<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by TA:
Does the underside of the tail get any special protection in normal operation? I would think that given how possible a tail strike sounds, this would be very dangerous -- the tail contains the APU and hydraulics right?
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Not very much (and to answer an earlier poster, no Boeing passenger a/c use FBW except for the 777).
Here's one of a
SQ 744 that tail struck in AKL.
The JL 747SR that crashed in Japan some 15 years ago was due to an improperly-repaired bulkhead that was cracked after a tail strike earlier in the a/c's service history.
[This message has been edited by terenz (edited Nov 14, 2003).]