ERJ135

I'm a lazy rotator. Lift the nose up and let the airplane fly itself off the ground.

Pineapple Guy

Amen, Buzz. Amen. I've been flying at DAL for 20+ years, and have yet to fail to get the thing in the air before I run out of concrete, in spite of my slow rotation rate.

EMBFlyer

Ask the CAL guys how they feel about the -900.

ewrbasedpilot

I was taught that most Boeing products should be flown the same from a guy who could practically build a B727 in his sleep. The 900 and 900ER feel just like a B727 to me. No hurry to get it off the ground as airspeed is your friend if you lose an engine. Also, why force it off the ground so if you lose one at V1/VR, keeping it on the ground during the rotation helps to keep the airplane going the right direction. I always rotate slowly and have had quite a few FO's mention how nice and smooth it felt. The plane will fly when it's good and ready to. No sense in forcing it off. I'd rather be a bit fast than a bit slow. JMHO

Adlerdriver

Maybe that's the CRM kicking in?

FO thinks: Holy crap is this guy ever going to get this aircraft off the runway? We're already 30 knots fast and have blown whatever obstacle clearance our takeoff performance data gave us.

FO says: "Gee Captain, that sure was an interesting takeoff. It sure felt nice and smooth." (i.e. did you do it on purpose and are you going to do it again)

ewrbasedpilot

Yeah, you're probably right. But it seems like the 800/900's are usually doing the longhaul stuff, so they burn up every last inch of runway anyway. Sometimes I cringe when I watch guys aggressively FORCE the plane off the runway when I'm jumpseating. I guess banging a tail isn't a big worry for them......YET. But, as I said before, I haven't been to too many airports that we fly the 73's in to that require a quick rotation, other than maybe SNA........and even then you do a pretty agressive cutback at 800' which is really an attention getter if the guy pulls the throttles back too fast. So far in 14 years of flying Boeings I've never banged a tail, and with my "slow" rotation, I hopefully never will.

ewrbasedpilot

Nah.........probably the Boeing habits kicking in.... although I never could and still can't get the Boeing "push" right.

sailingfun

I rotate slower then trained however there is one myth here. Its very very hard to hit the tailskid on the 800 if the VR speed is correct. It takes better then 5 degrees per second rotation which is really yanking it off. In every DAL tailstrike on the 800 the wrong V speeds were used. Normally it takes a combination of a agressive rotation and incorrect V speeds to hit the tail. The vast majority of tailstrikes on the 800 and on the 767-300 occur on landing not takeoff. I rotate slower then required for the simple reason that I don't always trust the weights. That can be one cause of wrong V speeds.

Check Essential

The elephant in the room in this discussion is the FARs.

We are trained to rotate the airplane in a manner that will comply with the FAR Takeoff Field Length calculations and the FAR Obstacle Clearance requirements. That means we are rotating relatively quickly in order to get the airplane off the ground using the least possible concrete and get the most possible altitude going "over the fence" to clear trees or whatever.

The problem is that 90% of the takeoffs performed by a major airline pilot are not from a short or "balanced" field where runway length is at the minimum. And there is almost never an "obstacle" just off the end of the runway that we need to worry about clearing.

We are unneccessarily trading airspeed for quick liftoffs and steep climbs.

Just my opinion, but for the vast majority of airports we operate from, I'd rather rotate much more slowly and have the extra airspeed in case an engine quits. Controllability is much better when you've got that extra 10 or 20 knots.

Why rotate using assumptions designed for an 7000 ft runway when you've actually got 10,000? Why climb using assumptions that there's a 50 ft obstacle at the end of the runway when there is not one?

Maybe I'm all wrong. Any test pilots out there who can tell me why 3 degrees per second is always best?

aewanabe

Interesting no one has mentioned it (maybe because it's the Majors forum), but if you fly a hard wing (no LEDs) an over-aggressive rotation is a serious risk factor for wing drop on departure. Especially if there's any sort of contamination at all. I used to have FOs try to yank the 145 off at 5-6 degrees per second during the winter because they thought it "looked cool"...
This was usually followed by me gently pushing the yoke forward and then a friendly chat at cruise about why that was a really bad idea!