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Old 23rd Mar 2009, 17:01
  #135 (permalink)  
JW411
 
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: UK
Age: 83
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I absolutely loved my time on the DC-10. It was a delightful aeroplane to fly - a real pilot's aeroplane. It was easy to land nicely and it was excellent in a strong crosswind (wing-down technique) and in rough conditions.

Later in my flying career, I spent a lot of time with a CAA examiner (from another European authority) who had a lot of MD-11 time and I was amazed to hear (over several beers) how they had screwed up a really nice flying aeroplane by trying to save money by chopping down the size of the horizontal stabiliser and so ended up having to fit a computer (LSAS) and God knows what else to make good this defecit.

(As a matter of interest, the span of the DC-10 horizontal stabiliser (tailplane) was the same as the wingspan of the DC-3).

It was quite difficult to bounce the DC-10 but it might be of interest to know that the recovery technique was to ease (and I mean ease) forward on the control column. This might not work well on an MD-11?

My guess is that the start of this accident might well have begun with windshear at a very late stage on finals; too late to prevent a heavy landing.
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