DHL A300-600F suffers "nose up" at AUH
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DHL A300-600F suffers "nose up" at AUH
If the picture of the Sterling aircraft is OY-STH then it was a fairly common thing. When empty, it used to gradualy sit down on its' tail. Am not aware that any other of Sterling Caravelles were quite so tippy.
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Unlike the above pictured the A300 is probably the most difficult to screw up, I have never seen that nose strut extended to an uncomfortable extent. The MD-11, any T-tail, the 747 are all critical aircraft to load, for different reasons.
A RedeiDuk says, some things never change.
Back in the early 1950's we were still running out at Cargo at then KIDL to put tail posts under the DC-4. In a way it was harder to tip as the freight doors were aft so the load came off first at that end. There was also the sight of DC-4 taxiing out for takeoff with the rear post still in place to the enjoyment of other flight crew. And yes, the DC-4 could fly with a tail post in place without the crew being aware.
Even a Connie could tip though. It was not tail tender at all but you could do it if you really tried. RC0121 (radar Connie) came into our base for a conversion to ALRI. This meant gutting all the avionic gear from the cabin, the station consoles, etc. The aircraft was parked up to two enclosed engine dock sbut fortunately the engines were not into it. An avionic mechanic began industriously stripping black boxes and piling them by the rear door. These were the days of vacuum tubes so boxes were big and heavy. He got a respectable load by the rear door intending to get a forklift and pallet but on what proved to be his last trip aft with a box he found he was going downhill with the slope increasing fast. His neat stack of electronics went further aft in a big jumble making sure the aircraft would stay tipped.
A L-1049 Connie on its tail is spectacular the nose gear is miles up. The fuselage was between the two engine docks with not a heck of a lot of clearance. A belly band and crane carefully lifted the rear while observing the clearance between the fuselage sides and the engine dock building. No damage,
A DC-7C freighter was parked at the IAB and had to be taxied to cargo for offloading. It had been parked too tight and there was not enough room for the wing to swing around. The two mechanics elected to reverse out a bit and then come forward. They started back with me signaling and when they were far enough back for wingtip clearance I motioned them to come forward nd turn. Unthinkingly, they hit brkes first instead of just coming out of reverse and using forward pitch and power to arrest the rearward mmovement. I had a unique look of a DC-7C assuming the moment of rotation at takeoff. The nose wheel went well above me , not so high as a Connies and then came down rather abruptly as they added forward power. Don't know if the tailskid made contact.
The there was the DC-8-61 that came out of San Juan to KJFK. He called in-range and said he was having some longitudinal trim problems. I got in my truck to go to the gate to meet him and saw him taxiing in from the outer perimeter. His nose wheel was skipping off the ground and when he went over the bump caused by the service road it lifted off for several feet before coming back down. That gave me a clue and after it parked at the gate the rampie motioned for me. The door handle for the C1 belly door was broken off. The -61 had big belly door that opened inward and went down under the bag floor. Whe the airplane had arrived in SJU , the rampie turned the handle. The door tore out of his hand and shot down under the floor. The bungee cable providing a counterbalance to the weight of the door had broken. In the process, the door handle had sheared off. Maintenance down there muscled the door shut, got visegrips in the stub of the handle and locked it. The rampies, unable to load C1 bin, elected to put it all in C3 and C4 wihch are rather aft. The Captain of the flight was not amused, the DC-8, normally a rather placid beast had elected to fly itself off on takeoff and he had a lot of AND trim on the stabilizer during the flight. So that was only a near tail-tipper.
One that did was a B747-100 pax plane. We had leased this very early bird from Pan Am and it required frequent flap track inspections. The flaps were lowered, inspected and a sleepy midnight shifter went up the three flights to the cock[pit to raise the flaps.
He chose to use the lever with the round wheel-shaped knob on the panel rather than the air-foil shaped one on the pedestal. The gear pins were not installed. The wing gear of the B4 retract sideways and no hydraulic system had the power to scrub four main wheels with a jumbo on top sideways so the stayed put. The body gear which are aft however go up sort of like a flies legs. They retracted aided by the fact that an empty B4 is tail heavy. Some linkage got bent but up they came and the aircraft tipped back. It was not too fast so only minor damage to the tailskid. The nose gear coming off the ground tried to retract but a towbar on it made it had for the gear doors to close. I came in from home and consulted with the Pan Am folks. APU was happily chugging away which was good as the ground power receptacle was a mile over our heads. We transferred fuel from the wings to the center, got a fuel truck to pump more in the center, called in day shift and put them up in the aircraft u forward and as nice as you please it slowly came back to level. Deflating the body gear shocks we got them down with a little help fro crowbars, pinned them and re-inflated the oleos. All safe now Pan Am took it off to their hangar for repairs with much mocking laughter. Eveery time I had to deal with them they reminded me of it. And then they did it but in their big hangar. Got the rudder and I think the vertical fin got some damage too. Graveyard shift will do that to you.
