If a 747 was perfectly balanced aft of the CG point, do you think it can land without the front landing gear touching the ground and only needing the landing gear to turn?

I'd say, "yes", you can do it with any plane. But it would seem to be difficult to fly the plane (especially a 747) with a lot of wieght aft of the CG point to begin with.

This question was brought to me from a group of guys sitting around the break table at work shooting the shit.

I figured there would be some airliner type guys here that would be able to give some insight to this theory. I'm sure Gump will have a theory on this .

I've certainly taken off and landed a Cessna 207 a whole bunch of times at 40+ below with a damn flat nosewheel tire, and "wheelied" to where I need to go with the nosegear never touching the ground. And done the same with the opposite end with Cessna 180/185's.

Is that what you mean?

Gump

Yeah, I figured it would be easy to do in a small plane, but what about something big like a 747?

I guess these guys are specifically asking about a 747.

On any large airliner type of airplane I believe the main gear are well aft of the most rearward CG limit. Be neat if the main wheels were near the CG as the airplanes nose would come off of the ground with a lot of people in the rear . Notice as they board an airliner they do it from the front to the back, I assume for that reason.
So my theory is no, it couldn't be done with a 747, the nose is coming down even with full aft elevator at quite a high airspeed.
Or put another way, I don't think it would be flyable with the CG that far aft.

not a chance...


but it only requires one set of main landing gear to land tho... might be one hell of an inspection afterwords..

I recall that early in the 747 life, one took off at SFO and because of a bunch of things, not relevant to this discussion, rotated late and some of the main gear hit the approach lights on the far end causing a bunch of damage. To make a long story short, they burned off and dumped a bunch of fuel and when they came back around to land, after stopping it fell back on its tail whipping people off the forward slides which were flapping in the wind. It had some of the main gears down but some weren't, just not enough support from the far aft ones.

Also it must be a problem loading because I've seen long DC8 freighters that have a tail stand for loading and unloading. Seems to me there was a strange tail wheel gizmo on one of the long 4 engine (in the back) Russian airliners they put down for loading and unloading also.

I don't think so. The engines placement doesn't allow for any blowing over the tail surfaces so that means no elevator control at low speeds. It would either fall on it's tail or on it's nose once it slowed. I fly a T tail and it's elevator is worthless until you hit about 50.

Reminds me..

...when I was a student pilot 1,000 years ago; my instructor and I were walking by a newly painted Bonanza. He told me that when repainted an airplane had to be perfectly balanced. Added that they hung the airplane by a cable perfectly suspended. If the airplane tilted at all....they had to "rebalance" the paint job. I believed him for a long time.

Then when I was checking out in my first airplane with a constant speed prop another instructor told me that I always had to place the prop perfectly vertical when shutting down so that "the prop pitch would drain out." Took me a while to figure that one out.

In college I worked in a factory for a while. My boss sent me all over the plant to retrieve a "box streacher." Everyone played along and I spent an hour trying to track down the elusive piece of equipment.

I think the question asked here fits the same catagory.

Bob

A64 is right... the 747 nose wheel can be held off for a while but then you run out of elevator and down it goes. Contrary to most GA nose wheel types the idea is to 'fly the nose wheel on' shortly after touchdown to increase deceleration...

Been flying the 747 for a living for a numer of years. The nose wheel can be held off like any aircraft when it is lightly loaded but when there is a payload it comes down quickly even with attempts to hold it off. We try to get the nose on and the reversers out quickly to reduce the chance of hot brakes. Sweet flying airplane that 747.

I know this has nothing to do with reality, but it was pretty amusing anyway.

I over-rotated a 747 in Flight Sim and knocked off everything aft of the wing root. I figured I'd immediately crash (which oughta be about right, in reality),
but the airplane continued to fly, climbing out. When I reduced power, the nose would drop, so I realized that I could control pitch to some extent with engine thrust. Easy on the ailerons, and I got it back around to approach the runway, touching down, I used power to flare... but the airplane sunk into the runway and registered a crash anyway. I guess somewhere in the sim, the computer decided that the gear contact points were gone.

Again, nothing even approaching reality... but freaky anyway.

To bring it back to topic... I wonder whether someone could try the OP's scenario in a more 'serious' simulator.

nope, too forward cg on a 747

B747taildragger wrote:nope, too forward cg on a 747

I agree.

One of our co-workers contacted his dad that's an enginer for Boeing (who better to ask) and has indeed busted the origanal theory.

by the way the fuel tank and pump is working well, mounted it on a small trailer.

B747taildragger wrote:by the way the fuel tank and pump is working well, mounted it on a small trailer.

Oh, that's great! I know who you are now. Makes sinse now that I look closer at your avatar (logo on the 747). I hope that wasn't your mishap!!

no, not my mishap, a buddy of mine that lives in Hailey Idaho landed it in Guam with no nose wheel, but I had flown that bird many times