I really for sorry for the guys involved in the accident and also the remaining crew of Centurion, who will very likely be affected by this accident. In these days, it is a tough environment if you have to move on and try to find another job if you don't have a "popular" rating. I have several thousand hours on the MD-11, now on an Airbus Widebody. Personally I think McDonnell Douglas put in all their resources they had to build an aircraft with a state of the art Cockpit and Systems (I have to laugh about the peeps in this thread who talk about the MD-11 systems despite having absolutely *no clue*
). If they had been in a financial better position at the time of designing this aircraft, MDD would have probably designed a different (bigger, aerodynamically enhanced) wing. Luckily for Airbus, they haven't, because otherwise the A340 would have been dead on arrival...
However, it is what is is now. A fast machine, with a high wingloading resulting in a VREF of ~165 knots at heavy weights. The margin of error is therefore relatively low compared to other types. Does it behave strangely? Personally I don't think so. Just pay attention on the flare.
One thing I like to point out, though: smaller airlines like Centurion most likely won't have the budget to send their crews around the world to train in the latest generation of simulators. My guess is, that they will use Alteon in Miami, which operates the oldest MD-11 Simulator (used to be in Long Beach). And I am not so sure, if in the older generation of training devices, things like Bounced Landings can be "accurately" simulated. I have used MD-11 simulators in the past where the examiner told us, that recovery from bounced landings are tough to train, because the simulator has a hard time to reproduce a bounce. Huck stated, that in FedEx is is trained now, but I am sure, FedEx has much better equipment to train in.
Still miss the MD-11 and its fantastic cockpit, tough. When I look at my Airbus overhead panel, the FCU and the Flight Guidance systems, I can't really agree with the proud people in Toulouse, stating that this is *the best and most modern cockpit*. I go even one step further and say, that the automation and flight guidance on the MD-11 is in fact much better. Which should not surprise in fact, because the Airbus cockpit layout is based on their first FBW Model, the A320, which first flew in 1987 and hasn't really changed that much. The MD-11's cockpit design is a bit younger.
