A
Assembly of the last two MD-11s were completed in August and October 2000;
they were delivered to Lufthansa Cargo on February 22 and January 25, 2001
respectively.
Production ended because of lack of sales, resulting from internal competition
from the Boeing 767-400 and Boeing 777, as well as external competition from
the Airbus A330/A340.
McDonnell Douglas and later Boeing performed studies on the feasibility of
removing the tail engine to make a twin-engine jet, but nothing came of it.
McDonnell Douglas originally projected that they would sell more than 300 MD-11 aircraft, but
only 200 were built.
The MD-11 was assembled at McDonnell Douglas's Douglas Products Division in Long Beach,
California (later Boeing's facility)
Design
The MD-11 is a medium- to long-range widebody airliner, with two engines mounted on
underwing pylons and a third engine at the base of the vertical stabilizer. It is based on
the DC-10, but features a stretched fuselage, increased wingspan with winglets, refined
airfoils on the wing and tailplane, new engines and increased use of composites. The
winglets are credited with improving fuel efficiency by about 2.5%. The MD-11 has a
smaller empennage than the DC-10 it is based upon.
The MD-11 features a two-crew cockpit that incorporates six interchangeable CRT-units
and advanced Honeywell VIA 2000 computers. The cockpit design is called Advanced
Common Flightdeck (ACF) and is shared with the Boeing 717. Flight deck features
include an Electronic Instrument System, a dual Flight Management System, a Central
Fault Display System, and Global Positioning System. Category IIIb automatic landing
capability for bad-weather operations and Future Air Navigation Systems are available.
The MD-11 was one of the first commercial designs to employ a computer-assisted pitch
stability augmentation system that featured a fuel ballast tank in the tailplane, and a
partly computer-driven horizontal stabilizer. Updates to the software package made the
airplane's handling characteristics in manual flight similar to those of the DC-10, despite
a smaller tailplane to reduce drag and increase fuel efficiency.
The MD-11 incorporates hydraulic fuses not included in the initial DC-10 design, to
prevent catastrophic loss of control in event of hydraulic failure.
MD 11
July 2017
www.alliance-airways.net
3 ! 1