Originally Posted by
Asturias56
I think you could ask the same question of the B-47 and the B-52
For the B47 & B52 it was a design trade-off. The aircraft were so long that any significant rotation would have required very long undercarriage legs, with attendant issues for ground dynamics (let alone weapon loading, maintenance and hangarage). So they designed the aeroplanes to NOT rotate - take-off flap gave them sufficient lift coefficient to just lift off "flat". You can see the side-effect of this when a B52 does a low pass in landing config. It's travelling faster than the normal over-the-hedge speed so it has to fly with the fuselage attitude several degrees nose down.
You wouldn't make this kind of trade-off with a small aeroplane on a relatively long undercarriage - aside from the difficulty in rotation it would be severely directionally unstable.
PDR