There’s a hydraulic panel that ...How come the professional pilots et al at pprune.org never mentioned this 'panel'? Wouldn't the "pitch limiter" indicator on the PFD be enough to keep the pilots informed of their aircraft attitude?
Not sure why they didn’t mention the plate. As for the pitch limiter - unless there’s some sort of weather problem most takeoff’s are done automatically. There’s a button on the throttle (auto-throttle) when pushed advances the throttle to takeoff power. Rudder control happens around 60kts and liftoff usually around 90-110kts. The takeoff pitch angle depends on lots of things such as wind, weight, speed, etc. There are computers that will calculate all that and you can do an auto take off. Now if the PIC pulls back too far too fast (in manual mode) then yes, the tail will strike but the strike plate should prevent damage. Not sure why all that damage in the photo unless the plate was retracted at the time of the strike.