I was flying the other day from a busy london airport. Just after we rotated (well around 1000' agl) tower frequency asked us if we were operations normal. i was PF and the captain was doing the radios. We were reasonably busy at the time (changing headings cleaning up etc etc) and the captain didn't reply to the ops normal question.
On being handed over to the next frequency the tower again asked if we were ops normal, to which the captain replied affirm.
Now neither the captain nor i had ever heard this before, and not sure why the tower would ask this (Also it was night time). The only thing i can think of was that i had a slightly slower rotation than normal (but not excessively slow)
Why would a tower ask this?? Wouldn't the tower wait for a pan or a mayday if there was a problem. Also why tell us to contact the next frequency if he had doubt about our operational status.
Not a criticism of the controller just slightly confused.
