Thank you WHBM for finding the final resting place of my old "friend" N311EA (S/N 1012). It is strange that one of the earliest L1011's outlived almost all the rest. Even more amazing when you consider it was a -1 with limited legs and structurally one of the heavy weights and not eligible for any upgrades. It had an evil reputation among Eastern's maintenance folks being the last of the hand-wired early beasts. After that they used made-up wiring looms that were more complete. Running Technical Services at JFK I spent a lot of time on that aircraft in troubleshooting. I never thought I would see it again when it became the first L1011 disposed of by Eastern but I ended up at Tradewinds and there she was.
One important factor in limiting L1011 sales was that Lockheed never offered combi or freight versions or if they did, they must not have been attractive. Very early on Douglas did and sold quite a few. The factory built freighters certainly served as models for all the ones that were converted.
Eastern studied the possibility of joining the Government CRAF program with the L-1011 but an engineering study I saw discouraged that.
It certainly had a comfortable cockpit and I spent a lot of hours on the jump seat enjoying the great view.