| But as to the W&B. I flew out of Boston this time on a
DC10. This was
| in the days before they limited carryon. Mine was a
shoulder bag about
| the size of a duffle bag and just as heavy. It would just
fit in the
| overhead if you worked really hard. I don't think there
was an empty
| seat. Of course being packed in like sardines IIRC, we
were all
| overjoyed to hear the announcement "You all will be glad
to hear we
| are number 57 in line to depart" This was out of Logan.
At any rate
| I was kinda glad we had to burn off fuel for over an hour
when we took
| off. It seemed as if we were getting light on the gear
almost half
| way down the runway. We finally started to bounce along on
the gear as
| we kept slowly accelerating. Finally the nose came up,
but I could
| feel the tail kinda tuck under. Any one who has ever felt
over
| rotation knows that feeling. At that point I must have
grabbed the
| arm rests as the guy beside me asked if I was OK. I
squeaked out "I'm
| fine" and then checked for finger prints in the arm rests.
We went
| between the cranes off the end of the runway as we cleared
the
| buildings. I have never seen a commercial flight clear the
end of the
| runway lower than that except for a DC-6 a longggg time
ago. I was at
| the end of the runway that time and saw his tires hit the
tops of the
| grass and weeds. I know they have checks on the weight of
passengers
| and baggage but I'll swear that DC-10 was overloaded.
|
| At any rate a couple minutes later the guy asked me
something and I
| replied that sometimes it's better not to know what's
going on. He
| didn't ask any more questions.
|

BOS has short runways

Those old DC-10s and L-1011s were really lead sleds when they were full, and
rode on a few were we seemed to gradually gain speed for a looong time and
then rotate for a while before lifting off about nine tenths of the way down
the runway.

OTOH, personally, I'm betting on overweight, even after burning off a lot of
fuel.

Peter
(In the last row of seats, I could almost hear the pilot behind us--honking
his horn. ;-)))