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koala63

Why no more MD-11 in the real world?

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I flew on a Garuda MD-11 from Sydney to Jakarta, 1998. Enough has already been said about the whys and wherefors about this beautiful looking aircraft, so I will not add.

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I've always wondered if the fate of MD and the MD-11 was sealed after the loss of SR111.

 

I think too but in the time of crash swissair had a new technologies on board and it was very newer for its time, the proofs show it was a capton problem and the procedures of swissair in case of emergency was to long... it's not only a plane problem.

 

 

 

I know it is twitchy in pitch, a PITA at cruise (VERY sensitive), and oscillates on approach, BUT finesse as a pilot should solve those.

 

 

I agree, don't know in reality world, but with the pmdg MD-11 on approach if you fly at 180kt or higher speed before intercepting the LOC and switching on the FMS speed when you are etablished work fine for me.After just keep warning on the noise elevation making smoothly as possible for the landing and touchdown.

 

 

So all comments are very good for a MD-11 fan :)

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The PMDG MD-11 will always hold a special place in my hangar.  The bird is very interesting to look at and is very impressive on landing when you get it right.  I will continue flying it regardless of what happen in real world.


Vu Pham

i7-10700K 5.2 GHz OC, 64 GB RAM, GTX4070Ti, SSD for Sim, SSD for system. MSFS2020

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I've always wondered if the fate of MD and the MD-11 was sealed after the loss of SR111. There was a big deal back then about insulation blankets and capton wiring, which the MD-11 used extensively (so did Boeing and several other manufacturers but that seemed to make little difference).

 

I'm not sure that the fire doomed the MD-11. Sabena received the last MD-11 passenger version built in April 1998 after Boeing announced they were ending the passenger production line.

 

 

 

the proofs show it was a capton problem and the procedures of swissair in case of emergency was to long

 

I don't think the checklist was really a problem, except that it didn't inform the crew to land as soon as possible. I think it was more the crew was slow to diagnose the source of the smoke and made a few bad decisions.


Kenny Lee
"Keep climbing"
pmdg_trijet.jpg

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The source of the fire was some extremely bad wiring done when the in-flight entertainment system was installed. The idiots (and that is putting it mildly) DIRECTLY connected the IFE to the main AC electrical bus, bypassing the CAB ISOL switch on the flight deck!!!!!!!

 

The wiring was poorly installed, and this led to arcing. The arcing set fire to the insulation blankets just above and ahead of door 1R.

 

The first sign of anything being wrong was smoke eminating out of the vents at the rear of the cockpit, but as it was dark, they were spotted quite late. It was already too late to make a difference. The pilots started with the smoke checklists, thinking it was related to the air-conditioning. As that made little difference, they then went through the electrical smoke checklists. As has already been mentioned, these procedures were much too long, but it wouldn't have helped. The checklist called for the CAB ISOL switch to be activated, killing all power to the cabin. This was **SUPPOSED** to have removed electrical power from the faulty IFE, but it did not as it was NOT connected to the cabin electrical bus, but directly to the AC main bus. As they were running this checklist, the cockpit instruments began to fail, and they ended up with numerous strange failures and alerts as a result of the fire burning all the wiring to the overhead panels and circuit breakers.

 

From all the analysis that followed, even if they were in an optimum position for a straight in approach and landing for their cruise altitude, they still would not have made it. The heat and systems failures would have prevented a successful landing.

 

Just 12 minutes elapsed from first sign of fire to the aircraft crashing into the ocean. :cray:

 

Best regards,

Robin.

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The PMDG MD-11 will always hold a special place in my hangar.  The bird is very interesting to look at and is very impressive on landing when you get it right.  I will continue flying it regardless of what happen in real world.

 

 

Yes, he is majestic, seem to be a big bird come back from his nest :) i use delta airline continental spirit atlanta olympique game 1996 livrery and when i fly on ivao network, he wear the color of FeDex beautiful too.

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the basic design is nearly 50 years old. Aircraft design has come a long way in that time

 

LOL - Concorde's design is rooted in the 1950s... I don't think anyone would say its design is not very good.

 

The winglets you see on the MD-11 are being trialled by Boeing on the latest 737s, because they work out more efficient.

 

Just because the base design is old, does NOT mean that it is no good.

 

Concorde and MD-11 share many parallels. Both aircraft were ahead of their time, overtaken by economics of modern materials and design methodology.

 

Build a modern MD-11 or Concorde and they would beat many aircraft around today. 747-8 is a re-engined 747-400 and built using modern materials. The basic design didn't change, apart from a few tweaks. Look at the efficiences in the -8 vs. -400. This is modern materials science at work.

 

Best regards,

Robin.

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Love the MD-11 and it, like the J41, were very brave decisions by PMDG.  I wish both could get some update treatment, but it doesn't look likely.  Can't wait until 747-400 pt. 2.  At that point we'll have a great selection of Freighter heavy metal.


Jeff Bea

I am an avid globetrotter with my trusty Lufthansa B777F, Polar Air Cargo B744F, and Atlas Air B748F.

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I remember a story from a SFO newspaper saying that KSFO had another non-stop to Tokyo making fun of the fact AA had to fly from KSJC to KSFO for fuel due runway MD11 limitations operating out of KSJC in early 90's. Not sure if it was temp runway expansion project or poor MD11 performance...suspect poor MD11 performance. AA dumped the MD11 after that and think went with TWA's old 747SP's till new equipment came online or just dropped the route. KSJC didn't last long as a AA hub.

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The 747SPs came before the MD-11s. They only ever had 2 of the SPs. The MD-11s were then replaced by the 777s. Back when I was a newhire I was scheduled to deadhead on MD-11s multiple times but only ever got to go one once because each of the other times the flight was cancelled for mechanical problems.


Tom Landry

 

PMDG_NGX_Tech_Team.jpg

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The source of the fire was some extremely bad wiring done when the in-flight entertainment system was installed. The idiots (and that is putting it mildly) DIRECTLY connected the IFE to the main AC electrical bus, bypassing the CAB ISOL switch on the flight deck!!!!!!!

 

The wiring was poorly installed, and this led to arcing. The arcing set fire to the insulation blankets just above and ahead of door 1R.

 

The first sign of anything being wrong was smoke eminating out of the vents at the rear of the cockpit, but as it was dark, they were spotted quite late. It was already too late to make a difference. The pilots started with the smoke checklists, thinking it was related to the air-conditioning. As that made little difference, they then went through the electrical smoke checklists. As has already been mentioned, these procedures were much too long, but it wouldn't have helped. The checklist called for the CAB ISOL switch to be activated, killing all power to the cabin. This was **SUPPOSED** to have removed electrical power from the faulty IFE, but it did not as it was NOT connected to the cabin electrical bus, but directly to the AC main bus. As they were running this checklist, the cockpit instruments began to fail, and they ended up with numerous strange failures and alerts as a result of the fire burning all the wiring to the overhead panels and circuit breakers.

 

From all the analysis that followed, even if they were in an optimum position for a straight in approach and landing for their cruise altitude, they still would not have made it. The heat and systems failures would have prevented a successful landing.

 

Just 12 minutes elapsed from first sign of fire to the aircraft crashing into the ocean. :cray:

 

Best regards,

Robin.

 

Thanks for the post. I was just about to write a post along similar lines until I saw yours. The insulation blanket material and kapton wiring was not unique to the MD-11. The fire was a result of a poorly executed 3rd party install of the in flight entertainment system. I make the Amsterdam to Tehran run in my KLM     MD-11 on occasion. Regards

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