All tailstrikes/hard landings in the MD11 have two things in common:
1. High sink rate
2. Pitch-up rotation at touchdown.
Those AT's come back at 50', regardless of where you are or what your energy is.
If I were king I'd make it mandatory that you click them off at 100', every approach. That's how I fly it. Learned it from my days in max-weight DC-10-30's. The fear is that you'll go around with them disengaged, but it is not a problem at all. I do practice approaches/missed approaches in my current position and standing them up and putting the needles in the carrots is child's play.
I DO NOT like flying with autopilot off, autothrottles on. I am 75% more in-the-loop if I click both off. And I can't find any reason not to, except laziness.....
Last edited by Huck; 29th Mar 2009 at 00:11.