USC Football team plane…how does this happen?

[Carmudgeon]

Kona is a real old school airport, with the stairs, and the open-air terminal. Even Hilo has an enclosed terminal with jet bridges. Flew in on a 717 island hopper and out on a 757.

I'm curious as to whether there are any set guidelines from planes that have kissed the ground with their airframes? Or is it a case-by-case thing?

The 787 that had its nose plopped onto the ground at Heathrow sounds like it could be a write off, though it had a fair amount of damage.

 

[Astro14]

I’ve flown a 767 into Kona recently.

Popular spot. My favorite Hawaii layover. Small town feel. Great coffee. Always bring some back with me.

 

[Astro14]

While the 737 has been extended pretty durn far, sounds like you are saying that having a tail stand for an airplane is a design flaw?

The whole -900 is a design flaw.

The 737 was designed as short range, cheap airplane. It was the RJ of fifty years ago. Cheap to operate, cheap to service. The landing gear doesn’t even use gear doors. A cost saving measure. The gear is short so that bag loading equipment was not needed.

Now, the -900 is more than forty feet longer than the original design, and they crammed over 180 seats into it. It’s got a 757 cabin on stubby little landing gear that was intended to carry half that load.

Ridiculous approach speeds and rotation speeds driven by tail strike avoidance concerns. The stick to keep it from tipping over. It’s an underpowered dog in flight and a handful on takeoff and landing.

An airplane designed and bought by accountants, not engineers, and not pilots.

Don’t even get me started on the Max…

 

[Kuato]

Ok I get it you hate the stretched 737s (as well as Southwest) and the way it has been
bean-countered beyond reason.

But my question remains -- do you think other airplanes that require a tail stand are flawed in design? Almost any aircraft can be loaded improperly on the ground, too far aft, causing the situation shown in OPs first post.

 

[Astro14]

I don’t hate SWA.

I hate the direction that Boeing took with the 737, because it is a poor airplane compared with the 320NEO competition. The 320 NEO is a much better airplane. I hate that as a Boeing fan and long time shareholder.

SWA, and to be fair, AA, pushed Boeing, hard, in that direction. The entire Max debacle can be laid at their feet.

Nobody here would suggest that GM keep building the Vega, and stretch it, then lift it, into a four door SUV, but that’s exactly what happened with the 737, they’ve stretched the 50 year old airplane several times, until it looks nothing like the original.

A baby 787, with new architecture, construction, and, yes, landing gear and efficient engines, in the same size would crush the A-320. But such an airplane would be a big R&D cost, and bean counters don’t spend on R&D when they think they can make profits by putting lipstick on a pig.

The 787 is an incredible airplane, and shows what Boeing can do.

If you build an airplane that requires a ground handling stand to keep from tipping over during normal operations, then you have failed to engineer it properly.

The only times FedEx and others have had airplanes tip over was when they were unloaded incorrectly. Totally different. Non-normal operation caused those tip overs. Operator error.

 

[mk378]

It seems like every airliner design gets at least one "stretch" during its production life. They could offer two versions from day 1, but would anyone buy the short one then?

Nowadays engineers must be thinking of the feasibility of a "stretch" variation from the very start, as they design the small one to get something on the market quickly. That probably wasn't the case with the 737.

The real "gravy" for a manufacturer is airlines coming back to replace their perfectly good airplane with a slightly different one later.

 

[Astro14]

The 737 has been stretched several times.

A stretch is OK.

The -200 was a stretch, then the -300 was another stretch, and on, and on, just keep stretching it until, oops, it falls over, lands too fast, is underpowered, etc…

 

[Dodgetracker]

Most like low fuel load as well. CRJ 700-900's have this issue in c/d checks when galley's start coming out with seats and all. They get a stick in the rear also to stop the tipping

 

[Astro14]

If an airplane requires a stand during maintenance, or non-normal conditions, that’s one thing.

An airplane, a passenger airplane, designed to carry passengers, that requires a stick to keep from falling over when passengers walk on or off?

That‘s just a dumb design.

 

[Dodgetracker]

Agreed.

 

[E365]

And the 737 MAX 10 is stretched even further! With modified landing gear to hopefully help from hitting the tail. On the plus side, it has more powerful engines than the 737-900.

 

[nthach]

And the 737 MAX 10 is stretched even further! With modified landing gear to hopefully help from hitting the tail. On the plus side, it has more powerful engines than the 737-900.

Marginally - the CFM Leap series is more powerful than the CFM56-7B on the 737NG. But, that led Boeing to implement MCAS since the new engines are bigger(but still smaller than the equivalent on the A320) and needed to be mounted forward and up. The Boeing version of the Leap tops out at 29K(lbs) thrust, while the Airbus version thanks to a bigger fan can hit 35K of thrust.

The Airbus A321XLR has a substantial lead. The 737 Max 10 however, like someone where said Southwest pressured Boeing to make a stretched 737NG(though WN doesn’t have anything bigger than a 738 or a Max 8 in their fleet), United is the raison d’être for the Max 10. Ryanair was going to buy them.

 

[RedSpider]

Ridiculous approach speeds and rotation speeds driven by tail strike avoidance concerns. The stick to keep it from tipping over. It’s an underpowered dog in flight and a handful on takeoff and landing.

Makes me nervous to think how things would play out on an engine-out event on takeoff in one of these overgrown stretch versions. Especially how civilian pilots are trained these days, that may not have the butt-puckering experience an ex fighter pilot likely has experienced once or twice.

I like 737's but when they started playing Stretch Armstrong with them, I started saying "hmmmmmm"....

 

[y_p_w]

Makes me nervous to think how things would play out on an engine-out event on takeoff in one of these overgrown stretch versions. Especially how civilian pilots are trained these days, that may not have the butt-puckering experience an ex fighter pilot likely has experienced once or twice.

I like 737's but when they started playing Stretch Armstrong with them, I started saying "hmmmmmm"....

I'm pretty sure they spend plenty of time in simulators practicing this sort of thing. Astro says that the simulators his airline has will give warnings when someone tries to fly under the Golden Gate Bridge.

Even fighter pilots don't that much combat these days, and spend tons of time in the simulator.

 

[billt460]

At the very rear of the cabin, do they know the approximate weight it takes to make that thing tip nose wheel up? You know, like when we were kids at the playground, you knew what notch to put the teeter totter on when the fat kid got on.

 

[y_p_w]

At the very rear of the cabin, do they know the approximate weight it takes to make that thing tip nose wheel up? You know, like when we were kids at the playground, you knew what notch to put the teeter totter on when the fat kid got on.

I think there's probably a weight distribution guide somewhere.