Patriots Plane Scraped Tail Last Saturday?

Wheelman said:

Guess you should have hitched a ride in one of these. Full reverse thrust, too easy! from a passenger's perspective.

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Whoa! That sucker came to a full stop in less than 500 yards.
A C-17! That baby can carry tanks.
God bless the United States of America!

The Boston Patriot said:

How many draft picks will that cost the team?

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I'm just thankful that it didn't cost the team the team.

dannydyn said:

Did indeed hit upon landing :

Patriots 763 N36NE tail strike at FLL - Airliners.net

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Actually that thread on Airliners.net seems to indicate probably did not hit.

Looking at the METARs (aviation weather observations) at KFLL (Fort Lauderdale) for Saturday evening, winds were benign, about 10 knots and close to dead on the nose, with maybe an insignificant right crosswind component. Nothing there to make it likely the flightdeck crew would screw it up. But it's way nose high, so speed management or descent rate may've been a little off. Still, seems from the pic and the discussion it was probably not a strike, just missed the black by a little bit...

Wax Frog said:

Patriots? Tail? Was Gronk involved?

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Yep, keep an eye out for the upcoming "Hot Tail in South Florida" video from the Gronk Family!

n6249c said:

Actually that thread on Airliners.net seems to indicate probably did not hit.

Looking at the METARs (aviation weather observations) at KFLL (Fort Lauderdale) for Saturday evening, winds were benign, about 10 knots and close to dead on the nose, with maybe an insignificant right crosswind component. Nothing there to make it likely the flightdeck crew would screw it up. But it's way nose high, so speed management or descent rate may've been a little off. Still, seems from the pic and the discussion it was probably not a strike, just missed the black by a little bit...

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May be the pilot flared too much .. anyways interesting to read one post in that thread that said he inspected and there was no damage. Tail skid is there for a reason...to avoid tail strikes

PatsFanSince74 said:

Many thanks to @dreighver for the thorough answer to my questions above.

A friend of mine, who flew in Vietnam, once told me that "every landing is a controlled crash" and also said words to the effect that "anytime you walk away from a landing, it was a good landing."

Given the hundreds of thousands of miles I've flown on Commercial and private planes, I sometimes worry when I take off that the odds are going to catch up with me one of these times. I'm kind of hoping that a few "close calls" combine to mean that I'm ok, odds-wise.

Thanks again.

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FWIW, the odds don't work like that. It doesn't matter how many times you have flown in an aircraft. Every time you takeoff, the odds reset so that, say there's a 1 in 1 million chance of an accident, then that's the odds for EVERY flight. It's just like playing roulette. Every spin is a new game, so it doesn't matter how many times that, say, red has come up. Each spins means you have a 50/50 chance of getting red. So it's the same with flying. Much better odds of winning, however.

As a former Navy Aircrew with 5K hours of combat aircrewtime, I can tell you that accidents are extremely rare, though "mishaps" are slightly more common. But it's still safer than driving your car.

parthasas said:

May be the pilot flared too much .. anyways interesting to read one post in that thread that said he inspected and there was no damage. Tail skid is there for a reason...to avoid tail strikes

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The tail skid is not there to avoid tail strikes, it's there to lessen the damage from a tail strike.

Many airliners now have software that prevents tail strikes. For instance, recent 777s have added such software and removed the tail skid to save weight.

Boeing Rolls Out 777 Upgrade Plan

has more info...

Gwedd said:

FWIW, the odds don't work like that. It doesn't matter how many times you have flown in an aircraft. Every time you takeoff, the odds reset so that, say there's a 1 in 1 million chance of an accident, then that's the odds for EVERY flight. It's just like playing roulette. Every spin is a new game, so it doesn't matter how many times that, say, red has come up. Each spins means you have a 50/50 chance of getting red. So it's the same with flying. Much better odds of winning, however.

As a former Navy Aircrew with 5K hours of combat aircrewtime, I can tell you that accidents are extremely rare, though "mishaps" are slightly more common. But it's still safer than driving your car.

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Cheesh!
Someone else who's studied stuhtisstix!
Yes, I know that's how it works, but, just like when I play the Lottery, I hope that the laws of the universe will suspend themselves just this once and all of my prior purchases or, in this case, take offs and landings, will somehow improve my odds this time around.
Go Pats!

One last thought, now that I'm back in the thread.
If I were Bob Kraft, I'd probably have whoever is responsible for his Flight Operations and Travel look into this pretty closely. Pilot Error on a clear day, with no reported crosswinds or other adverse conditions, which could have cost me everyone who is driving the value of my $3 billion investment, would not make me very happy and I'd at least want a report and explanation of some sort.

Bill Lee said:

The tail skid is not there to avoid tail strikes, it's there to lessen the damage from a tail strike.

Many airliners now have software that prevents tail strikes. For instance, recent 777s have added such software and removed the tail skid to save weight.

Boeing Rolls Out 777 Upgrade Plan

has more info...

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Thanks for the correction, i should have worded it better I guess

Its amazing how the latest software can pretty much avoid a lot of human errors during the critical phase of the flight. I wonder this goes as a negative entry in pilots logbook.

Re: the phrase, "every landing is a controlled crash," that's true, and to be specific, as I understand it (as a non-pilot), every landing flare is a controlled stall. I'm unclear as to whether it's a tailstrike or not from what I've read here.

Still way too non-routine looking for my POV. WE AREN'T MARSHALL.

PS, very happy to just get out of Miami with only a loss. Puts things in perspective, innit?

Tony2046 said:

I think the Pilot needs to apologize.

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That's what they get for traveling in a flying elvis, instead of a real airplane with a real logo on it

Bill Lee said:

Based on this Instagram post:


EDIT: Might not be displaying correctly so here's the URL:

Code:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BcnqbJHFfFb/

there's some speculation that the Patriots plane might have scraped its tail when it landed last Saturday.

If so, both the team and the plane were dragging their asses last week in South Florida!

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Replacing the fake with our real Pat Patriot logo up front will offset the increase in tail weight when our sixth trophy is added next season.