JetBlue Airbus A321 Tips On Tail At JFK

Many carriers that operate the A321 require a tail stand while loading or unloading.

Always been rather surprised that we don't see more airlines using tail-stands for A321s. Wonder if B6 will be from now on...

Sorry Guys, It's me. I was sitting in the back of the plane....

And, for av-geeks, what about tail-dragging on takeoff? The tail angle on most airlines is about 15 degrees. The departure angle is typically 15 degrees. Tech manuals typically state that once an aircraft reaches rotation speed, rotation is typically 3 degrees per second for 5 seconds to achieve that 15 degrees. Rotation consumes 1000 feet of runway. Near the end of that rotation, the wheels are off the ground and the tail is clear. At that point, the pilot chooses a rate of climb. Staying at the 15 degrees, you're typically looking at about 2000 feet per minute.

In a previous life I worked Load Control (weight-n-balance) for AA
The 727-200 had an arrival limitation :
If there was more than 5000lbs loaded in the aft cargo hold (rare)...
And the planned arrival fuel was less than 18,000lbs (common)...
Then passengers could not be let off until sandbags were added into the forward hold.

I was told it was due to the 3 engines being aft mounted. That plus a heavy load aft meant that we NEED the passengers ahead of the wing to balance it.
IMHO, 'stretch' aircraft models (like the 727-200 & A-321) tend to be a little more touchy. The see-saw effect.

For year many B6 GO crew members spoke of this issue with B6 management and went on dead hears. This issue caused have been avoided but was ejected, due to never happing.

I have seen that probably all Alaskan Airlines 737s at Sea-Tac Airport have tail stands as standard protocol. Is this based on airline decision / risk management?

It's always a rule, don't offloaded the front end of AB or any tail heavy plane regardless of what type. It's not only AB's, there are pics of DC-10's doing the same thing, as loading aft first will do the same thing.

Right, blame management because you aren't doing your job properly.

I believe I read that pilots get immediate feedback after every successful 321 takeoff reporting the rotation angle. The unsuccessful takeoffs are apparent without feedback.

Proof of how over weight Americans are. Too many Super Sized orders at the airport.

Yo' momma's so fat, that when everybody else got off a jetBlue flight...

This is due to the ground crew not off-loading the aircraft properly. Plain and simple. Look at the load plan(supervisor). The A321 has excellent CG. Either they started offloading significantly after deplaning started or they simply emptied the front hold first.