KLM Retires the last MD-11

Blue Punto

KLM have retired the MD-11 from service with PH-KCE performing the last commercial flight KL672 YUL-AMS
PH-KCB (Still in AMS)& KCE will follow the rest of the fleet to Victorville or Crestwell to be broken up

I made sure last year to get my flight on one before this happened and took PH-KCA(Amy Johnson) on the same route (AMS-YUL).
The condition of the windows were not great for pictures but they still record the journey

I was to fly home on PH-KCK but due to a broken cockpit window the flight was cancelled and I ended up flying home on an Air France 747 Via Paris instead.
IMG_0401-001 by niallsaviation, on Flickr
IMG_0403 by niallsaviation, on Flickr
IMG_0405 by niallsaviation, on Flickr
IMG_0431 by niallsaviation, on Flickr
Finals Montreal(PH-KCA) by niallsaviation, on Flickr
47764_1363512756 by niallsaviation, on Flickr

Blue Punto

PH-KCK by niallsaviation, on Flickr
Window damage(spiderweb)can be seen here on KCK

PH-KCA by niallsaviation, on Flickr

PH-KCA arrives to do the flight the next day
After a night in the Hilton compliments of KLM they could not get us on this flight so this was my ride home
F-GEXB by niallsaviation, on Flickr

Comhrá

P

H-KCB (Still in AMS)& KCE will follow the rest of the fleet to Victorville or Crestwell to be broken up

I always feel a little sad to hear of these venerable old jets heading away to be broken up after many years of safely ferrying so many souls around the world.

Seems such an ignominious way to finish their days.

veetwin

Has the please of flying on that aircraft many times over the years. Always felt they were really smooth in flight and felt slightly more spacious than the 747. Apparently a pig to land them though.

man98

Are there many passenger MD-11s still in service? Martinair, Lufthansa (?) and FedEx all have freight ones I know.

L1011

man98 wrote: »

Are there many passenger MD-11s still in service? Martinair, Lufthansa (?) and FedEx all have freight ones I know.

Zero now - these were the last

1123heavy

'Tis a sad day, I saw an Alitalia cargo MD11 in DUB a few years ago. Having seen MD11's on youtube many times before I never fully appreciated the sheer noise it made (Bloody LOUD !) and gracefulness with which she takes to the air.
Certainly is gonna be missed, I enjoy seeing these jets up close as they give you somewhat of a feel of what it was like a few decades ago as the world entered the jet age, it's all we have left of a bygone era, unlucky for me I haven't been around for long in comparison and never got to see the true beautys that graced the skies

smurfjed

They had a terrible reputation when it came to landings, they were extremely unforgiving. I loved them in the cargo configuration and VIP configuration, but with 2-5-2 economy passenger configuration i thought that they sucked, the aft engine also made the cabin extremely noisy same as the L1011.

L1011

KLM moved to 3-3-3 (actually, I seem to remember them using 2-4-3 at one point rather than 2-5-2) when they realised they needed to keep them for a bit longer and fitted IFE in economy. That layout was fairly comfortable - its a wide fuselage for 9 across, not much narrower than the often 10 across 777; and I believe the pressurisation altitude was lower than Boeing/Airbus too.

donvito99

Just glad I got to ride one in recent years. A magnificent machine, will be missed in regular passenger service.

iusedtoknow

i ended up on one coming from AMS to SFO.

While a beautiful plane from the outside, they hadn't really invested on the inside (even in business, it wasn't a scratch on their 747)

Sad to see it go, but these things happen.

donkey balls

A great aul aircraft to fly on the cock pit windows are huge in them,I am surprised that they are not going for cargo configuration.

EchoIndia

There is no demand for cargo conversions of the type at this stage - ditto the 747-400 as it leaves the mainline fleets.

donkey balls

A lot of the integraters are going for big twins A330/B777 to replace the MD/DC, Saying that there will always be a market for the 747F as the likes of the 777F cannot accommodate oversize cargo.

cml387

Makes me feel old.
I remember Swissair using a brand new just delivered MD 11
for training in Shannon in 1991.

