Reminds me of the Caledonian Tristars that used to go to Cyprus. I spoke to one of the Captains later, after he had gone over to A320s, he said their standard ops was to point it down the runway and close their eyes!
I once paxed on one of those Cally L1011 LTN-LCA flights, on a warm Summers evening in the early '90's. Over 400 POB as I remember. Brakes a bit wiffy during turnaround and we did use all of the runway on departure. I can only imagine what it must have looked like from the Flight Deck.
This way before my time...
But didn't an airline called Courtline operate the Tristars out of Luton or even have them based here in the 1950s or 60's?! I thought they operated them to America, so that must have been even more hair raising for the crew!
I am sure I have seen photo's of them in all sorts of weird and wonderful colours. Maybe I am mistaken and they operated their smaller aircraft from LTN?!
(Im a late 1970s baby!)