Boeing 707 and DC8 Body Geometry

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ted6357

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Tedy3
As an avid fan of aircraft design and aviation on the whole, I have been searching almost everywhere online and could not find the answer. Has anyone got a 707 and/or DC8 manual with the geometric ground limitations? In particular I want to know what body attitude angle will the tail contact the ground for the 707 and DC8 when the landing gear is compressed. The best I could do was try images online and a protractor myself, but there is nothing like the actual numbers from the manual.

See what I got below. Based on my own calculation is shows the 707 tail contacts the ground at 10.1 degrees and the DC8 tail contacts the ground at 10.5 degrees.

BOEING 707

http://postimg.org/image/lpvrxxymz/

DC8

http://postimg.org/image/3lmwnkeav/

Any of you folks know the actual numbers? Can you post the geometry page with the illustrations of the actual if you have this?
 
Guess no drivers/ex drivers of these type...
 
Typed in the 8 but your number seems to be what I remember

Let me check with some of my fellow pilots that an remember better than I.
I do remember that the inboard engine with the CFM 56 only had about 24 inches of clearance. You would land with a slight crab.
 
Aside from having no clue as to why this particular information piques your interest I would make the observation that you have not placed your protractor in the same longitudinal position for your comparison measurements and that position will most certainly affect your results. I would say that your protractor axis should be centered over the main gear truck pivot point.
 
the later series of the DC-8 were WAY longer than the earlier
 
It really depends on the model. I flew the 71 and 73 series with the CFM 56 engine. Off the top of my head the pitch angle on landing was around 4 to five degrees. Any higher and people REALLY got nervous

Here is one response.

I seem to remember that more than 7-8 degrees of pitch in a DC8-61/63 resulted in dragging the tail. More than two degrees of bank resulted in dragging engine pods. The older and shorter models with the smaller turbojet engines would be much different.

We did double rotations because of this. The eight was really just pulled slightly nose up until you felt the mains leave the ground and then you pitched up to about ten to 15 degrees depending upon weight. On landing it was really just come in with the approach attitude and as close to wings level as possible and hold that until the mains touched and then fly the nose down. (which wasn't far off the ground). It was a real pilots airplane, very honest but you had to fly it because of the geometry. Story is it was the first large jet to exceed Mach One in a test flight dive, operated the controls full stop to stop and recovered...that airplane flew for Air Canada for multiple years after that. It was a VERY VERY TOUGH Airplane.

Here is one story.

http://www.dc-8jet.com/0-dc8-sst-flight.htm

Here is a story about the re-engine of the 61 series to 71/73. I flew the United DC8 pictured in my companies livery many years later.

http://www.dc-8jet.com/0-dc870-conv-dc-flt-mag.htm

Last edit until I get more information. One of our Captains just emailed me and he has both manuals at home but he is on a trip. Will be home Sunday night and copy the pertinent data and send it to me and I will post it here for you.
 
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You will know more about the DC8 than you ever imagined after this thread.

From a buddy at my company who flew the short 8 at Braniff.

Dan, my Braniff manual says 2 degrees per second to 10 degrees nose up. We had a few -51's and mostly long range 62's which was the short body/huge wing/JT3's for the long South America trips. No hard figure for tail strike though. The -62 was 157' 5" long. I was a plumber mainly LA to Santiago but got lots of TO's and Lnd's (good ol' days!)

I gave your problem to my oldest son for homework and he came up with this: (He lives in Sitka so gets bored easy!)

"I started searching through accident investigations involving tailstrikes and found this on a -63 from 2010.

"The takeoff technique prescribed in the aircraft operating manual (AOM) calls for initial rotation to 8 degrees. The AOM warns that a tail strike will occur at an 8.95-degree pitch attitude. The prescribed takeoff technique also says that after pausing one or two seconds at 8 degrees — while the aircraft lifts off the runway — the pitch attitude can be increased to 11 or 12 degrees for climb-out."

http://flightsafety.org/aerosafety-world-magazine/...

www.avialogs.com/index.php/aircraft...-american-international-airways.html#download
 
i'm just curious why we keep getting threads asking this same question about different commercial planes? If you're not currently flying one, why does it matter? Seems like an odd thing to be obsessed with to me.
 
StinkBug said:
i'm just curious why we keep getting threads asking this same question about different commercial planes? If you're not currently flying one, why does it matter? Seems like an odd thing to be obsessed with to me.
Click to expand...

I agree. Even if you are flying it you don't think about it because 11 degree landing attitude is EXTREMELY uncomfortable.
 
StinkBug said:
i'm just curious why we keep getting threads asking this same question about different commercial planes? If you're not currently flying one, why does it matter? Seems like an odd thing to be obsessed with to me.
Click to expand...
You must not visit any railfan sites. You can find some eye-watering trivia discussed to death on those.

:goofy:
 
Pilawt said:
You must not visit any railfan sites. You can find some eye-watering trivia discussed to death on those.

:goofy:
Click to expand...

I would never once consider it. I had enough of rail fans when I worked for Sperry Rail, although one guy built a super accurate model after I gave him the nickel tour. We stopped in the same place a few months later and he brought it over. Impressive and sad at the same time.:rofl:
 
Ok, here is some info on the 707, which I never flew and wasn't stretched as was the 8.

B707 PTM page 4-1.8 FCT 707 (P)

climb out attitude, normal liftoff at about 10 degrees

A couple of posts ago about someone being interested in this type of details is "curious"...we are a curious lot by nature. Now if you are in my cockpit and you start a fighter pilot rotation (unless we are in a fighter) you will hear two things "Watch it and then I have the airplane" you will also feel that the controls are locked as I block further rotation. On landing, the same thing with one caveat...on the MD11 I will take it much sooner as the landing attitude geometry is very strange in the fact that a bounced landing and a "normal" landing attitude is visually the same. You get into extreme trouble very fast due to a pushover thinking you are on the ground. The main landing gear is 102 feet behind the cockpit and the nose gear is 19 feet behind. Look up a video of Fed Ex crashing at Narita and you can get an idea of what I am talking about. We practice bounced landings every sim ride now. We do not have the same tail as a DC10 and it flies much differently. Vref (over the numbers) at max landing weight is 173 knots.
 
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