B737-800
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 168; Flight Crew Type 25000
Situational Awareness
Ground Event / Encounter Other / Unknown
Flight Crew Became Reoriented
Procedure; Airport
After parking a fully loaded -800; I went to the ramp to do a walk around for our next flight. As I approached the nose wheel well; I immediately noticed that I did not have to bend over to enter the wheel well. The nose scissors and strut were fully extended. I have never seen that on a 737 and first thought it was an over serviced strut. I continued my walk around while thinking over the nose issue. As I returned to the nose I saw the strut actually compress to a normal position. At this point the Operations Lead came running down the stairs after he immediately stopped passengers from deplaning. He then told me the ramp around [the gate] has a sloping grade rearward. He also said that because of that slope; another carrier actually had a -800 that had [the nose wheel] come off the ground the week before. I found this valuable safety information.
B737-800 Captain reported noticing during walk around that the aircraft was very lightly weighted on the nose wheel when parked at a gate that had a rearward slope.