It was not a great aircraft in it's day it was a dog. It may have been reasonably nice to fly for those who had not flown a lot nicer, but it was a maintenance nightmare, always going tech and it caused the financial collapse of more than one airline, Caledonian in it's last reincarnation being one. It even had the last laugh on poor old 411, went tech with 200 passengers in an out of the way place. 411 took it so personaly he finally blew his own main fuse. Why resurect something that did not work in the first place? Did I fly it? Yes and did not rate it. Let it RIP in the boneyard. It even caused the collapse of the civil airline program of Locheed, that says it all.
In order to rebate these allegations, we must first line up and understand the time-frame for the creation of L-1011.
In the second part of the sixties, Lockheed starts the development of a new wide-body aircraft. Lockheed by then had already its name carved in stone with models like Electra (the fastest commercial aircraft in its era) and few years later, by the Constellation. These were milestones in the history of aviation.
Originally conceived as a twin reactor, it was later added a third one in order to be able to operate from high and short fields, such as La Guardia (7000'/2100m), oriented to North American market, from coast to coast.
Around the beginning of the 70's, both Lockheed and Rolls Royce were with financial problems. The development of this L-1011 was one of the most financially onerous, due in part for the design of such an innovative aircraft and the technical bankrupt from RR around 1971.
This, was a major financial setback for Lockheed and without any chance of changing the engines, (since the design was already made and developing a new design for different engines would probably mean more delays and financial issues).
To “help” this situation, the economic climate around final 60's was hard, like these days, near a recession, provoking some re-evaluations and renegotiations in aircraft purchasing.
With all these delays and financial issues on the way, one of the greatest potential clients, American Airlines decided to purchase the DC-10, which was developed earlier and ready to operate.
So with all these major setbacks, Lockheed decided to upgrade its first known as American coast to coast to an intercontinental aircraft, widening its base of potential clients. And that was the origin of L-1011 Tristar.
When reaching to the 80's, the competition was fierce, with Boeing launching the 767 and the new European consortium Airbus launching the A300/310.
In early 80's, these facts made sales from L-1011, fall sharply, which later lead to the cancellation of L-1011 program.
About airline companies, I don't have facts to affirm that it was a specific type of aircraft that lead to an airline company to bankruptcy, but it's somewhat odd such an event. I would say for something like that to happen, perhaps the issues were about management, economic climate, commercial positioning, etc...
The DC-10 is a pilot's airplane, and the 1011 is an engineering marvel of efficient design
In order to substantiate this we can enumerate some of its features.
The flight controls based on 4 (four) different independent and redundant hydraulic systems using ailerons and spoilers (depending on speed) to maintain and increase stability and reduce induced drag, thus reducing fuel burn.
System known as
Active control had as an working principle an installation of accelerometers in fuselage and wingtips, which detected vertical accelerations and by so deflect the ailerons in order to reduce wing bending due to a redistribution of lift forces, making until today the smoothest aircraft to ride on. All this was accomplished in a automatic way, without interference of pilots.
Above M.65 the system known as
Maneuvering Direct lift control (MDLC) was in charge using the spoilers instead.
The solution found by Douglas to these issues was the installation of winglets, which were by then been studied and tested!
The
Direct lift control (DLC) which was previously referred, its another Engineering wonder from Lockheed design team. This system made use of inboard spoilers controlling its deflection on final approaches, so that the control of vertical speed could be done without changing attitude or speed.
This results in a smooth and constant pitch attitude approach, working automatically in manual or autopilot.
It was the first wide-body aircraft to have an
digital auto-pilot, been this one, one of the most accurate ever built, instead of the old analog systems.
The
Performance Management System was and still is in my opinion one of state of the art systems ever built. Instead of constant changes in throttle to maintain optimum Mach number, which some airlines preferred to increase mach no and thus resulting in higher fuel burned, Lockheed came up with another revolutionary technique.
This Flight Management system maintained airspeed precisely by changing the aircrafts attitude. This was also done automatically which resulted as well with better fuel efficiency, extended engine life and less fatigue for the passenger due to constant power changes.
The engines were, nevertheless the delays, one of the reasons for the success of this model, known as "Whisperliner". These RB211 engines had one more shaft than usual, who should permit a reduced rotation speed resulting in less noise. That was confirmed few posts ago by mogas-82.
Its construction and assembly techniques were also pioneers, using in its design
semi-monocoque panels with a thicker coating diminishing the transverse beams resulting in a significantly weight reduction as well as an reduced production and assembly period.
It was introduced an new and advanced
welding technique, thus eliminating the need of thousands of rivets, with its drilling which enabled a better corrosion protection.
So to sum up, when you say it caused the termination of civil airline program of Lockheed, it's with any doubt true, but one must look and see what were the reasons and accomplishments made at that time.
This was by far, the most advanced aircraft of the era and I believe with some changes (already referred to) still is.
Perhaps now, the market is prepared to receive such an advanced aircraft!
