-500 Exit door mods in later life ----
Not relevant to the BA -500's, but some aircraft of the type ended up back with USA charter airlines -
ATA and Rich International who wanted to cram in more passengers - well over 300.
LTU flew theirs with 288 pax all Y(as built with 6 doors, and the Galley was now on the main deck)
Thus, FAA exit door Reg's demanded another pair of doors added aft of the wing (to now become an 8 door ship like the originals).
The "4th" door was added to the ATA (and Rich International) L-1011-500's, because the FAA would not allow them to be registered in the United States when they were bought from Alia Royal Jordanian.
After all the new L-1011-500's were built and sold, the FAA then created something called the "Sixty Foot Rule".
No two exits can be greater then 60 feet apart. To now get them registered the "4th" door had to be designed and installed.
Delta designed the new door and holds the STC.
However, the 17 L-1011-500's Delta flew did not require the "4th" door as the FAA had already grandfathered that fleet.
The "4th" door is actually made from cut down main sized doors removed from scrapped L-1011's sitting in the desert.
This extra pair of doors were then extremely skinny L3 and R aftermarket exit doors added due to high pax capacity need, and were in fact not the original Doors 4 small rear door, as fitted to all original Tri-Star -1's (except BA and Court Line who opted for the full sized doors at position 4) but were full sized main doors then cut down to size.
The taller doors are custom built from scratch using the modified frames of the L3/R3 doors from scrapped aircraft. That is why you see so many scrapped L-1011's in the desert with missing L3/R3 doors. At least 3 LTU Tri-Star's were door donor ships.
I believe the door mod cost was approx. $4 million which is not unreasonable all those years ago when they were acquired considering the cost of new wide bodies at the time.
It was most likely a bit more expensive because the TZ/ATA modification had to be recertified since it was slightly different than the prototype (Rich International S/N 193J-1183).
This is because the Rich aircraft was ex-LTU (D-AERT) and the LTU -500s ordered did not have a C3 cargo door.
The ex-RJ/Alia airplanes did; so the loading characteristics changed for the R/H extra door 3R requiring recertification.
There were only 6 total -500's modified with this extra door and TZ/ATA ended up owning them all.
The prototype S/N 193J-1183 was operated by Rich (N501GB) to 1996, and Nordic European (SE-DVM), and then Novair (SE-DVX) of Sweden, purchased as N165AT in 2000 by TZ/ATA, then used for spares. It was scrapped in VCV in 2004.
The others are the 5 ex-RJ/Alia aircraft N160AT-164AT.
Aircraft N160AT was retired in 2002 and eventually scrapped. The other four were still flying on until some years later.
N163AT was sold to Jordan for Elite Aviation and was registered in 2010 to
Rollins Air but not sure what happened to it.
The other Rollins Air Privilege Jet -500 was skippered by Pprune poster (411A) Captain Bob Welliver who sadly passed away in Honduras in 2011 soon after landing his aircraft there from Europe on the way to Tahiti. That aircraft (ex TAP/Air Transat) still sits out there abandoned
afaik.
ATA Airlines (formerly known as American Trans Air) fleet included 28 Tri-Star's, but operations dwindled to only three L1011-500s prior to the company's shut-down in April 2008.
Other L-1011 door anomalies -
BEA, later BA, ordered standard body Tri-Star -1's but with four standard large size doors, not only for added seating capacity, but for more rapid pax loading as well.
Many times I would notice that the L4 door was used during pax boarding.
These doors were identical (but not interchangeable) to the others, electric operation included, with double lane slides.
Court Line also ordered their Tri-Star's with the same large door configuration, and also had the large rear air stairs fitted in the aft hold to use on to Door 3R.
LTU also had these air stairs fitted, but only on their 1st 1973 new build.
UK CAA seating regulations provided the following:
Standard body aircraft,
Small L/R 4 door....max seating capacity 365
Large L/R 4 door... max seating capacity 400
BA and Court Line also had different flight deck instrumentation than other operators, and in addition, the UK CAA required a few modifications to the aircraft to enable it to be brought on to the UK civil register.
The smaller doors 4L/R didn't have the electric drive.
The normal sized doors have an electric motor to open/close the door and the small doors do not.
If you open a small door, you will have to manually crank it closed.
The two (of 5 ordered) L-1011 aircraft delivered to
PSA were configured with a smaller forward drop down air stair that led into a lounge bar area with lower deck seating, what was normally the forward lower baggage hold.
This was intended to allow operations from smaller less equipped airfields, and those in Latin America that did not have terminal buildings with Jet way type gates.
These two aircraft were soon sold to AeroPeru, and ended up at Worldways Canada.
The other 3 unsold new aircraft went to LTU, one was lost in a fire in 1991 at DUS - the other two went to TZ/ATA.
Kind Ack's to both the photographer's below -
door donors ex LTU
the new door 3 mods