Ryaniar - 2 Tail strikes in a week
 

Did the FR tail strike in Malta last week slip under the radar unannounced or has the thread been removed? There was also one apparently in Poland.
One a week is unfortunate, but two will no doubt get MOL questioning the unevenness of the runways rather than any other contributing factors. Any other info?

TRY THIS LINK? PERFORMANCE REFERENCE HANDBOOK 737

I think the query was have they 'diisappeared' from PPRUNe, not has Hulshoff's site seen them?.

Are Ryan Air still using Flaps 1 Take Off configurations almost at all time to save few Cents ? Think about.

At Ryanair we use flaps 5 unless performance restricted.

Reference post Number 2.....Reading the link...It looks like some further training in landing on wet runways (not the sea) and getting stopped on the runway is needed.:{

What nonsense. I have never heard of anyone doing a Flap 1 take off at Ryanair, though it is permitted in certain circumstances.

...and when it is - it is a Captain's only departure!

I wonder if the pax had to pay for the change of plan ;)

We always used to take off with Flap 1 but this was changed to flap 5 a few years ago after several tail strikes and flap 1 is now Captains only take off.

Quite incredible that safety related information is openly available on the internet, but reluctant to be discussed by professionals on this forum for fear of retribution from a company that does not like such issues to be discussed.
One hopes that in the wider interest of flight safety this iniquitous practice of discuss and be threatened is discontinued.

According to Aviation Herald they've recently had three tail strikes in a two week period. Alicante, Krakow and Malta.

With respect and without wishing to get into trouble, I think two points should be made here:
1. As Europe's most intensive short-haul airline, they do a lot of takeoffs
2. You rarely hear about other airlines' tail-strikes
Now I'll get me coat and shut up.

That is a fair point taking into account the size of the fleet and the number of sectors flown.
The size of the fleet alone is larger than the vast majority of airlines. If you multiply that by the number of sectors flown you have a massive organisation and obvious potential for mishaps.
I'd say, touch wood, that by and large they do a pretty good job.

Incident: Ryanair B738 at Alicante on Mar 27th 2013, tail scrape on takeoff

Why depressurise at 13,000 and create all that drama? They had already descended from 22000 so why not wait another minute and get to 10?

Firstly, I detest everything that miserable, penny pinching pikey MOL and his like stand for. But he does now appear to have competent group of employee and sub-contract pilots working for him. Every week they operate thousands of flights without incident so therefore I'll suggest that two/three tailstrikes in a week is almost certainly just a statistical anomaly. But, because of MOL's feral, punitive management style, he'll never know if he has a problem or not. Only when it starts to cost him cash will he do anything - but by then it will be too late.

I doubt anyone will be able to answer this but I'll chance it. How many pasengers have Ryanair carried since they started in 1985?

Sharpen your pencil Sober Lark, it is all here but you will have to add the figures up:
About Us

When I tried to add up the figures my calculator gave me a times ten to the power of E error so srobarts I ended up using a pencil and I got 509,676,285 passengers to end of 2011.

Note: Their 1995 figures are missing a zero and their 2002 figures mark a change to counting each passenger not just each thousand.

Now THAT is thread creep!!

I respect you but how could a gentle introduction to probability and the law of large numbers be thread creep?

Tail strikes
 

I am an old fart who stopped flying jets 7 years ago so my views are a bit dated.

I flew all soughts of hardware starting with the Victor (proper plane that) and lots of time on the 737 400. I notice a gradual change over the years both flying and in the sim

We were hammered for not using the old fashioned method in the 60s 70s that is rotate to a certain small pitch angle and wait, if it gets airborne rotate further when safe. If it doesnt lift hold that low pitch angle consider firewalling and wait till the end of the concrete is nigh, only then rotate further.

All this came from the early Comet incidents of high induced drag through rotating too much or early for the actual weight/conditions.

Gradually over the years the weights became more accurate the weather better reported and the aircraft thrust more standard so the method sloooooowly changed to, await rotate call then pull at 3 per sec to about 15 nose up look over the side and see how high you are.

It works well and requires no skill or thinking if all the conditions are correct but if one is wrong you get a tail strike. Some aircraft are more vulnerable than others but all can do it if you insist

Clearly the more sectors you do as an airline the greater chance that there is of a mishap and other airline have had tail scrapes including Titan who do very few sectors and that was in a 300 using flap 1 believe

To those saying that Ryanair's tail strikes are a reflection of their high number of take-offs, I would quote the record of my own airline - easyJet. We have existed for around 16 years, and in the summer fly around 1300 flights a day. We have operated various aircraft - 737-300s, 737-700s, A319s and A320s. To my knowledge we have had one tail strike in our history - that involved an A320 on landing during a 200-hour cadet's first ever line training sector. I would therefore humbly suggest that if 2 tail strikes have occurred in one week that it may be appropriate to look for a wider range of possible explanations.

