There is absolutely no reason why anyone should have a tail scrape! This mindless need to maintain a constant rate of rotation from 0 to 15-18 degrees nose up that is drummed into us is the cause of these tailscrapes and is completely unnecessary.
My understanding is that as the tailplane descends towards the runway surface as the nose rises from 0 to 10 degrees nose up, the downward force from the tailplane is reduced due to ground effect (pressure between the runway and the underside of the tailplane increases). The pilot feels this as a pause in the rotation at about the 10 degree mark and is countered by pulling back even further on the control column.
As I said this mindless yanking back of the control column to maintain this rate of rotation at any cost is completely unnecessary. Rather than maintaining the rate of rotation at 3 degree per second through the whole manoeuvre, simply reduce the rate while the the attitude is passing through 10 - 12 degrees. It will only increase the time taken to reach the take-off attitude by a second or two. Big deal. It will also prevent a tail scrape.
Remember, the take-off (go) performance is predicated on an engine failure at V1! The fact that you are continuing the take-off on two engines means you have that much more margin over the minimum performance and therefore it is not critical if you reduce the rotation while the aircraft is passing though that point where the aircraft is most vulnerable to runway contact. And the all engine take-off performance has a factor of 15% does it not?
Remember also that:
1. Most runways are longer than required.
2. Most take-off's are done with reduced thrust which have margins built in.
3. Also in my experience, we always enter the take-off charts with NIL wind, regardless of the fact that there is always some headwind available. If there was tailwind, we would enter the take-off charts with a tailwind component much greater than the actual tailwind. For example if there was 3 kts tailwind reported, we would enter the charts with 5 kts tailwind. Again there is extra margin built in over the existing 50% headwind/150% tailwind margin already built in to the take-off performance charts!
I can tell you, if I was flying and my wheels were still on the ground while the attitude was rotating through 11 degrees nose up, I would relieve the pressure on the control column and reduce the rate of rotation to very little until the bird was airbourne. If I was to continue to pull back on the control wheel, I would simply be driving the tail into the ground.
Check out the picture on page 27 of the Singapore Airlines B744 in Auckland. I bet he was mindlessly trying to maintain the 3 degree per second rate of rotation through 11 degrees nose up. In fact I bet when the rotation stopped at that point, he pulled back even harder!
http://www.taic.org.nz/Portals/0/Ann...rt_2003-04.pdf
<sigh>