rear engined jets
 

on rear engined jets, whether they are 2 or 3 engined jets, how is the aircraft counter- balanced to stop them sitting on their tails?

Same as anything else you need to balance. You set the lever arm pivot point ( wing and wheels ) further aft. That way the mass forward counters the mass aft.

In other words, most of the fuselage is ahead of the wing.

Your talking about being sat on the ground I suspect? hopefully anyway!.....Dead basic this, but look where they stuck the main undercart! Remember the the see-saw?
Regards
Yorky:D

On some of the smaller rear engined jets you have to be careful with the loading. On the lear if you have the fuselage tank full and the wings not so full a strong wind can leave it on its butt. Or even fully fueled with the baggage compartment full it is wise to have the co-pilot sitting in the front to counter balance before loading the pax.

Maintenance people (I won't dignify them by calling them 'engineers') managed to write-off a perfectly serviceable RAF VC10 in 1997 by failing to carry out the mandatory defuelling checks prior to maintenance. As a result, the aircraft sat on its tail and was later scrapped.

The station commander tried to stop people taking photos, but was too late. I'm sure the picture is somewhere on the web.

727's have a habit of sitting on their tail's

http://www.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!/open.file/073989/M/
http://www.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!/open.file/213691/M/
http://www.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!/open.file/352366/M/
http://www.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!/open.file/173776/M/

..v.

We never had a problem with the B727 in 30 years of operation by following the procedure of ensuring that the rear stairs were down and locked until the aircraft was loaded within limits.

Regards,

Old Smokey

barit1

"In other words, most of the fuselage is ahead of the wing."

I think what you meant was that most of the fuselage is ahead of the WHEELS. That is the pivot point when the aircraft is on the ground. It may coincide with the wing ........................

mea culpa - originally I didn't see this as a ground handling question.

Remember parked C-54's with a long support pole hanging from the tailskid? If loading + wind conspired to make it a taildragger, it could only move an inch or two.

I've seen photos of 747F's on the tailskid. Not pretty! Time to reinvent the wheel?

... he who doesn't use a tail stand for unloading freighters is a man of faith ... often misplaced ...

You can actually off- and load a freighter without any stand. Provided you understand the term 'sequential off-/loading' to the exact meaning of the term. Same goes for pax aircraft. That is why most of them have a belly hold aft AND forward...

BEagle, here you go:
http://www.pixture.co.uk/Airfields/S...Incident-L.jpg

From Pete Dorward's excellent site WWII Airfields of Oxfordshire

All I know about rear engined aircraft is that they never seem to make anyone much money! I am sure statistics will prove me wrong but the general impression I get is that all operators of such aircraft are loss makers. Tell me I'm wrong, as I'm sure you will!

Since the ERJ-135/40/45 and CRJ-200/700/900 types are all rear engined, and since the regional operators have been one of the few parts of the American industry to make money in recent years (LCCs being the others) I don't see a correlation between "rear engined" and "loss making".

In fact, given how many loss making flag carriers operate wide bodied aircraft, which are all underwing engined, it's closer to being the other way around - operators of rear-engined aircraft may be MORE likely to be profitable today.

Wasn't the 727 for a loooooooong time the money maker for a loooooot af airlines?

And the MD80 was a really good aircraft for AA at the time they bought the many they have.

Not to speak of the DC-9. Delta, Eastern and many other were really please with them.