Have operated: FR run 305 airframes, Easy 188.

I think your numbers are slightly out of kilter Senor Meerkat.

Tailstrikes
 

Does this not indicate a pilot's goof in using the im
proper speed at either rotation or descend ? Runways too short ? Approach too slow ?:ugh:

Alexander
 

Incidents on occasion happen to every airline. Do you honestly believe you can compare a 16 year safety record with that of a 29 year. And your numbers are just a tad out with regards to both fleetsBBC News - Easyjet plane 'narrowly missed runway works', report finds

Antonov, you're right. Why not just compare the last sixteen years then? Sooooo, is that still 3-1?!

Modern aviation in many parts of the world is actually outstandingly safe so maybe you could argue that the number of incidents or accidents is statistically insignificant.

However I recall the Director of Safety of one large air transport undertaking (quoted I believe in a book titled "The Safe Airline" written in either the late 1970s or early 1980s) saying that in his opinion it wasn't so much the number of accidents which occur but the underlying causes underpinning those accidents or incidents and that these should be a wake up call for flight safety.

Hmm Easy have 214 airframes... You are quoting 3 year old figures. Plus our aircraft are used more intensively then FR's so in terms of sectors operated the difference gets even smaller.

The real argument should offcourse be that easyJet operates predominantly a319's which virtually don't have a tailstrike risk. The a320 a bit more, but the longer landing gear struts still make it uncomparable to 737-800's risk.

EasyJet's tailstrike happened after a bounced landing, I'm not sure if that should even be discussed here. Don't know of it is the only one. Who cares anyway, sjit happens.

Antonov09 the incident you refer to is not a tailstrike, so what is your point?

Yes you can in fact, especially when you realise that MOL started in 1991. I don't think that flying around in bandeirantes has any meaningful relationship to the current safety.

- have you looked at post #30?

Lord Latex
 

Yes that is correct.

Are the moderators becoming more tolerant?

Ryanair have had more than 3 tailstrikes in that time. All on takeoff due to the -800 being a stretch version. Especially a problem in x-winds with spoiler deployment on over correction with aileron.

-700 Liftoff attitude Fl 5 9.1 Tailstrike at 14.7
-800 Liftoff attitude Fl 5 8.0 Tailstrike at 11.0

Not sure how the numbers compare on the a319 but just by looking at it you can see it would take more to tailstrike.

Not sure EZY and FR comparisons tell us much.

One bit of advice I was given by an experienced trainer on the type during conversion to the B737-800 was "Ten & Ten" - do not exceed 10 deg NU unless above 10 ft RA.

That said, surely the key is correct rate of rotation? (Boeing recommends between 2 and 3 deg per second - taking the average of 2.5 deg/second this means 6 seconds from zero to 15 degrees.) Also given modern flight systems is it really beyond the software guys to get the flight director to command the ideal rate?

Am retired now (thankfully) but over the years have seen quite a few rotations exceed this rate which got me wondering!

That said in the great scheme of things it seems that the odd tail strike seems to be part of the territory these days but it's what you do afterwards that counts.

Also given modern flight systems is it really beyond the software guys to get the flight director to command the ideal rate?

I hope one does not look at the F.D. when rotating. Mk.1 eyeball outside until the horizon disappears about 9 degrees, then inside at the attitude to keep correct rate until what ever the correct target attitude is for your a/c. Climb out of FD yes, rotate on it, no. If the sharp boys could devise an FD with correct rotation rate guidance I'm not sure it would improve piloting skills: see all the threads about inability to do basics and magenta lines and FD's etc. etc.

Indeed, Rat - the ability to count would do:ugh:

RAT 5, quite!

I made my comments,tongue in cheek, cognizant of the "Children of the Magenta Line"!

Hook, line and sinker?

BOAC, your comment might be awfully close to the truth.

Generalisations are odious at the best of times but so many pilots these days seem to be trained to fly the aircraft "by numbers" rather than getting a real feel for the machine.

May I suggest that those figures are SHOCKINGLY CRAP........ Shouldn't be any tailstrikes, FULL STOP!
Get with the program people:D:D:D