I am writing about. When writing about fitness, I trained as a personal trainer, and as a beauty editor, I completed an ‘expert’ in scent diploma with the Fragrance Foundation. “During my tenure at Supercar Blondie, however, I did something I never thought possible: I passed my driving test at the age of 36. One day I’d love to train as a mechanic to better understand what happens under the hood, too. “My sweet spot is providing readers with a ‘takeaway’ (read: something new they didn’t know before) after reading every one of my stories. While I don’t claim to be an expert in the automotive world, I know the experts and bodies in the field to rely on to provide our readers with an informative and thought-provoking story every time they visit the site.”
