737 door arming/disarming
 

I have heard that on the 737 (so I assume same goes for 707, 727 etc) the door must be manually armed. How exactly is this done?

I know on a 747 one simply puts the arming lever into the "armed" position, but I believe the 737 door recquired a bit more effort to arm?

On the 707 thru to the 737 they arm the doors by putting a rod attached to two lugs on the floor.They have a flip arm so they do not accidently fall out.A very simple but effective working situation.

Is this so for all Boeing narrowbodies including the 757, or is it only 707, 727 and 737?

(Am not considering 717 here, as that one's got a different heritage)

I assume this means the Cabin Crew must kneel down to this?

It's not called a 'rod' its known as a gurt bar.

Yes they do the gurt bar sits at the base of the door directly under where the escape slide is stored in the door when the doors are disarmed, when the doors are armed the gurt bar is placed into the floor and clipped in, maybe a 5-10 sec proceedure to unclip it and disarm the door and vice versa.

I'm sure the more "senior" Qantas crew love doing that, seeing as smilling is an effort for some of them.

It is not a gurt bar.
We all know what Ray means when he called it a Rod.

Its the "Girt bar".

Its simply the bar that is attached to the end of the slide, that is clipped or unclipped from the aircraft to arm or disarm it.

Wikipedia has quite a good explaination of it for those that are interested.

It is the girt bar, wheather you like it or not, a rod means nothing, the girt bar is the whole part of the end of the escape slide as Owen expalined.