Hi folks!

 

Don't know if anyone has seen this article, but if you ever wanted the complete story on MD-11, look no further.

 

Found this story on Tourism & Aviation: The McDonnell-Douglas MD-11 Story -> http://www.tourisman...d-11-story.html

 

No doubt the author is regurgitating facts and trivia like no one else I've ever read before:

 

Program launch, intended for 1979, had been usurped by Douglas’s further definition of its versions, which, designated “DC-10-61,” “DC-10-62,” and “DC-10-63,” had even more closely reflected the DC-8-61, DC-8-62, and DC-8-63 nomenclatures. The DC-10-61, for instance, had been intended as a domestic variant with the 40-foot fuselage stretch and a 390-passenger capacity, and had been powered by 60,000 thrust-pound engines.

 

And I was just about give up reading this onslaught of engineering facts pouring off the page, but then he starts to talk about a flight done by the launch customer Finnair from Helsinki to Tokyo. Oh the story comes alive!

 

Sure, he continues to carpet bomb the reader with exceptional knowledge on what goes on up front:

 

The number three engine, the first to be started and the furthest from the bleed air source, had been engaged by pulling the Engine Start Switch, its start valve moving into the open position, as verified by an amber confirmation light. When the N2 compressor speed had equaled 15 percent, the start lever had been moved to the “On” position and the engine start switch, reflecting an exhaust gas temperature (EGT) of between 45- and 52-percent, had popped in, the start valve now closed and the amber light disilluminating. The engine’s N1 tachometer had settled at 23-percent and its exhaust gas temperature had hovered at the 700 degree Fahrenheit mark.

 

But then you also get this:

 

a selection of aperitifs, beer, wine, and nonalcoholic beverages served with lightly salted peanuts and smoked almonds; a crabmeat and mushroom seafood salad on a lettuce bed with jumbo shrimp, sliced cucumbers, and cherry tomatoes; a basket of hot white and wheat rolls with Finnish butter; mango beef or chicken in curry-coconut cream sauce; French camembert cheese with crispy rye crackers; raspberry mousse cake; coffee or Japanese tea; a selection of liqueurs; after-dinner mints; and hot towels.

 

And there's more, the story peaks on this note:

 

Slicing the darkness and opening day in the Orient, dawn’s razor pierced the eastern horizon with a thin cut through which an orange glow had poured ahead of the port wing, somehow emphasizing the cylindrical nature of the planet over which the tri-jet presently arced. “Tomorrow,” seemingly eager to unleash its force, streamed through the gradually-enlarging fissure marking the demarcation line between the 24-hour cycle’s two modes, its light intensifying and transforming the black, nocturnal doom of Siberia into a cold, partially habitable purple and ultimate dark, pre-dawn blue.

 

The poetry...

 

I must say I enjoyed it, but not sure what to think of it...

 

Fascinating bordering on the bizarre

 

Morten

Very interesting, Morten, thanks for sharing.

An interesting article, but a really wierd mix of writing styles !

To me it looks like its written with passion. Nice read.

I concur, but you have to start wondering who the intended audience is? The Tech freak or the causal tourist? Or perhaps neither, but a group that I haven't heard of yet.

 

Anyway, don't want to hammer him for this ambiguity.

 

Nice read, let's leave it at that...

 

Morten

I didn't know that Finnair made the first revenue flight. Live and learn!

 

That made me think. It seems that I may have been part of something historical. As a young boy, my father took me to an opening ceremony for a new hangar at EFHK. It would soon be the home for Finnair's MD-11 fleet. It might just be that the first MD-11 revenue flight originated from this very hangar!

 

This took me down the memory lane. I still remember the first time my father showed me the MD-11 cockpit. It was light years ahead of the DC-9s and DC-10s I had visited before. Nice memories and MD-11 still makes me full of child like joy, every time I see one!