A blast from the past! Revisited a classic with the MD-11 today. Delta Air Lines was an early adopter of the type in 1991 for a major transpacific expansion from Portland and Los Angeles, serving Tokyo-Narita, Fukuoka, and Nagoya-Komaki in Japan, along with Taipei-Taoyuan in Taiwan. Later, service to Narita was inaugurated from Atlanta and New York-JFK, the former of which was part of the type’s downfall with the airline. Delta wanted an airplane that could fly from Atlanta to Tokyo non-stop and McDonnell-Douglas said the MD-11 would fit the bill. However, the versions initially delivered with the Pratt and Whitney PW4000 engines burned too much fuel to make the trip, so flights with these aircraft had to make a technical stop in Portland. The airframes with the CF6 engines could cover the almost 7,000-mile trip, but had to do so with payload restrictions. By the time all the kinks had been ironed out, the writing was on the wall for the trijets. A combination of rising fuel costs, Boeing discontinuing the MD-11 program following its merger with McDonnell-Douglas, and the former’s own 777-200ER on with much better fuel economy and range led Delta to divest itself of the MD-11s by the end of 2004. Incidentally, the airframe depicted in the sim is still flying today with UPS after being converted to a freighter, as N291UP.
Server: Solo
Airline: Delta Air Lines
Aircraft: McDonnell-Douglas MD-11
Origin: Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Atlanta, Georgia (ATL)
Destination: Narita International Airport, Narita, Japan (NRT)
Flight Number: DL55
Route: KATL-RJAA
Seat: 14A (Business)
Time En Route: 14 Hours 24 Minutes
Boarding for the almost 14.5-hour flight to Tokyo. Delta had at one point three different paint schemes on its MD-11 fleet at once: The classic Widget, the Ron Allen, and the Colors In Motion.
Getting a look at the flight deck
Holding short while we power up the starboard engine
Maximum-thrust CF6-80C2 takeoff
Cruising north of Nashville
Over eastern Washington, approaching the Cascades
Final descent into Tokyo after sleeping for most of the rest of the flight
Arriving at Narita in the very early morning
Deplaned at Terminal 1
