My reference to the wing was derived strictly from Mayday's post - to which I was responding. As far as your moment arm theory goes - yes, the distance from the fulcrum may be longer, but so is the total force (weight) required to be balanced - so the total required moment is probably equal or greater than the original DC-10. Hey, MS engineering, also - I bet mine was more recent than yours:). By the way, you are correct that the smaller stab is less drag - that is why it is smaller. But, smaller stab equals LESS force and/or authority (unless the airfoil is that much more effective - doubt it), not more - what you meant to say was more moment (force x distance). But, hey, this is not meant to be an engr. discussion, although I do enjoy them.

The problem is, you don't know - and neither do I. Why, because everytime someone starts these discussions, someone else pipes up with a seemingly definitive answer that is in reality based on no evidence at all, or they tell us how much time they have in the particular airplane. I find it hard to believe that you have done the math to determine whether the required downforce of the stab is actually less than or equal to the required downforce of the KC-10 stab, even if you are given the increased moment arm (just an assumption, because although the overall fuselage length is greater, I do not KNOW that the distance from the center of lift on the stab to the center of lift on the wing is ACTUALLY much longer than the equivalent distance on the DC-10). Also, if the fuselage was extended forward and the CG was moved forward, then any extensions of the stab's moment arm are nullified.

This week is not the first time the MD-11 flight control issue has been brought up; plenty of datapoints exist now, so when is the real in-depth analysis going to be done? Do you REALLY know if our landing mishap rate (noticed I said rate - relative to either hours [not so relative] or landings [more relative]) is no greater than others, do you REALLY know that the MD-11 overall landing accident rate attributable to pilot error/flight control issues is equal to other aircraft, ...? Probably not, so I would like to see someone figure that stuff out.

By the way, I can't think of a nice way to say this, so here goes....people always say how THEY have never had such-and-such a problem with this jet or that jet. I am sure that every one of these mishap crews could have said the very same thing right up until their respective incident. Next time you say that, consider throwing a ",yet" at the end - in most cases there was very little to distinguish their flying from ours.