Spoiler up during take-off

[Adrian FW]

Hi,

I've come across this video of a Virgin 747 landing and taking off from Belfast.  During the line up (at 2.10) spoiler 7 or 8 appears raised.  It's still raised during the take-off roll (at 3.20).  Is that unusual?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXmHvPRIPRA

Thanks,
Adrian

[Hardy Heinlin]

Hi,

it's spoiler #8, and it looks like a malfunction to me. But probably not significant enough for a short flight.


|-|ardy

[John H Watson]

Definitely a defect. No dispatch.

Perhaps the spoiler panel dropped back down without hydraulics and they missed it on the walkaround.

[Avi]

I wonder if the pilots felt anything.

Only two spoilers (4 &12) have a position transmitter so the pilots didn't have any way in the cockpit to know it was up a little bit. It must felt like a crosswind takeoff (which generates asymmetric lift).

Spoiler 8 with its symmetric sibling spoiler 5, are different from the other spoilers since they are the only one with a ratio changer. I also wonder if this unit is to be blamed (and if it happened during the flight control test after startup).

[John H Watson]

It's frustrating to watch this video. If it had been sitting higher, enough to cause a problem on takeoff, as a ground observer, there's really nothing you could have done unless you had the phone number of someone who could contact the tower directly. A pilot in an aircraft taxying behind the 744 would perhaps have the best chance of stopping it from taking off (in time).

The seated cabin crew would have been looking in the wrong direction (and probably wouldn't really have known it was wrong anyway, at least from their vantage point).

It's interesting to see all the water being sucked into the #2 engine as the engines spool up for takeoff.

https://youtu.be/XXmHvPRIPRA?t=187