Whistlin' Dan
Well-known member
- Joined
- May 18, 2006
- Posts
- 460
It's not in the article...it's in the NTSB report, page 26. The left gear touched down at 12.5 fps, the right at 14.5. Those correspond to sink rates of 750 and 870 fpm respectively.Purpled said:It's late, so perhaps my eyes are failing me, but I don't see 800 fpm in the article. There is a mention of 500fpm, firm but well within structural limits (at least once). There is also mention of a hard touchdown due to windshear, but I don't see a number associated with it.
Oh really? This is what you said...purpled said:I never said 800fpm was a 'minor deviation.' Keep your words in your male-pleaser.
That is why the article was flawed...it (and you, or so it seemed) characterized the pilots complete failure to flare as "not quite getting the drift off" (whatever that means) and the touchdown at -870fpm as "firm." In fact, it was roughly equivalent to hoisting the aircraft to a height of 8-10 feet straight and dropping it straight to the tarmac. There are very few things one can drop from that height without breaking them.purpled said:this article is mostly about design flaw and structural integrity issues. It specificly points to how minor deviations made by the pilot should not have resulted in such an outcome.
There were no questions of "design flaws" or "structural integrity" identified in the report. When flown onto the runway at those rates of descent, the landing gear failed, just as McDonnell-Douglas could have predicted it would 35 years prior when the aircraft was certified.
FFR-I'll be responsible for what comes out of my "man pleaser" as you put it. I would suggest that you get your facts from source documents where available, and not rely upon highly-spun (and inaccurate) narratives printed in magazine articles.
I have no experience with either type, which is why I asked the question. Many airplanes have "Achille's Heels," failure modes or crash sequences often discovered only after certification, and after a series of accidents under similar circumastances. (The Mu-2 and Lear come immediately to my mind...I'm sure the military has it's own list) Whether FedEx's problems with the MD-10/11 are a result of engineering or operational deficiencies, I don't know. But they DO sound like airplanes that are highly unforgiving of rough and/or bounced landings for whatever reason.purpled said:We are the only carrier flying MD-10s; and they are quite different, as the article points out, than the DC-10.