Taking anorakky to a new level I have started occasionally watching livestreams of aircraft takeoffs and landings at Manchester Airport. There is a surprisingly large audience for this content and there are 5 different people producing these livestreams meaning that on most mornings and afternoons there is likely to be one in operation. They all use really good cameras and lenses and together with what must be a lot of 5G bandwidth in the area, the quality of the pictures is superb. There are viewers from around the world and each Youtuber offers a variety of ways for their audience to make financials contributions ranging from single cash donations to ‘club’ type memberships with monthly prices ranging from a fiver up to £50 or so !!. You can still watch the feeds foc but membership brings with it a range of perks like a choice of avatar to use in the online chat and exclusive access to various offline content. It is quite extraordinary and each channel has a group of active donors – sometimes donating considerable sums over a four hour session …..
GETTING TO THE POINT OF THIS POST
All the waffle above sets the scene for what might or might not have been a bit of drama. When a plane takes off first the nosewheel leaves the ground and as it rises, the tail of the aircraft dips down but by the time the angle of the climb becomes too much the aircraft is airborne. On rare occasions the pilot gets it wrog and what occurs is a ‘tailstrike’ when the end of the fuselage hits the ground just as the plane becomes airborne. This is what may have happened to a Virgin Atlantic Airbus A330 taking off bound for JFK in New York. Normally there is a clear view under the tail as the aircraft becomes airborne but as you can see in the screengrab I took at 2hrs 18mins on the livestream linked above it either touched or was incredibly close. One of the participants in the chat was convinced it touched …..
EDIT
I am now fairly sure that although very close, the plane got airborne safely. Having watched many aircraft taking off from this runway (23 Right) I have noticed that the ground between it and where the camera is positioned may not be completely flat (where that orange box type thing is in the pic above). There is in effect a slight rise which hides the runway at the very point where the plane rotates (pilot pulls sticks back to take off). It looks like it touches but maybe you just could not see.