Southwest said goodbye to the 737-200 on Monday as the last -200 in the fleet was retired.  This was a huge deal for the company it was the first time in the company's history that a series of aircraft had been retired from the fleet.  The -200 had been with the company since the beginning as it was the aircraft that got everything started.  

Check out this interesting dicussion at airliners.net about the last WN 737-200.  Truly remarkable...
http://www.airliners.net/discussions/general_aviation/read.main/1894632/4/

The Southwest 737-200 has been extinct from the West Coast for a few years so it has been a very long time since they have been seen out here in California.  I did take one about 5 years ago on a flight to SFO.  WN no longer has service to SFO and hasn't for a few years now so yeah...it's been a while.  The -200s spent their final days based out of DAL staying pretty much on the Texas/surounding states routes.  The 24 -500s in the fleet are basically replacing the -200s on these routes.  A sign that it wont be too long before the -500s are gone as well.

When I went to Dallas for Ramp training back in October, I had a last chance to see these awesome birds in action and I was even lucky enough to ride on two of them.  They carried me from AUS - DAL and from DAL - AUS.  I also saw a few retirements right before my eyes.  I was in DAL for 9 days.  When I got there, they had I think somewhere around 12 and by the end of the trip they were down to 9 or 10.

Alright, now for the pics.

A truly unique view out the window.  


Notice the scratches on the window due to the reverse thrust being thrown into the fuselage of the aircraft.


I love these old engines...loud though...haha.


They still had the old-school cabins.  Very retro...


Southwest only ever painted one 737-200 in the new colors.  I'm not sure why, but I heard it was the test-bed for the new scheme.  This aircraft, ship #96 carried me from DAL - AUS.




Over at the maintenance area, two recently retired -200s await there last flights to the graveyard.  Shot taken on October 31st.


Two more -200s were retired the day before this was taken.  Here they sit next to the training aircraft for ground ops training.


Here we are practicing a simulated turn on this aircraft at the training center.


And finally, here is a video I took on landing showing the thrust reversers in action.  Very interesting...I like seeing your average joe get startled when these would open up.  LOL
http://www.angelfire.com/space2/silver1/video/100_0603.MOV

Great shots....

Good shots, sad event...

Great shots

Having trouble with the video though.  Downloaded it but its not in a format i can play

Quicktime, realOne and all of those other players really ming! WMP should be the standard! (BTW, I still have quicktime and the real alternative installed on my PC  )

I understand why they are taking them out of service but am still saddened by it, my first flight on a US carrier was on a US Air -200 and it was only my second commercial flight. I guess they hold a sentimental value or something