Naked Lepper

Blue Punto wrote: »

starvin lookin at that scone

smurfjed

starvin lookin at that scone

Our crew meals were somewhat better than that, crew could call the night before and order what they wanted, for the few joyriding flights that i did on the MD11, we got Canadian salmon out of the Middle East, great rolls out of Brussels and awesome Tom Yum from Bangkok.


Those were the days :)

smurfjed

The MD11 has an awesome fuel system, it is the only civilian aircraft that i know of that can actively move the fuel between the main tanks and tail tank to maintain the optimum cruise CofG. This system cut the fuel burn by 3%. It also had "drooping ailerons" which allowed another 2% fuel saving, for this the neutral position for both ailerons was 2 degrees down.

Considering that this was 1980's technology, it was pretty impressive.

BTW, B744 has tail fuel, but it can't actively move it, they can only pump it forward.

Jack1985

smurfjed wrote: »

Our crew meals were somewhat better than that, crew could call the night before and order what they wanted

:eek::eek:.. Wow!

Irish Steve

Concorde was trimmed for supersonic flight by moving fuel, it had to be done that way to avoid overheating the tips of the control surfaces when cruising above Mach 1, there were 3 limiting factors in the supersonic cruise, FL600, Mach 2.04 and 129 degrees C on the nose, the cruise was effectively a cruise climb all the way to Top of Descent, as long as the other limits were not breached. I didn't realise that the MD had a similar system, though it makes a lot of sense.

The DC10 and MD family were much nicer to travel on for long flights because the cabin was at a lower altitude, that family was pressurised to 4000 Ft in the cruise, as against 8000 for pretty much every other airliner, (Concorde again was different, 6000 Ft, but the cruise was much higher at up to FL600) the downside being that if something did fail structurally, there was a lot more energy available to then do damage to the hull.

imurdaddy

I flew on the MD family several times over the years and allways looked forward to flying on them, a pleasant change from Boeing & Airbus. I allways felt them to be more spacious and quite than there counterparts. Pitty to see them retired I allways thought they would have a few more years in cargo config, but I guess they are not economic enough to justify conversion.

smurfjed

VARIABLE CENTER OF GRAVITY
As an aircraft’s Mach number increases, the center of lift tends to move backwards, at
both supersonic and subsonic speeds. While this can be and is trimmed out at subsonic
speeds, doing so above Mach 1 would generate an unacceptable amount of drag and
therefore excessive fuel consumption.
This problem can be solved by moving the center of gravity backwards, proportional to
the center of lift. In Concorde this is achieved by pumping fuel backwards and forwards
between the front and rear trim tanks. During the climb to the initial subsonic cruise, the
CG will move backwards from approximately 52% to 56% MAC, and finally back to 59%
at Mach 2.
The center of gravity is typically kept at the rearwards extent of the acceptable range on
approach and landing, this induces some pitch-up that can be counteracted by the
elevons. This action makes the elevons behave like flaps, providing a small increase in
the lift-generating capacity of the delta wing at low speeds.

Thanks for that steve...

L1011

Boeing made such a hype about the 787s "extremely low" cabin altitude of 6,000. Shows how we are still playing catchup to what may have been over-acheivements of the past in aviation.

smurfjed

MYOB, good question, but i don't think that the 4,000 ft cabin altitude is really correct, please look at:

http://www.md-11.org/md11/Pressurization%20Panel.pdf

4,000 ft appears to be achievable up to 32,000 feet but then it rises towards 8,000 ft and a max diff of 9.1

Irish Steve, do you have a better reference than this?

