{"id":372826,"date":"2026-02-20T19:00:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T09:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/simpleflying.com\/why-mcdonnell-douglas-md-11-tail-engine-different-other-trijets\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T19:00:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T09:00:16","slug":"heres-why-the-mcdonnell-douglas-md-11s-tail-engine-is-different-than-other-trijets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=372826","title":{"rendered":"Here&#8217;s Why The McDonnell Douglas MD-11\u2019s Tail Engine Is Different Than Other Trijets"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When one observes a trijet on the ramp at an airport, their eyes will be naturally drawn directly to the aircraft&#8217;s tail. On the McDonnell Douglas MD-11, the center engine is not fed in the same way that most traditional trijets are. The <span class=\"display-card-hyperlink display-card-hyperlink-no-vignette\" data-id=\"60363\"style=\";  ;\" class=\"display-card-hyperlink display-card-hyperlink-no-vignette\"><a href=\"https:\/\/simpleflying.com\/tag\/boeing\/\"  >Boeing<\/a><\/span> 727 and the Lockheed L-1011 both use a pronounced S-duct, with an intake on top of the fuselage that curves down to an engine buried deeper in the jet&#8217;s tail. The MD-11&#8217;s tail engine, by contrast, is a much more direct and straight-through arrangement carried at the base of an aircraft&#8217;s vertical stabilizer. This leads the inlet, ducting, and fan presentation to differ in significant aerodynamic and maintenance-related ways from that of a traditional three-engine aircraft.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The aircraft offers some impressive capabilities.<\/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":[396,1909,505,9103,423],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-372826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aircraft","category-aircraft-manufacturers","category-mcdonnell-douglas","category-mcdonnell-douglas-md-11","category-united-states"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=372826"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372826\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":372831,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372826\/revisions\/372831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=372826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=372826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=372826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}