Originally Posted by
Admiral Ackbar
There's a reason they had to build the MD-11 and it isn't because the DC-10 was a good design. Handful to fly at the best of times apparently, especially X-wind landings.
You have it just about backwards.
Originally Posted by
cmd320
FedEx (amongst other airlines) has had a number of landing incidents and accidents with the MD-11. The DC-10 is actually more stable on landing than the MD-11 which was designed with a much smaller horizontal tail.
Originally Posted by
BearX220
The longer MD-11 is more unstable than the DC-10 in many respects. The 11 has a tendency to porpoise in flight and needs a lot of tending / corrective inputs.
These.
The DC-10 was initially really weak on systems redundancy and designed on the cheap and in a rush but its flight characteristics were just fine and pilots loved flying it (not as much as the giant pussycat and more robustly systemed L-1011 though). The MD-11, on the other hand, is a twitchy unstable beast as illustrated by multiple examples ending up inverted and in flames on the runway after landing (well, sort of landing).