The FCOM is pretty specific - establish the crab early, as it adds so much drag that you may be surprised by the sink rate it causes. . .. .Also, below 50 feet the autothrottles go to idle, so the sink rate can really ramp up with no power to compensate. And we can't go manual throttles, can we?. .. .These new airplanes really fly themselves. My guess is a habitual (or company-procedural) over-reliance on autoland - which has to be turned off above 15 kts crosswind. So you learn to fly the plane in the worst possible conditions.. .. .I've had instructor pilots tell me there is no reason to maintain hand-flying skills in the MD-11. I'll send them this clip.