Just a quick question as am studying to bring myself up to speed on my newly purchased MD-11:

 

There seems to be no way to fly a Localizer BC approach except manually.   I understand that this is an approach procedure that is being replaced by GPS/GNSS but there are still many airports throughout the world that have published LocBC approaches.  If I recall, the old DC-10 had a BC selector on the MCP, so did the MD80's.  I am surprised that the MD-11 does not.  The B737-800 is much more recently developed and yet it has the ability to reverse track a localizer raw data so there must still be a market demand for such capabilty in the eyes of Boeing.  At the time when the MD-11 had its hay-day ( a short one at that ) BC procedures were quite a bit more common so why not the capability on such a technologically advanced aircraft? 

 

Searching through all the MD-11 documents nothing is even addressed on the issue.  Maybe you more experienced MD-11 operators could shed some light on this (?)  

 

Thanks.

 

 

There seems to be no way to fly a Localizer BC approach except manually.

 

You can fly a coupled approach while intercepting and tracking the localizer. But you cannot automatically land the aircraft because there is no glideslope to track.

 

 

 

At the time when the MD-11 had its hay-day ( a short one at that )

 

I think the M11 is still in her hayday. She wasn't a good passenger bird but she's still a hell of a freighter.

There are still aiports in the world that have a single runway with ILS but there are usually smaller ones and MD-11 is regarded as being a heavy plane.In this case you would be vectored into a visual landing and adjusting your glidepath with the papi lights.The DC 10 had localizer BC because it was built in an era before the GPS was very common in an airplane.The MD-11 was acquired by Boeing at the end of its time and it diidn't have a very long life because of its competitors.My opinion is that a big plane like MD-11 is suitable for bigger airports that have at least an ILS or Non-Precision procedure for the landing and if not you would do a visual landing and that's that.

Anyway in most cases you would have some sort of procedure to follow maybe a VOR or an NDB approach type.All you need is to follow it according to the chart and get your minima from there.The chart will always tell you when to start your 3 degree descent so there should't be any problem there.

You really don't need it because you already have lateral navigation and glass displays and the MD-11 si very much automated with the FMS and there is no need for a localizer BC.

My preference would be an FMS approach rather than use the LOC BC. That, or visual.

 

MD-11 makes the descent easy though - drop it into FPA and select -3.0° in VERT SPD window.

 

Best regards,

Robin.

Thanks for the responses.  What you all seem to be saying is that I would need to CONSTRUCT my own approach in the FMC and then fly it Lnav using either Vnav (Profile?) or just try to determine a proper FPA.  

 

It seems the thinking in the 90's was that total automation would be taking over for raw data and now as evidenced with the NG series they have brought back some of the capability.   Fact is that too much automation has been killing people.

 

I do accept the fact that I at least can still fly a Vor/DME approach with raw data in the MD11 (I think) but reverse tracking of localizer is not an option.  I will deal with it.  Thanks again for replies.

 

 

It seems the thinking in the 90's was that total automation would be taking over for raw data and now as evidenced with the NG series they have brought back some of the capability.

Not at all! Many aircraft all have the same capability today they had 20 years ago. Not much has changed. Another point to remember is the aircraft may have the capability to do something (e.g. IAN mode in NGX) but it may not be legal to use it!

 

Best regards,

Robin.

 

 

I do accept the fact that I at least can still fly a Vor/DME approach with raw data in the MD11 (I think) but reverse tracking of localizer is not an option.

 

You can still dial it in.  The AP won't fly it for you, but you can still fly it by hand.