Originally Posted by
Wookey
Just why was the Trident a three pilot flight deck when surely most short haul aircraft of the era had become two crew operations?
I think the first jets with more than two engines which was two crew were the 757/767, introduced some 18 years after the Trident. In fact when the Trident came along there weren't any 2-crew jets at all.
Among the twins, Caravelles were three crew, and even the first 737s had an option of a three crew flight deck, not sure if any were so configured. In the USA, the FAA had an arbitrary upper limit of 80,000 lbs (40 tons) for two-crew operations, which the Trident was well beyond. The first One-Elevens were marginally over this, and not sold in the USA, but it was redesigned as the One-Eleven 400 that came just inside the limit, as did the first short DC9-10s. The restriction was later relaxed when the DC9-30 and 737 came into prospect.