Photos from the collections of Shawn Byers, Scott Jankowski and Ken Kula.

The McDonnell Douglas MD-11 was a follow-on airliner of the DC-10 passenger/freight hauler. A larger airframe, with aerodynamic refinements such as winglets and more powerful engines, improved on the DC-10’s range and capacity. The first flight of the MD-11 occurred on January 10, 1990. 

Two hundred airframes were produced; about three quarters of the total were built as passenger jets. The other quarter or so were pure freight versions. 

Part of the innovation of the MD-11 was the cockpit design, which did away with the legacy flight engineer. Thus, only two cockpit crew were needed to fly the intercontinental-ranged jetliner. 

Finnair first put the aircraft into operational use in 1990, and was among the last ...

Wings over Camarillo continued to step it up again this year as they introduced pyrotechnics to this year’s event. The show was held under beautiful skies and amazing temperatures on August 17th and 18th, 2019.

The day prior to the show kicking off was arrival day. One of the highlights for me was the arrival of one of these static displays. A F/A-18E Super Hornet from VFA-151 Vigilantes, being piloted by LT. Joe ‘Jamboy’ Kirksey of VFA-97 Warhawks, broke overhead in preparation for landing. Along with being able to hang out with Jamboy and some of the other pilots from VFA-97 again, he brought a very special aircraft with him. The aircraft, belonging to VFA-151, had been dedicated to LT. Charles ‘JTACZ’ Walker who had recently passed away during a training accident...

On final… a DC-10-10 approaches a runway somewhere in the world.

With photos from the collections of Shawn Byers, Scott Jankowski and Ken Kula.

McDonnell Douglas’s DC-10 airliner is pretty much extinct in commercial passenger service, although some freighter versions and a handful of military transport/refuellers still ply the skies around the world.

The first flight of a DC-10 occurred on August 29, 1970, almost fifty years before this article was written. The tri-motored jet was a successor to the four-engine DC-8, and originally was designed for medium range operation. Ultimately, a later version was made capable of intercontinental flight operations, and since it operated with three engines, it could span the oceans without many, if any restrictions...