For an airline pilot, most days see at least a couple of a takeoff and landing cycles. Nearly all of them are routine and fade to memory, but we’re guessing the pilots on this Continental Airlines Boeing 727 flight aren’t likely to forget this departure from Phoenix from the 1990s. The video uploader suggests in the description that the plane was likely carrying a heavy load and combined with the typical heat in Phoenix, that can make lift a hard currency to trade in. One has to imagine the pilots sweating it a bit when they lift the nose wheel—called “rotation” by the aviation geeks—and the plane stubbornly refuses to go airborne.
After eating up a few hundred yards of runway, the main landing gear leaves the ground and…the plane seems to hover just a hundred feet or so off the ground. The pilots retract the landing gear as soon as possible to reduce drag and, even so, the wings waggle a bit in a way that suggests the plane might have neared stalling. Whatever the case, the 727 finally starts to gain altitude and climb out. The pilots earned their money that day and while we probably won’t ever hear the full story of this takeoff, the crew probably have this one finely etched in their memories.
Looks like his flaps were retracted…oops!
Yikes. And, about those flaps, see this 727 take-off incident, which didn’t end so well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Air_Lines_Flight_1141 Factors in that crash included engine intakes getting turbulence off the wings, which looks to be nearly happening here too.
Then, I wonder why this was being videotaped? Some kind of test?
I’ve never like take-offs in fully-loaded planes anyhow. Best ride ever on take-off was a new 737 with only eight passengers and a pilot who wanted to get home. That’s the way to fly…
True dat. I was on a 757 with 21 passengers AND crew on a late-Friday Chicago-St. Louis flight on a super-cold January night. I counted the takeoff roll as something like 26 seconds until rotation.
Dense air + Ridiculous engines – weight = Fighter jet climb-out
I’ll take a Texas ex-Navy pilot looking to leave EWR (Newark).
I used to live in Phoenix (around the time this video was taken, in fact) and flew in and out of Sky Harbor many times. Summer landings and takeoffs were always an adventure, and the most turbulent landing I’ve ever experienced (one that went beyond unpleasant into scary) was in PHX…