Not sure if this has been asked but a QF flight last week tail striked at SYD.
How hard would it be to make that mistake or is it something that happens regularly and we just don't hear about it unless it is a QF flight.
Some aircraft are quite prone to tail strikes, and the 767-300 would have to be near the top of the list.
There is a big difference though, between a tail strike, and a tail scrape.
In a NORMAL 767 take off, the tail gets to 18-24 inches off the runway. Not much clearance, and if the rotation rate is even slightly faster than normal, you'll quickly reduce that clearance. Note that the issue is not too steep a pitch attitude. 767s are ALWAYS rotated to an attitude that will cause a strike if you achieve it too quickly.
From memory, liftoff happened at about 8º, and the skid would hit at 12º....but, the target attitude for a 767 takeoff will be around 20º. It tends to be more of an issue in gusty conditions, where it's harder to keep that constant rotation rate, and increasing climb rate. For instance, a 10 knot loss of airspeed just after rotate started could easily cause the climb rate to slow and get out of synch with the rotation.
Is it a problem? Contrary to what the media will make of it, most likely not. Boeing are well aware that the 767-300 has this issue, so it is equipped with a tail 'bumper' or skid, that extends and retracts with the landing gear. So, any contact will not be with the fuselage, but with the skid, and all that will happen is that the neoprene tip will lose some of its paint (and the paint condition was always carefully inspected during to preflight).
Other aircraft types, without benefit of this bumper will scrape the fuselage, and of course the aluminium skin doesn't react well to that.
Tail scrapes are the more extreme end of the scale, but are not normally caused by rapid rotation, but rather by incorrect data calculations. Emirates in Melbourne, and Singair in Auckland are two very good examples of this. In each case, the aircraft was rotated until the tail firmly hit the ground, and it was then held there until it accelerated enough to fly. They're both very damaging, and extremely dangerous.
And thanks for not laughing about the "key" thing
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