Well you know better than me. I have been spotting for many years now but probably do not get as close as you do. And yes they do get very close, seen a few 777 come close as well. Can argue that the tail of the aircraft has dug itself into the ground from those photos:p, sorry could not help myself.

Amazing - change the colour of the tail and it is a front page news story. I have only seen one mention of it so far:

http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking...ry_523841.html

SYDNEY - A UNITED Airlines flight bound for San Francisco was forced to turn back to Sydney within two hours of departure on Friday after the jumbo jet reportedly clipped its tail during takeoff.

A United spokeswoman confirmed that the Boeing B747-400 had returned to Sydney for maintenance checks but would not confirm the media reports about the tail incident.

'I can confirm that UA870 departed from Sydney at 2.45 pm for San Francisco today and has returned to Sydney Airport for maintenance checks,' she told AFP. 'It landed without incident at 4.20 pm.'

Looks like it got underway again ...

N128UA UA0870 07/05/2010 14:58 United Airlines B747-422 Sydney-San Francisco-Chicago
N128UA UA0870 07/05/2010 16:08 United Airlines B747-422 Sydney-San Francisco-Chicago

And here are the details from ACARS ....


Operating the UA0840 service from Melbourne ...

ACARS mode: S Aircraft reg: .N128UA
Message label: H1 Block id: 0 Msg. no: F58A
Flight id: UA0840
Message content:-
#M1BPOSS34061E150498,TAMMI,021332,87,BOOGI,021540,DUDOK,P5,1655,315,,/TS021332,070510A27A
-------------------------------------[07/05/2010 12:13]
ACARS mode: S Aircraft reg: .N128UA
Message label: H1 Block id: 1 Msg. no: F59A
Flight id: UA0840
Message content:-
#M1BPOSS34021E151003,BOOGI,021524,60,DUDOK,021628,NASHO,P6,35013,313,,/TS021526,070510F23C
-------------------------------------[07/05/2010 12:15]
ACARS mode: S Aircraft reg: .N128UA
Message label: H1 Block id: 2 Msg. no: F60A
Flight id: UA0840
Message content:-
#M1BPOSS34050E151045,DUDOK,021624,53,NASHO,021756,SOSIJ,P8,00411,312,,/TS021627,0705106ABE
-------------------------------------[07/05/2010 12:16]

Operating the UA0870 service to San Francisco ...

ACARS mode: S Aircraft reg: .N128UA
Message label: 5Z Block id: 6 Msg. no: M33A
Flight id: UA0870
Message content:-
/C4 SYDSYD
DUMP COMENCED AT 0510Z
DUMP TIME 50 MINS.
HOLDING ON SY 060 RAD
AT 40 DME LEFT CIRCUIT
-------------------------------------[07/05/2010 15:38]
ACARS mode: S Aircraft reg: .N128UA
Message label: 5Z Block id: 1 Msg. no: M36A
Flight id: UA0870
Message content:-
/71 SYDSYD 0\FLOOR PANELS NEAR SEATS 59AB LOOSE
-------------------------------------[07/05/2010 15:51]
ACARS mode: S Aircraft reg: .N128UA
Message label: 5Z Block id: 6 Msg. no: M38A
Flight id: UA0870
Message content:-
/B6 SYDSYD SYD R34L F30
-------------------------------------[07/05/2010 16:09]

Nope, it returned to Sydney at 1620 after dumping fuel. Initial departure was about 1500. Your ACARS reports in the post below this one quoted confirm the dump time.

The worst tail scrapes I've seen in previous years were off B777-300's. Singapore had one that left quite a deep and very long gouge not long after they started using them into Sydney. Thai were another culprit, again with the B777-300.
Thankfully with a bit more practice since then they don't seem to hit them anymore...

You could also argue that this bird has no undercarricage apart from the nosewheel too. No wonder the tail hit....;)

Hi Nigel, the way I have programmed my ACARS setup is to report the first receipt of a unique Registration / Flight number combination for the day, which could be up to 30 minutes out of YSSY. This works perfectly for commercial operations where every service is a different flight number normally. To pickup all corporate movements where the same flight number is generally used all the time, there is a one hour reset of this rule in place. This is also handy for the Emirates EK418/419 services as the turnaround in Sydney is over the hour reset mark, and ACARS will report the service in and out of Sydney with the same Registration / Flight number combination.

In the original post above I assumed that the second pickup was the delayed departure (although the times looked a little close), but from reports in another thread (Monty) it actually stayed overnight.

If fact that the crew reported this in ACARS would suggest a possible tail strike to me (strange not to confirm it if this is the case).

ACARS mode: S Aircraft reg: .N128UA
Message label: 5Z Block id: 1 Msg. no: M36A
Flight id: UA0870
Message content:-
/71 SYDSYD 0\FLOOR PANELS NEAR SEATS 59AB LOOSE
-------------------------------------[07/05/2010 15:51]

Nigel, has there in your time ever been significant damage to a runway after a tailstrike ?

Yep, the Singapore one mentioned a few posts ago was probably the deepest gouge. Any strikes since then have generally been quite mild and left no damage to the runway, just a scrape mark.