Originally Posted by
bifff15
It might come down to the training program. UAL does flap 5 take offs in both the 757 and the 767 (with much reduced tail clearance on the 767 takeoff). All with very few tail strikes. I can remember doing sims where we practiced the takeoff rotation rate over and over just to prevent tail strikes.
Not saying one company does everything right, however one company may have a small part of doing training that saves tail strikes in the end.
At CAL we use flaps 15 for takeoff on both aircraft almost always, and flaps 30 for landing unless it's gusty, then flaps 25. We started out with flaps 20 for takeoff on the 757 and rarely got a tail, but went to 15 to standardize with the 767. Tail strikes went up so we got more emphasis in training, threading the fine line between pitch limits, tire, and flap speed limits on MGW takeoffs. Also, our 75's have Rolls 41k+ thrust engines, which makes a difference. Pitch limits takeoff/landing for the 752 and 762 are about 13 & 10, 753 and 764 are 9.5 & 8.0.
Spoiler deployment on landing will change the pitch a bit but the normal landing attitude is only 3-4 deg. The secret is to touch down at Vref + adds. If it take power to maintain that speed, so be it. Most of our strikes have been on landing with aircraft below Vref. A good way to learn is to sit thru a couple of autolandings and the airplane will teach you how it should be done.