Door drills on three aircraft types: A320, 737 and 787 doors compared from the trainee's hands and how mixed fleet crew keep the arming straight
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#1 Lufthansa purser, six years, and the door drill threads are 'how many times before it becomes reflex' and the freeze at the door. The specific problem the mixed fleet crew have is the three doors in one head: the A320 family door, the 737 door, the 787 or the 777 or the 747 door, with the arming and the opening different on each, and the drill that goes wrong when the hands do the wrong type. Here is the comparison from the hands and the method the mixed fleet crew use.
The A320 family door
The lever arming (the slide arming lever moved to armed, the indicator), the door opened by the handle lifted and the door swung outward and forward on the arm, the slide deploying from the door. The emergency opening: the handle fully, the door assisted outward by the power assist, the slide. The A320 door is the one most European crew learn first and the hands remember it as the default.
The 737 door
The girt bar arming (the bar placed into the floor brackets by hand, which is the thing the A320 crew find strange), the door opened by the handle rotated and the door swung outward and forward on the hinge, the slide from the door. The emergency: the handle fully, the door out, the slide. The girt bar is the 737's whole difference and the crew who come from the A320 arm the 737 wrong in the first week by reaching for a lever that is not there.
The 787 and the wide body doors
The lever arming again (the 787 and the 777 and the A350 have the lever), the door opened by the handle and the door translating up and into the ceiling (the 787 and the 777) or swinging out (the A350 and the A330), the slide raft from the door. The emergency: the handle fully, the power assist, the door up, the slide raft inflating as a raft. The wide body door is big and the trainee's first emergency opening on the trainer is the one that makes the point about the force.
The arming confusion between types
The crew who fly the A320 and the 737 in the same month (the mixed fleet low cost carriers, the leisure carriers) are the ones with the arming confusion: the lever on one, the girt bar on the other, and the hands that go to the wrong one at the cross check. The cross check is the thing that catches it (Alex's check flight thread: the look, not the word) and the crew who do the cross check as a look catch their own hands. The crew who fly the A320 and the 787 (Lufthansa's new joiners after the long haul course) have the door direction confusion: outward on one, up on the other, and the hands that push when they should lift.
How the mixed fleet crew keep them straight
The type said aloud at the door before the arming ('A320, lever') as a verbal cue that resets the hands. The pre flight equipment check done as the actual check of the actual door and not from memory (the check flight thread). The recurrent on every type every year (James's recurrent thread), which is the thing that keeps the rarer type's door in the hands. And the honest pause at an unfamiliar door: the second it takes to look at the arming mechanism before touching it is the second the examiner wants to see.
For the trainees on a mixed fleet course
Learn each door as its own door with its own card (the differences as separate cards, Isabel's exam thread). Say the type aloud at the door. Cross check as a look. And know that the hands will go to the wrong type once in the first month and the cross check is there for that once.
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#2 Jet2 Manchester, the 737 and the A321neo in the same month, and the girt bar on one and the lever on the other is the Jet2 arming confusion exactly and the hands went to the lever on the 737 in week two and the cross check caught it, as Daniel says. The type said aloud at the door is the Jet2 crew's fix.
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#3 Jet2 training, the 737 and the A321neo, and the girt bar being the thing the A320 crew find strange was me in reverse: I learned the girt bar first and the A321 lever was the strange one. The differences as separate cards is the thing I am doing tonight.
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#4 Lufthansa Frankfurt, the A320 and then the A350 and A340 after the long haul course, and the door direction confusion (outward on the 320, out on the 350, and the 747 crew with the up) is the Lufthansa mixed fleet one and the pause at the unfamiliar door is the examiner's second. Daniel has the three doors from the hands.
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#5 Ryanair, the 737-800 and the MAX 8-200, and the two 737s with the small differences (the MAX door is the 737 door and the exam asks the differences) is the Ryanair version of the confusion and the separate card for the differences got me through the exam. One type, two cards.
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#6 Qantas, the 787 and the A380 and the 737 domestic years before, and the recurrent on every type every year keeping the rarer type's door in the hands is the thing the mixed fleet senior crew know: the 737 door I have not opened in eight years is in the recurrent and the recurrent is why I could open it tomorrow.
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#7 Trainer, and the mixed fleet course with the three doors is the hardest SEP course I run and Daniel's method (each door its own card, the type aloud, the cross check as a look, the honest pause) is the method the course teaches and the trainees who use it pass the practical on all three. The pause is the examiner's second, yes.
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#8 @connordub one type, two cards is the 737 and the MAX in a sentence and the exam does ask the differences. @jamesmel the 737 door you have not opened in eight years being in the hands because of the recurrent is the recurrent's whole purpose and the mixed fleet crew's safety.