The tail stand for the 747 freighter is very tall. At a later company we flew them for UPS. Their rampies were towing one and found it would not pass under the elevator. Interim repair and a ferry to replace it were required.
So tail-tipping and all that goes with it are an old problem.
Back in the early 1950's we were still running out at Cargo at then KIDL to put tail posts under the DC-4. In a way it was harder to tip as the freight doors were aft so the load came off first at that end. There was also the sight of DC-4 taxiing out for takeoff with the rear post still in place to the enjoyment of other flight crew. And yes, the DC-4 could fly with a tail post in place without the crew being aware.
Even a Connie could tip though. It was not tail tender at all but you could do it if you really tried. RC0121 (radar Connie) came into our base for a conversion to ALRI. This meant gutting all the avionic gear from the cabin, the station consoles, etc. The aircraft was parked up to two enclosed engine dock sbut fortunately the engines were not into it. An avionic mechanic began industriously stripping black boxes and piling them by the rear door. These were the days of vacuum tubes so boxes were big and heavy. He got a respectable load by the rear door intending to get a forklift and pallet but on what proved to be his last trip aft with a box he found he was going downhill with the slope increasing fast. His neat stack of electronics went further aft in a big jumble making sure the aircraft would stay tipped.
A L-1049 Connie on its tail is spectacular the nose gear is miles up. The fuselage was between the two engine docks with not a heck of a lot of clearance. A belly band and crane carefully lifted the rear while observing the clearance between the fuselage sides and the engine dock building. No damage,
A DC-7C freighter was parked at the IAB and had to be taxied to cargo for offloading. It had been parked too tight and there was not enough room for the wing to swing around. The two mechanics elected to reverse out a bit and then come forward. They started back with me signaling and when they were far enough back for wingtip clearance I motioned them to come forward nd turn. Unthinkingly, they hit brkes first instead of just coming out of reverse and using forward pitch and power to arrest the rearward mmovement. I had a unique look of a DC-7C assuming the moment of rotation at takeoff. The nose wheel went well above me , not so high as a Connies and then came down rather abruptly as they added forward power. Don't know if the tailskid made contact.
The there was the DC-8-61 that came out of San Juan to KJFK. He called in-range and said he was having some longitudinal trim problems. I got in my truck to go to the gate to meet him and saw him taxiing in from the outer perimeter. His nose wheel was skipping off the ground and when he went over the bump caused by the service road it lifted off for several feet before coming back down. That gave me a clue and after it parked at the gate the rampie motioned for me. The door handle for the C1 belly door was broken off. The -61 had big belly door that opened inward and went down under the bag floor. Whe the airplane had arrived in SJU , the rampie turned the handle. The door tore out of his hand and shot down under the floor. The bungee cable providing a counterbalance to the weight of the door had broken. In the process, the door handle had sheared off. Maintenance down there muscled the door shut, got visegrips in the stub of the handle and locked it. The rampies, unable to load C1 bin, elected to put it all in C3 and C4 wihch are rather aft. The Captain of the flight was not amused, the DC-8, normally a rather placid beast had elected to fly itself off on takeoff and he had a lot of AND trim on the stabilizer during the flight. So that was only a near tail-tipper.
One that did was a B747-100 pax plane. We had leased this very early bird from Pan Am and it required frequent flap track inspections. The flaps were lowered, inspected and a sleepy midnight shifter went up the three flights to the cock[pit to raise the flaps.
He chose to use the lever with the round wheel-shaped knob on the panel rather than the air-foil shaped one on the pedestal. The gear pins were not installed. The wing gear of the B4 retract sideways and no hydraulic system had the power to scrub four main wheels with a jumbo on top sideways so the stayed put. The body gear which are aft however go up sort of like a flies legs. They retracted aided by the fact that an empty B4 is tail heavy. Some linkage got bent but up they came and the aircraft tipped back. It was not too fast so only minor damage to the tailskid. The nose gear coming off the ground tried to retract but a towbar on it made it had for the gear doors to close. I came in from home and consulted with the Pan Am folks. APU was happily chugging away which was good as the ground power receptacle was a mile over our heads. We transferred fuel from the wings to the center, got a fuel truck to pump more in the center, called in day shift and put them up in the aircraft u forward and as nice as you please it slowly came back to level. Deflating the body gear shocks we got them down with a little help fro crowbars, pinned them and re-inflated the oleos. All safe now Pan Am took it off to their hangar for repairs with much mocking laughter. Eveery time I had to deal with them they reminded me of it. And then they did it but in their big hangar. Got the rudder and I think the vertical fin got some damage too. Graveyard shift will do that to you.
The tail stand for the 747 freighter is very tall. At a later company we flew them for UPS. Their rampies were towing one and found it would not pass under the elevator. Interim repair and a ferry to replace it were required.
So tail-tipping and all that goes with it are an old problem.
I guess the handling agent forgot to put the tail support in......again !!
Have heard rumors DHL (EAT, actually) was shopping around for a loadmaster for this flight, but found the offers too expensive. Oops.
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I guess you don't know the A300 very well: It doesn't support a tail stand.
