L-1011 in the RAF

[Dragonspet]

Do any of you know if the RAF has a Cargo version of an L-1011 in service or decommisioned. I have a friend at Travis AFB infoming me that he saw one land there that appeared to have the "Royal Air Force" branded on the fuselage. I am not aware of any but then again my knowledge of your fleet is limited.
Thanks for any input.

[eXtreme]

The RAF has 9 TriStars.

3 Ex PanAm - and still in pax fit called C2's
6 EX British Airways. 4 of which are combi's in that they can be roled to carry a mixture of pax/freight or all pax/freight and operate in the Air to air refuelling role (AAR). These aircarft are called KC1's.

The other 2 TriStars are called (K1's) and are a halfway house in that they can carry pax/AAR, but not freight as the cargo holds on the ex BA aircarft now contain fuel tanks and the passengers luggage has to be loaded in special bins through the normal cabin exit doors (these aircraft were due to be converted to full KC1 spec - until the UK treasury said otherwise). Therefore these aircraft are usually used with small passenger loads because of the described luggage constraints or solely in the AAR role.

Check out http://www.raf.mod.uk/rafhome.html for more detailed information on all RAF aircraft including the exciting C17.

[This message has been edited by eXtreme (edited 22 June 2001).]

[Gainesy]

Dragonspit,
I think that the "Royal Air Force" title is actually painted on the TriTanics.
Unless you mean as in Brand Names for the RAF which is being debated in another thread.

[eXtreme]

"Royal Air Force" is most definitely emblazoned on the side of its white fuselage!

[Thud_and_Blunder]

I seem to remember flying way, way back to somewhere so blunt in Saudi that they actually had desert boots and desert DPM (ah, those suppliers...) and seeing a pink 'tanic with a natty blue line. Why, exactly, did they go for that particular finish?

[BEagle]

The 2 'Pink Pigs' were TriStar K1 ZD949 and ZD951. When our porcine friends arrived out at KKIA during that spot of bother in 1991, our first reaction was "What the f**k!!". But the hastily applied desert pink camouflage was extremely effective. During the pre-war training period, out in OER21 I could see a white Timmy at (clasified) miles - when Pinky and Perky arrived, the effect of the tone-down was to more than halve the reflected light value. Not bad for a quickie ARTF paint job; Marshalls Aerospace worked very hard to paint the 'pigs' quickly and the aircraft provided sterling service.

My photos of the piggies (sorry, OC216) refuelling F3s were later published in AFM at the time....it all seems so long ago now!

[Engineer]

As a matter of interest is the L1011 that attempted an autoland (late 80's) at BZN resulting in a rearranged langing gear and wing structure still flying.

Beleived it spent quite a while in that big hanger down there

[eXtreme]

BEagle

I was fortunate to fly on the "pigs" PINKY & PERKY during the conflict. Actually one was unkindly called Elaine after a 216 stewardess (because of the "PINKY" likeness!).

However, if you have a good air-to-air shot of a “pig” I would appreciate a copy for my web site, as I do not posses a good shot of a TriStar in the pink!

Yep, it was one of the two C2’s that was severely rearranged because of "non standard operating procedures". However, the remaining C2, the C2A (ZE706) had not been delivered from storage at the time maintained the schedule to MPA without a blemish on its record. A testament to keep ‘em flying rather than store them on the ground. Interestingly, I see on the RAF website only 8 TriStar’s are shown on strength, when the actually have 9.

What’s the latest on it’s replacement?

[BEagle]

I think that it's time some of my irreplaceable piccies were transferred from 35mm slide to PhotoCD. If that works out OK, I'll e-mail you a copy of a Pink Pig!

.....personally, I think that the Evo7 outside Kernahan's looks awful. Sorry!!

[eXtreme]

BEAgle

Hope the picture transfer works! Agree about the VII, I think Kernahan's are surprised, it hasn't sold by now. No offence taken, these things are all personal taste, wouldn't do for us all to be driving the same stuff!

[Thud_and_Blunder]

Beags,

I understand about the pink - ours worked fine until we found on the first hop that it glowed in the dark. So the gingers went down to the souk and bought up all the black paint they could find (5 tins of enamel plus a huge amount of thinners). The resultant mottled finish worked fine - even back in NI for a while (might be what Ben Leice was on about on the Chinook thread).

No, what I was asking about was the reason for keeping the blue line. Shiny fleet indulgence?

[Blue Stuff]

BEagle,

If it works, could you post it on here please? Just interested!

Blue.

[eXtreme]

The blue "cheat line" was part of the original white/blue finish. I guess the it may have been the blue gloss that they though the pink wouldn't cover. Or could it be that the thought of a huge pink ***d was too much for them.

Actually I don't think that much thought went into it. It just returned from Marshals after being painted with "yard" brooms in around 4 hours. In many places the painters managed to leave much of the masking tape on. Hope the comments maybe of some use.

[This message has been edited by eXtreme (edited 24 June 2001).]

[L J R]

Do I detect that another 'famous' aircraft is affectionately known as the 'Pig'



[This message has been edited by L J R (edited 24 June 2001).]

[BEagle]

Thanks to the generous help of fellow-PPRuNer 'eXtreme', hopefully there should be a piccie of a portly pink piggie below this post. Sorry about the low quality, it's a digital picture taken from a magazine print (my copyright!) rather than from the original pin-sharp Ektachrome:

http://www.jerryflint.co.uk/Pink_Gulf_TriStar.jpg

Hooray - it worked! Thanks 'eXtreme'!!

