{"id":370545,"date":"2026-02-17T12:00:17","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T02:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/simpleflying.com\/true-mcdonnell-douglas-md-11-tail-engine-difficult-fly\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T12:00:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T02:00:17","slug":"is-it-true-that-the-mcdonnell-douglas-md-11s-tail-engine-makes-it-difficult-to-fly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=370545","title":{"rendered":"Is It True That The McDonnell Douglas MD-11\u2019s Tail Engine Makes It Difficult To Fly?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <span class=\"display-card-hyperlink display-card-hyperlink-no-vignette\" data-id=\"3525616\"style=\";  ;\" class=\"display-card-hyperlink display-card-hyperlink-no-vignette\"><a href=\"https:\/\/simpleflying.com\/tag\/mcdonnell-douglas-md-11\/\"  >McDonnell Douglas MD-11<\/a><\/span> is the most common trijet flying today (sort of). At least that&#8217;s true if one ignores the fact that <span class=\"display-card-hyperlink-article\" data-id=\"2048199\"><a href=\"https:\/\/simpleflying.com\/ups-grounds-entire-md-11-fleet\/\" >the MD-11s are currently grounded following the 2025 UPS crash<\/a><\/span>, and UPS has hurriedly retired its jets while FedEx wants to start flying them again by the end of May 2026. The aircraft is notoriously difficult to land, and it is easy to point to its tail engine (engine #2) and assume that is the issue. But the truth is more complicated than that, with its difficulty coming from efficiency-led redesign more than the engine itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The MD-11 tail engine does not make the aircraft more difficult to fly, but a number of engineering choices to enhance its efficiency do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[396,505,9103],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-370545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aircraft","category-mcdonnell-douglas","category-mcdonnell-douglas-md-11"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t<!-- All in One SEO Pro 4.9.9 - aioseo.com -->\n\t<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The MD-11 tail engine does not make the aircraft more difficult to fly, but a number of engineering choices to enhance its efficiency do.\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"max-image-preview:large\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Guest authors\"\/>\n\t<meta name=\"google-site-verification\" content=\"1EIWGZ5FoylKQrO3pqls-2hXlDXKIP1lffdWZCVV0V4\" \/>\n\t<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=370545\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"generator\" content=\"All in One SEO Pro (AIOSEO) 4.9.9\" \/>\n\t\t<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n\t\t<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"VibeWire Magazine - Your Alternate News Source for Transport, Politics, UFO, Paranormal, Anything\" \/>\n\t\t<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n\t\t<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is It True That The McDonnell Douglas MD-11\u2019s Tail Engine Makes It Difficult To Fly? 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