L1011 fan

[portredleftonshelf]

just wandering what happenend to all cxs L1011's, and some personal opinions on what they were like to fly? Were the useful to the company as well
any opinions / stories would be much appreciated.
regards

[canadair]

The L1011 was a wonderful aircraft to fly, well ahead of it`s time, the best autoflight panel I have ever used, and all in all a great airplane.
They are getting few and far now though, and I do not see them very often anywhere.
I guess the only feature I was not too keen on was the DLC, ( direct lift control) the spoilers modulated 7 degrees up and down at flap 33 selection to keep the profile with lift and drag,
but I think it flew better with it de-activated, less nose bobbing, but many disagree!!
anyway, great airplane to fly!

[Traffic]

CX bought 2 new a/c from Lockheed. 2 came from Court Line, 2 from Air Canada via Sri Lankan and the bulk of the rest came from Eastern.

In total CX operated 20 or 21 a/c although max fleet size was 19. One of the Eastern a/c was converted to a 100 series and then on-sold to Gulf Air in the late 70's. They kept acquiring secondhand a/c until about 1988 and the last 1011 flight was in October 1996. 2 a/c were leased to Dragonair for a period of time.

The initial delivery flight to HK almost taxied over the top of the escorting Gurkha Pipe Band on the way into the HAECO hardstand. An interesting sight is a pipe band looking over their collective shoulders at a large green marrow growing ever closer and louder.

They made CX a lot of money and were well suited to the shorthaul network in Asia. Normal config was 286.

The only major problem that was never overcome was the 'black rain' that used to drip out of the airconditioning system, mainly in the forward cabin and mainly in the summar months. After many attempts to fix the problem, sponge sheeting was the only thing that worked. Some supplier of same made a lot of sales over the years.

Ther were a number of sightings of a ghost in the underdeck galley, reputedly the ghost of one opf the crew who perished in the Eastern CFIT prang in the Everglades. Never saw it myself but enough did to make one wonder.....

They went all over the place.

I think one of the two that ended up with Orient Thai is back flying having just been brought out of mothballs. I saw it on the hard stand at Don Muang a few months back.

The rest sadly have been broken up. One is a restaurant in Bremen. One is derilect at Abu Dhabi. One was broken up at ASTAA 's Avalon facility near Melbourne.

A few went to Air Atlanta Icelandic and a few to Air Transat. Others scattered to the winds, Nordic East, Peach Air etc.

There are about 50 of the standard and the 500 types still flying mainly with Air Transat and ATA in the USA. The RAF will probably be the last operator as their fleet of about 12 (500 series) will fly through about 2008 or 2010.

If you have a real interest I can send you a web address which traces the history of every 1011 built.