A Laker DC-10-10 was my first DC-10 flight, 1974, Manchester to Toronto ABC. That must have been up near the performance limits for the type as well (first DC-10 ever seen, to take up Treadders point, was September 1971, American at San Francisco, just a few days, I later found out, after the type's inaugural flight, which was JFK-SFO).
Those Laker One-Eleven -300s must have been good performers, because when Laker went under they were sold to British Caledonian, who simultaneously sold their same sized -200 fleet.
I believe they had five of them, commonly based for summer three at Gatwick, one at Manchester, and one at Liverpool, operating for the two Laker tour operators mentioned above. The northern Arrowsmith company was actually headquartered in Liverpool. I seem to recall that some years they used a Laker aircraft at Liverpool, and other years a Cambrian One-Eleven on the same sort of routings.
The 707s were an early purchase, the first two were actually ex-British Eagle, when they shut down in 1968, doing transatlantic charters in summer and a few of the longer holiday flights. Am I correct that they used to do charters to Hong Kong in the off season ? They also got together with a Barbados operator, and did winter flights there from not only Gatwick but various continental Europe points.
I believe those first Laker DC-10-10s were a confident speculation by McDonnell Douglas salesmen that All Nippon would buy them, but they decided on the Tristar instead, and were offered as a quick delivery bargain. This introduced Laker to the Japanese Mitsui finance house, who later bankrolled the excessive DC-10-30 fleet which led to the end for the airline.