Vietnam B789 at Munich on Aug 15th 2026, late rotation, tailstrike, runway overrun, tyre damage

///AMG said:
That would have been an unmitigated death trap.
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One day I’ll do a deep dive on Whale losses,
I’m curious about the numbers.

My father’s last five flights had in-flight emergencies, that’s crazy. Imagine the deferred maintenance as they were being replaced by Prowlers.

Maybe the Navy should consider a mix of KC-46’s and MQ-25’s. KC-46’s are cheaper than MQ-25’s.
 
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Cherokee_Cruiser said:
General rule of thumb applies. 2/3 of rotation speed by half way down the runway. Eg, 165 knot rotation. You should be 110 knots at least by half way down the runway.
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It's good to have some approximate gut checks in mind. I'll also agree that if you do not have 2/3rd (or 70% is the rule of thumb also goes) by half way down the runway, you should abort. However, the logic behind the adage is simplistic and you can be in trouble even if you pass this test. It also gives absurd guidance when there is a large mismatch between available runway and aircraft performance. As in, "If I don't have 35 knots in my Cessna Bugsmasher by 1-mile down this 2-mile runway, I don't care what you say, I'm aborting!"

AOPA article on the subject:
Reality check

Within my simple world of light GA airplanes, I follow the recommendation of the article and make sure the runway can support the takeoff ground roll followed by the landing ground roll (with my margin factors applied). The abort point occurs at the end of the predicted takeoff ground roll. Either I'm in the air, or I bring it to a stop. To be clear, I'm not saying this is practical for other contexts.
 
Pilot Fighter said:
One day I’ll do a deep dive on Whale losses,
I’m curious about the numbers.

My father’s last five flights had in-flight emergencies, that’s crazy. Imagine the deferred maintenance as they were being replaced by Prowlers.

Maybe the Navy should consider a mix of KC-46’s and MQ-25’s. KC-46’s are cheaper than MQ-25’s.
Click to expand...

I don't think we will ever get into the big-wing tanker game, other than maybe maybe potentially possibly fielding some pods for our forthcoming fleet of reserve C-130J's that big navy reserves are so f'ing proud about......yawn. MQ-25 is supposedly going to reconstitute the E/F fleets to relieve them of the burden of mission tanking, but that specific role is almost always optional anyways. The path to them filling the recovery tanker mission, which is a requirement for fixed wing CVN ops, is much less clear. To be blunt, I don't think it is capable of that mission, nor do we plan to have "operators" who have any clue what they'd be doing in that role. They will certainly increase the amount of near mid airs, but that will happen regardless, once they arrive. That's my pessimistic take. I remember a day, over a decade ago, I was sitting in my office in Fallon, and some jabroni from the navair side of the MQ-25 program came in, and asked me what I thought the plane would be good for. That's a real good start to a program, I'd say. "We're building it, you tell us what it should do". I think enough of us shrugged and said "I dunno", and then the persistent ISR part (its original, programmatic mission and reason for funding) proved to be too heavy and the airframe too ill-equipped, so someone (with no knowledge of CVN tanker ops) just said "make it a tanker!" in order to save the program.
 
///AMG said:
I don't think we will ever get into the big-wing tanker game, other than maybe maybe potentially possibly fielding some pods for our forthcoming fleet of reserve C-130J's that big navy reserves are so f'ing proud about......yawn. MQ-25 is supposedly going to reconstitute the E/F fleets to relieve them of the burden of mission tanking, but that specific role is almost always optional anyways. The path to them filling the recovery tanker mission, which is a requirement for fixed wing CVN ops, is much less clear. To be blunt, I don't think it is capable of that mission, nor do we plan to have "operators" who have any clue what they'd be doing in that role. They will certainly increase the amount of near mid airs, but that will happen regardless, once they arrive. That's my pessimistic take. I remember a day, over a decade ago, I was sitting in my office in Fallon, and some jabroni from the navair side of the MQ-25 program came in, and asked me what I thought the plane would be good for. That's a real good start to a program, I'd say. "We're building it, you tell us what it should do". I think enough of us shrugged and said "I dunno", and then the persistent ISR part (its original, programmatic mission and reason for funding) proved to be too heavy and the airframe too ill-equipped, so someone (with no knowledge of CVN tanker ops) just said "make it a tanker!" in order to save the program.
Click to expand...

Yeah, MQ-25 seems like a problematic tanking solution.

Doctrine and dogma probably conclude consideration of a heavy tanker but I think 20 KC-46’s could be a game changer. Rhino’s will tank forever.

With regards to doctrine, if we look back to the Vietnam era we see a precedence for land-based tanking.

For the most part, EKA-3B’s supporting Tonkin Gulf carrier ops were land-based in Da Nang.
 
Interim report is out, but not yet in English

It appears that the PF was indeed pressing on the brakes.


From the report:

The Pilot occupied the left-hand seat and was Pilot Flying (PF). The co-pilot was Pilot
Monitoring (PM). The pilot in command, nominated by the operator, was seated in the
left jumpseat and another pilot was seated in the right jumpseat. The description of the
occurrence is based on the Enhanced Airborne Flight Recorders (EAFR) data and the
statements of the flight crew, among other things...

At 11:56:12 UTC, the Take-Off / Go-Around mode for the take-off run was activated.
At 11:56:15 UTC, the EAFR recorded rudder pedal input from the two left-hand-seat
pedals.
Also, at 11:56:15 UTC, the EAFR recorded brake pedal movement of the two left brake
pedals. About abreast of the intersection with taxiway B4 tire tracks of the wheels of
the aircrafts two main landing gears were identified. The braking activation of the
Braking System Control Units (BSCUs) was 15% on the left and 6% on the right side.
At 11:57:03 UTC, IAS (EAFR parameter: Airspeed_Comp_Vtd (kn)) was for about 18 s
at about 168 kt IAS. Short speed deviations downwards and then back to the original
speed were recorded. Another braking activity via the brake pedals and the brakes
were recorded during the take-off run. The maximum recorded brake pedal position
reported was 7.2° (range: 0° to 12.5°). The EAFR parameter of the left BSCU inboard
and outboard channels, at 11:57:12 UTC, had a maximum value (brake application /
command) of about 27 %. The maximum value of the right BSCU inboard and outboard
was 17 %.

1790618836162.png
 
From the report:

"The two Digital Cockpit Voice Recorders had recorded four audio files each with a recording time of two hours each. The audio recording of the take-off was overwritten. The landing and switching off of the power occurred more than two hours after take-off."

I think the cockpit conversation after rotation would have been pretty interesting.
 
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