Irish Steve

Sorry, I don't have a better reference for the 11, most of the detail work I did (simulator related) was on the DC10, and I did a long flight deck visit on a 10 when going over to Dallas from Gatwick one trip, (pre 9/11), and we were discussing a number of these sorts of issues while I was there, like the limit on DC10's that they couldn't operate over northern Greenland because the crew oxygen generators couldn't provide oxygen for long enough to get clear of the higher restrictions over Northern Greenland, (FL170). It's amazing the odd snippets that come out of the woodwork on occasions.

L1011

I've only ever heard of the 10/11s (very easy to drop a / and change the plane in question by accident!) apparently lower cabin altitude in conversation - that photo does seem to suggest that its below 8k at most normal flight altitudes though; if not quite the 4k idyll at a normal cruising altitude.

Strumms

Still a very viable aircraft in terms of cargo ops. You will still be seeing them flying fright around the world for 15 + years at least.

weisses

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/4516821?af=2953517&c=KLMplane1&WT.mc_id=C_WW_SocialCampaign_Twitter_Editorial_Airbnb_null_TW1&WT.tsrc=SocialCampaign

For anyone interested to get on board one final last time

Crumbs868

Sad end

Link to KL MD-11 being chopped up in VCV:
http://www.airliners.net/photo/Boeing-707-328C/2604067/L
Image courtesy of Flightdeckimages via A.Net

Razor44

arubex

That 707 in the smart livery used to be a SAAF tanker / ELINT. Originally delivered to Air France in 1967!

And there is sits alongside an MD-11 from 30 years later, all being cut to pieces

EchoIndia

Crumbs868 wrote: »

Sad end

You are infringing the photographer's copyright by reproducing that image instead of linking it to the site where it is hosted. Here is the correct link:
http://www.airliners.net/photo/Boeing-707-328C/2604067/L

smurfjed

EchoIndia, as he has posted for non commercial purposes seeking comments and criticism, wouldn't you consider it "fair use" as per the copyright laws?

EchoIndia

Unfortunately not. See here: http://www.airliners.net/usephotos/

eatmyshorts

EchoIndia wrote: »

You are infringing the photographer's copyright by reproducing that image instead of linking it to the site where it is hosted. Here is the correct link:
http://www.airliners.net/photo/Boeing-707-328C/2604067/L

Yawn

smurfjed

http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html Seems to give the option of fair use, which isn't mentioned by airliners.net

L1011

US copyright law, and airliners interpretation thereof, aren't relevant here anyway

billy few mates

Hope they don' transfer this thread over to the legal discussion forum or you might pick up a ban for expressing a legal opinion, they're very hot on this type of thing over there...

arubex

I've never understood why photographers who use That Site put-up with 'airliners.net' being watermarked across their images instead of their own names; after all, airliners.net doesn't own the copyright either.

Imagine if 'yahoo.com' was splashed across images people hosted on Flickr. There would be riots.

Anyway, MD-11s... according to this site you can lease an MD-11 for one-tenth of the monthly rate of a 787. It would be interesting to calculate the monthly fuel bill difference and see which is the cheaper to operate with current oil prices.

EchoIndia

arubex wrote: »

I've never understood why photographers who use That Site put-up with 'airliners.net' being watermarked across their images instead of their own names; after all, airliners.net doesn't own the copyright either.

It is the photographer's choice whether to have the watermark or not. The purpose is to make it more difficult for photos to be downloaded and reused without their origin being apparent.

arubex

EchoIndia wrote: »

The purpose is to make it more difficult for photos to be downloaded and reused without their origin being apparent.

But why the site's name? The site has no ownership of the photo. Looks suspiciously like advertising to me, masquerading as a service to the photographer.

It wouldn't be difficult to let each photographer set a personal watermark.

Tenger

Offending post has been edited to include photo credit and link. Can we all stop with the debate over the anal A.net attitude to photos?
No one was trying to claim ownership of the image.
Here is the link:
http://www.airliners.net/photo/Boeing-707-328C/2604067/L