Beagle , thanks for letting us know the ILS state . We'd heard that it was an offset Loc. And thus we'd never a/landed off that , but senior RAF decided to test it , with heavy landing following .
If memory serves the Eastern lease was N304EA ..... always heard about the 'Ghost of Flt 401' , which a 'gurlfriend said appeared on several night flights ... due to galley equipment having been salvaged from Flt 401 , N310EA...............Mind you 'wot happened in the underfloor galley stayed in U/F galley !
It was the U/F galley which kept -1 [ only G-BBAJ , not beefed up due her overun at LBA ] ,-50s ,-100s in service wirh Ba Airtours and Cale ....... 393Y + babes in arms , and 16 Flt 'n CC ..got my personal best SOBs well past 400 . The -200s had no U/F galley and thus max seats well reduced ; possibly no increase in max. ldg. wt. which could affect payload . Nominally , if replacing a Cale DC10 , we had 40 + more seats .... M.86 , gas 'n go in Santa Maria , we'd be in the Carribean before you ...
Others have explained the financial need to sell very well .
They were 25+ years old when I got to fly them , wonderful analogue machines . Brilliant wing , well less than 210 kts clean - 375kts VMO.. MMO brain fade but up towards M0.89 , 400+ SOB , 1 tonne spares pack in the hold .. go 7 hrs , gas 'n go another 7 hrs , land by a beach somewhere ....
Not to mention the hotel bedroom which was the flt deck , the window ledge behind and to the left of P1 seat converted readily into a perfect bunk for our 3 year old J/Seating home . When not asleep , he was having more fun than our village playground ... racing up and down in the lift with 'Bootful Blonde Tracey.
Even us flt. deck did not get to do that ! Engineers year or not .
rgds condor .