Incidentally, the grubby looking place in the background is Iraq, !!


[This message has been edited by BEagle (edited 24 June 2001).]

[BEagle]

.

[opso]

...and the winner of his year's 'Most Succinct Post' is.........[drumroll]......BEagle!

[Man-on-the-fence]

Looks more magnolia than pink.

...........I'll get me coat

[BEagle]

Oops! Sorry - edited everything except an errant full stop!!

[eXtreme]

M-O-T-F

You ought to have seen it when the PINK emulsion wore off and the white peaked through. Later on one sported a "RED" nose for Children In Need.

Besides Pink Pig - I think they collected a multitude of unflattering names. Mainly because of the fuselage shape............

Nice to see it with probe on though. I tanked once off a "10" on a southerly trail.



[This message has been edited by eXtreme (edited 24 June 2001).]

[The Scarlet Pimpernel]

Can't possibly be Iraq BEagle .... there are F3's on the tanker so it's still probably some way South!! (Takes tongue out of cheek!)

[Monts]

Hopefully this is the right thread to append this question to, as I believe the plane in question was a Tristar and would be interested in knowing quite what happened on leaving Al Jubayl sometime May / June 91.
The short story goes, just after take off, something went 'bang', we dumped fuel and diverted to Bahrain. After an approach to allow the all ready lined up emergency services to do a visual check we made an emergency landing, brace, brace and all that.
First smoke for two months followed and then back onto the same plane. As we taxied out to the runway the awe inspiring words 'We're not 100% sure what caused the problem before, but if it happens agains we will just carry on straight to back to the UK' came from the pilot.

It didn't happen again, thank god, and was just wondering if anybody could shed any further light on what happened, I remember vaguely them saying something about the APU, but it was a mighty big bang (and possibly shudder but all the depleted uranium out in the gulf has done my memory no good at all).

Thanks

Monty

[BEagle]

Nope - definitely Iraq! But it was pretty late on and the land war was just about over.......

[Dragonspet]

Monts,
I response to you interest in the "Big Bang" it could possibly stem from the ACM and the APU bleed air ducting a 6" dia. duct has a plate welded at the end of it with a 2" duct coming out as a "Y". This duct is located in the aft section of the Air-conditioning bay, causing the noise to appear to generate from the avionics compartment. The pressure build up in the larger duct eventually creates an "Oilcanning" effect on the end plate. Several write ups coming in from the KC-10 pilots “Load noise coming from the E & E bay”, “Mysterious noise noticed during climb just after take off”, prompting an investigation to determine the root cause of this mystery noise. This determination task the corrective action team to devise a cost-effective repair, which was fabricating two each "L" angle stiffeners and installing them onto the endplate.
Having worked on the civilian version L-1011 at ATA I do recall the A/C system is very similar in design.
Hopefully this will be of some use to you.
Thank you all for the information and the razzing. Bear with me guys, I live in Texas and we do "Brand" things around here.



[This message has been edited by Dragonspet (edited 25 June 2001).]

[Penn Doff]

Dragonspet, not heard of this on the L1011, probably as the ECS uses 6" ducts from the pack flow valves (mounted in the mesc (mid elec service centre) and either 4" or 6" in the ECS bay. My only thought would be a surge on the #2 engine, what do you think extreme? As for the routing I was in Al Jubayl around that time and the aircraft went to Bahrain anyway.

------------------
"please report further"

[Dragonspet]

Penn Doff,
See this site for L1011 it is the same airframe as your Tri-Star I m not certain what modifications were done to it for military conversion but typically they are the same.
http://www.terravista.pt/FerNoronha/4226/l1011eng.html
We all here at Boeing suspected some major malfunction as well, when the issue first came up. If there were any surging from the #2 Engine it would be apparent by monitoring the FE station but that wasn't the case with our situation. All indications in the cockpit were operating within specified parameters. It was indeed a simple fix, but not an easy problem to isolate. It sounded like hell; I went up, with the crew, on six different test flights to investigate myself. My initial concern was primary structure, thinking perhaps a hard landing had occurred and was conveniently not documented, flexing in the wing root that had created a crack that was being overlooked at PDM. We all were quite baffled, the word Gremlins started spreading, what can you do? It was a recurring problem only with one aircraft but it was sporadic and many times cleared off the logbook as "could not duplicate problem on ground".
I will pull up the documentation tomorrow with more specifics regarding part # s and perhaps run an alternate P/N query to see if the same problem could be occurring. These two A/C are very similar in nature and design.
How long ago did this incident occur? Has it happen since?



[This message has been edited by Dragonspet (edited 27 June 2001).]

[stablepowerset]

Reference the "big bang", quite possibly the problem was down to engine surging, its that not uncommon and can occur during crosswind take off. It is covered in the flying manual, however if it was severe or lasted longer than expected a check of the engine for damage was probably prudent hence the fuel dump and stop in Bahrain.

[stablepowerset]

The RAF has 8 Tristars in service, the fact that we operate 9 of them is down to ZE706 which is a reserve aircraft, hence the amount of time it spent in Marshalls on the long term corrosion trials!!!!
It is in fact designated as an "in use reserve" good excuse for them to keep the crew ratio so low!!!

[eXtreme]

Stable

That sounds like "double dutch" 8=9???