Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins
I spent darn near three months in Tokyo/Narita assisting in the repair of this one:
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Wow, just had a chance to look at this Jeff--incredible. I flew through Narita probably 50 times, and I can attest that the approach is scary. When I first started going to Japan in 1992, we flew on Delta MD11s. I was once sitting next to a pilot who was deadheading, and I asked him why all the landings were so hard there. He said the MD11 tail feathers (third engine in the rudder) were configured so that there was basically no elevator control for the last 50 feet off the deck. So it just sort of fell. I told him I'd once seen a ceiling panel fall, and he said it was common with that plane. I'm definitely no expert, so forgive me if this sounds technically off--it's memory from a long time ago. Anyway, it was cheery to know that as we went in, me gripping the seat with knuckles of white. And yes, it was a hard landing.
On 777, we used to call Md11s "Scuds"--once they took off, you never knew where they were gonna land. I think they've pretty much al been converted to freighters.
Any MD11 jockeys here to confirm or deny any of the above?