Originally Posted by
DC10RealMan
I seem to remember that having sold the long-range Tristar 500s British Airways acquired some South American routes from British Caledonian for which the Tristar 500s were ideal had they not already sold them. They flew the new routes with the shorter range Tristars and we at Heathrow ATC regularly received Diversion Arrival signals from Madrid as they had had to divert to refuel.
The -500s were delivered in 1979-80, just as the Thatcher government came in with goals to improve efficiency, and then privatise the airline. There were a number of poor performing long haul operations, often multi-stop, and once the 707s and VC-10s were disposed the -500, being by then the smallest long-haul aircraft in the fleet, tended to operate these, so they were sold off in 1983 to the RAF. Meanwhile, a parallel government initiative was to shore up B Cal, so BA services to Saudi (profitable) and B Cal services to South America (marginal) were swapped in 1985, and BA leased a couple of -500s from Air Lanka for several years to run these.
The order to Lockheed was for six -500s and eight -200s, the latter being the latest and most capable of the standatd bodied Tristars, having essentially the -500 engines etc in a full length frame. These didn't last much longer, being withdrawn after about 10 years, with the reductions at the start of the first Gulf war in 1991. A couple then returned the compliment to Air Lanka, and were leased out to them for a while, continuing to turn up most days at Heathrow.