http://www.kjsl.com/~chrisw/md11.html

This site mentions rental of an MD-11 simulator at $900 an hour.

American

Delta

Fedex

These three CONUS airlines still fly the MD-11. Many of the crewing

companies have MD11 crews on their books.

However, because the catastrophic malfunction is likely to have been as

a result of a wiring short that occurred in concert with a Smk/Elec/Air

switch selection, I'm NOT sure that it would be possible to reproduce

that fateful combination in a simulator - in particular without the IFE

wired in as a heavy drag upon AC2. I note that in an article I read on

the NET about MD-11 despatch reliability (FEDEX I think) the main

discrepancy most of the time was the "battery charger". This strange

anomaly ties in with my theory that a combination of the dead short and

switching of the SMK/ELEC/AIR switch plus the fuel-starvation flame-out

of #2 engine (can't gravity feed) suddenly put them from two generators

down to one (when #2 flamed out). Switching Gens under an incredibly

high shorting load is likely to cause the one you're switching (to) NOT

to come on line (due feeder-fault, overvoltage, under-frequency etc

etc). They are very sensitively monitored and deliberately tripped by

the system if their parameters are even slightly amiss. The effect of

that solo GEN not coming on line might mean that the whole normal and

shorting load is then upon the battery (which is only good for 15

minutes under a reduced load). I think that as soon as that trip

happened the BATT CB's (or charger) blew and an accident on a dark

night, facing the ocean, was inevitable. Paul, I think you'd be better

off getting hold of a KLM electrician (perhaps through Art) and trying

to validate that theory (or a variation upon that theme). He would also

be able to advise about the likely effect of the shorting out of the

bus-tie sensing relay. It's a real lynch-pin (and therefore the

vulnerable weak link). My gut feeling is that the elaborate design of

the MD-11 electrical system (particularly the bus-tie relays) was just

not able to cope with the shorting happenstance. The checklist and the

design of the trouble-shooting system is oriented around singular system

or component failures - not general wiring calamities. Therein lies the

Achille's Heel of all electric jets - once they start coming unglued,

the SOP crew trouble-shooting is just looking for more trouble... and

usually they find it..

"GLOSSARY

Ticking fault: An intermittent metal-to-metal event

(conductor-to-conductor, conductor-to structure, etc.) that results in

the discharge of sparks and arcing events."

Induced current flow is a known phenomena but more simply, electricity

moving arbitrarily from one wiring circuit to another's (due to cracked

and chafed insulation) was obviously never considered by designers (nor

logically, could it be). As the FAA has said: 'wire is wire'. But such

miswiring in the human brain is called an epileptic fit.

Do I hear you venture that a completely separate standalone, fall-back,

get-you-home Virgin Bus is once again the solution? If you could deploy

the ADG, activate that bus and so have the necessary systems and

instrumentation (whilst at the same time killing the power and therefore

the fire/smoke on all Normal busses) you're guaranteeing a survivable

outcome. Methinks it's really the only way to go in future - Kapton or

no Kapton. In order to ensure survivability, operators must toss aside

the old trouble-shooting checklists and designers must give the crews

(and pax) an escape route that has the certitude of an insular, standby,

standalone system. Without that sea-change in attitudes, crews and

passengers are entering a new era of miscalculated risk - with or

without Kapton in the equation. With 260 kms of wiring and numerous

duplicated components in modern airliner's electrical systems it would

be foolish to consider that integrity revolves around redundancy.

Duplication, triplication and automatic sensing and switching just

trebles the risk. When the chips were down for SR111, redundancy and

smart auto-switching meant nothing. Developments were always likely to

be non-plussing and continued operation of the electrical system meant

that the situation had to deteriorate rapidly -which it did. The older

generation of jets wasn't really anywhere near as reliant upon electrics

as in the glass cockpits of today. The thought of losing all electrics

in SR111 was totally horrifying to the Swissair Chief Pilot

(Hiltebrand)...and rightly so. The reality is that the extent of total

electronic and computer dependence means that an escape-route backup

system is an essential safety net.

The general wisdom now is to get the aircraft on the ground ASAP. Well

that advice is a fat lot of good if you're mid-ocean and hours from the

nearest suitable airport. Going on the instances that we know about,

another mystifying crash, perhaps without the possibility of salvage,

would be on the cards. When you consider that aspect, in a two-man

cockpit the Virgin Bus is a "sine qua non" of safety, security and passenger reassurance.

John Sampson