View Full Version : Meeting Tristar/DC10 task
chornedsnorkack
3rd Aug 2006, 07:14
Tristar and DC-10 were built to meet the same design task:
On a hot summer day, they had to take off from La Guardia notoriously short runway with full payload and fuel for trip, with safety margin for one engine out
and on a hot summer day, they had to take off from Denver, with full fuel and payload, and in case of one engine out, still cross the Rockies.
Airbus and Boeing later started to build twin widebodies.
Can A300 meet the La Guardia and Denver requirements? Can B767? What about A330? Or B777?
The Tristar and DC-10 were not originally used from La Guardia, in fact no widebodies operated from there for quite some years after their introduction.
When the A300 was being sold to Eastern Airlines part of the rationale was for it to operate out of LGA. It was still too heavy for some of the overwater taxiway bridges so Airbus, as part of the sale, paid for engineering work to be done to support the A300.
Once this was done the other airlines there who only had L1011s and DC-10s wanted to make a competitive reesponse to Eastern, and it was found that the mods that Airbus had paid for equally allowed the trijets to operate.
After quite some years of widebody service from there (though never 747s), deregulation encouraged the "smaller planes and more of them" approach to service. Nowadays I believe there are once again no widebodies operating from LGA, gone right back how it used to be.
chornedsnorkack
3rd Aug 2006, 12:08
Wasn´t it specifically American Airlines that set the design task for Tristar and DC-10 for their LGA operations, and did end up as the launch customer of DC-10-10? Or did they forget about taxiway bridges?
barit1
5th Aug 2006, 01:18
It was an axle loading/spacing issue at LGA, and Airbus never faced that criterion until EAL (Borman) were a prospective customer. At that point Airbus found it cheaper to modifiy the airport than the airplane.
I don't think the 10 or 1011 ever operated to the left coast from LGA, but I could be wrong.
Well, as I recall, it was an AA spec for the Lockheed design, but it wasn't from LGA.
It was from ORD to the left coast...and it was 'supposed' to be a twin.
Clearly this proved inadequate (no engines) so it then became a three engine design.
Of course, AA didn't buy any either.
DAL took up the slack.
Golf Charlie Charlie
6th Aug 2006, 02:13
Nowadays I believe there are once again no widebodies operating from LGA, gone right back how it used to be.
Delta operate 767s into LGA on a regular basis, occasionally even the 767-400.
chornedsnorkack
8th Aug 2006, 07:47
it was 'supposed' to be a twin.
Clearly this proved inadequate (no engines) so it then became a three engine design.
Do you mean two engines or zero engines?
Observe that A300 flew only about 2 years after Tristar...
Do you mean two engines or zero engines?
Observe that A300 flew only about 2 years after Tristar...
DC10 - first flight Aug 70. A300 - Oct 72. Relevant to compare these two as the same GE engine.
Large engines were evolving extremely fast at this time. When the DC10/L1011 designs were finalised in the late 1960s the 747 had not even flown yet, it first did so in Feb 69 and those first P&W big fan engines on the 747 were underpowered and unreliable, I think even P&W would agree there, so there was understandable concern about a twin. Rolls Royce of course also ran into huge development problems with their engine which bankrupted the company and delayed the Tristar programme. The first year of 747 operations there were lots of in-flight shutdowns, often due to the big fan casing going slightly out of shape or "ovalising" and contacting the fan, just as well the aircraft was a quad.
Two years on from the DC10 first flight GE had been able to refine and uprate their engine allowing the initial transcontinental DC10 to become the intercontinental DC10-30 with a much uprated GE engine, essentially the same spec as the one made available to the A300.
barit1
8th Aug 2006, 12:46
DC-10-10 - initial orders by AA, UA, National... powered by CF6-6 engines
DC-10-20 - ordered only by NW & JL - powered by JT9D-59 engines
DC-10-30 - ordered by European ATLAS & KSSU carriers - CF6-50A (later -50C) - later also operated by AA, UA etc.
DC-10-40 - marketing rebranding before delivery, at NWA's behest, of the DC-10-20 (the nameplate DID NOT CHANGE).
A300B2, B2K, B4 - same engine choices as the DC-10-30 :8
(edit: since I went to the trouble to spell it all out, I found a more complete version here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-10))