How automated is the MD11 — Civil Aviation Forum

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How automated is the MD11

aviator_ua From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR:
Posted (14 years 5 months 1 week 21 hours ago) and read 473 times:

Analysis of one incident involving an uncontained engine failure on
a DC-10 aircraft in the early 1970s found that the flight engineer
was faced with having to perform 110 steps to complete all his
checklists. On the MD-11, the four system controllers would
perform all but five of these steps for the pilots.

3 replies: All unread, jump to last

David L From United Kingdom, joined May 1999, 9242 posts, RR: 42
Reply 1, posted (14 years 5 months 1 week 20 hours ago) and read 472 times:

That's pretty impressive and, as a gadget freak, I'm right behind the move to automate such things. BUT... wouldn't it be nice to have someone sitting there who knows the systems and can act on any anomalies the computers find while the pilots fly the plane? Let automation reduce the occcurences of tricky situations and let an expert deal with any that do arise.

But what do I know? (Don't answer that!)

L-188 From United States of America, joined Jul 1999, 29367 posts, RR: 61
Reply 2, posted (14 years 5 months 1 week 18 hours ago) and read 471 times:

Inteeresting thought. There have been a lot of people critical of the decision to remove the Flight Engineer from aircraft by automation. I personally am one of them. But there is a valid point that maybe in todays aircraf you really don't need to have a crewmember who just fine tunes and monitors the systems on the aircraft. Maybe we should put back the third flightcrewmember but have his concentration on programming the flight computers rather than the mechanical aspector of the flight.

This would really become a good idea if Bill Gates ever decides to manufacure a Windows of for aircraft FMGS's

OBAMA-WORST PRESIDENT EVER....Even SKOORB would be better.

Noel Benford From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR:
Reply 3, posted (14 years 5 months 1 week 10 hours ago) and read 473 times:

On all of the Delta MD-11 routes, there is a change of crew on board. I guess it's up to the airline and the country the aircraft is from. I assume the Swissair MD-11 that crashed only had two pilots? Not a good idea IMHO. yea rah Delta! ;-)

Noel Benford

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