British Airways TriStar 500.

[dixi188]

Originally Posted by SWBKCB

Apologies for the thread drift but did Lakers DC-10's have something similar, or am I making that up???

Yes, Laker's DC-10s had the lower galley so they could get 389 pax in (IIRC). There were two lifts, one for trolleys and one for people.
World Airways had the same but a hostie got trapped when one of the lifts moved while she was leaning inside and by the time the aircraft landed at Gatwick I believe she was dead. An interlock switch had been by-passed due to a fault, allowing the lift to move with the door open. Around 1982.

[WHBM]

Lower galleys were favoured by charter/holiday operators, who had limited cargo demand but wanted to seat as much of the main deck as possible. The BA Tristar -200s described above, which had main deck galleys, presumably had more cargo hold capacity than the ones with lower galleys.

PSA in the USA actually had a lower deck lounge on their Tristars; it was however not certified for takeoff/landing, so didn't provide more capacity overall. Being confined within California at the time, they handled very little cargo. Pictures :

Do you know the PSA Lockheed L-1011 TriStar had a lower deck lounge? - TravelUpdate

281Y main deck seats on a single-class, one-hour sector (and no catering apart from coffee, as far as I recall on PSA) is an interesting comparison to 393Y, described above, in the British Airtours/Caledonian aircraft operating holiday flights from Gatwick as far as the Caribbean !

[treadigraph]

Originally Posted by dixi188

Yes, Laker's DC-10s had the lower galley so they could get 389 pax in (IIRC). There were two lifts, one for trolleys and one for people.
World Airways had the same but a hostie got trapped when one of the lifts moved while she was leaning inside and by the time the aircraft landed at Gatwick I believe she was dead. An interlock switch had been by-passed due to a fault, allowing the lift to move with the door open. Around 1982.

I recall that happening - very nasty...

https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/190793

[WHBM]

The report tells us that there was an emergency trap door between the main deck galley floor and the lower galley

[condor17]

There were 2 lifts , and memory says if one got stuck 1/2 way you could in extremis crawl in at the bottom and out of the top .
Handle for winding , maybe , certainly one for winding the doors down and closed .
Yes to the -200s having more cargo space , rumour was max ldg. wt. not upped thus volume could be used but not dense cargo .
Cale. got their own crew for last couple of years , as sold off to Flying Colours [ ? ]. We then all returned back to mainline on various fleets .
Last Cale. trip was staff outing to Fairyhouse racecourse in Dublin .[ Aer lingus helped organise , as we had G-BBAF in Shamrock colours ] Crew drawing short straws stayed sober to bring the rest home , request from the cockpit on way back ...'' Slow the 390 peeps conga ...We cannot keep up with the rapid trim changes '' .
Sods law , was that , whatever broke was Not in spares pack .

rgds condor

[DaveReidUK]

Originally Posted by condor17

Handle for winding , maybe

There's no maybe, see my previous post.

Originally Posted by condor17

If memory serves the Eastern lease was N304EA

Actually N323EA (identified as "NEA" in the various maintenance computer systems, good job there was only one).

You may be confusing it with N305EA, which was painted in partial Speedjack livery for demo to BEA in 1972.

[condor17]

Dave , apols on 'maybe' ..only because I never used or saw it ! Door handle 'tho ..I watched F/O and F/E wind down D1R , whilst I PA'd from D1L to the 250 peeps [ of 393 ] who could see me ...... that on this a/c , on this day , at this airport we could only fly for 2hrs and thus need a gas 'n go at MXP en route from HER.. That was after n/stopping HER from LXR . Didn't like to mention that we'd be flying racetrack patterns from MXP until we'd climbed tho' 15600' to get over Mt Blanc .
I'd never heard of EPR shortfall in the previous 25 yrs of commercial flying ....effectively we only had a 2 1/2 engine Tristar on that day .

'The Ghost of ' machine info was from an old 'gurlfriend who was on them back then . 'Wot did the engineers call 'Spread Legs' the BM/Dan ? 707 ,G-AYSL ? Leased in at same time .
Certainly saw the BEA demo a/c at Farnborough when a cadet in '72 . still have a B/W 'foto somewhere in attic ...
Was and still am , amazed seeing her flying . Just one year since I'd at been at a school in Suffolk with less pupils than she carried pax. Likewise the local town cinema was smaller too.

rgds condor .

[DH106]

Originally Posted by condor17

It was the U/F galley which kept -1 [ only G-BBAJ , not beefed up due her overun at LBA ] ,-50s ,-100s in service wirh Ba Airtours and Cale .......

TIny, belated correction - the LBA overrun L-1011 was G-BBAI.

[condor17]

DH , apols and thanks , as memory and typing skills carp . A good mate was on her then . And Alpha Junk was a -100 .

rgds condor .

[CaptainSpeaking2023]

The knowledge in here is unbelievable 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

[ATSA1]

I flew on Alpha India the year before her overrun at LBA, back from Naples to Gatwick..and was on the flight deck for the landing...lovely aeroplane..Its a real shame that Lockheed bailed out of the civil market after the TriStar, it was far superior to the DC10, if a tad pricier!
I was at Ascension when the first TriStar 500 came in, still wearing CA on the nosewheel door, and flown by BA crews.One of the engineers said that the Tristar had 3 times the payload of the VC10, for the same fuel burn..no wonder BA dumped the Viccy 10s so sharpish!
Both of them Queens of the Skies!

[bean]

Originally Posted by ATSA1

I flew on Alpha India the year before her overrun at LBA, back from Naples to Gatwick..and was on the flight deck for the landing...lovely aeroplane..Its a real shame that Lockheed bailed out of the civil market after the TriStar, it was far superior to the DC10, if a tad pricier!
I was at Ascension when the first TriStar 500 came in, still wearing CA on the nosewheel door, and flown by BA crews.One of the engineers said that the Tristar had 3 times the payload of the VC10, for the same fuel burn..no wonder BA dumped the Viccy 10s so sharpish!
Both of them Queens of the Skies!

BA dropped the Tristar 500s sharpish too: hence you saw a RAF ex BA Tristar at Ascension

[SpringHeeledJack]

I've asked this here some years back, perhaps this time the crew might see it ? I took a flight on BA from LHR-BKK via BAH on a TriStar. It was the last flight out of T3 before BA moved to their own terminal, T4 the following day. Memory is dodgy, but I believe mid April 1986. I was working on behalf of a BA-subsiduary and our escort, who took my group from curb-side to aircraft was happily explaining the move as we walked through the deserted terminal with everything wrapped up ready to be moved across. We were the last to enter the aircraft and the escort reiterated that this was the last BA flight from T3. Would any of the ppruners have operated/dispatched this flight and could confirm ?

[DaveReidUK]

Originally Posted by SpringHeeledJack

We were the last to enter the aircraft and the escort reiterated that this was the last BA flight from T3. Would any of the ppruners have operated/dispatched this flight and could confirm ?

Definitely not the last BA flight from T3, I could swear I departed on one last week.

[WHBM]

Originally Posted by DaveReidUK

Definitely not the last BA flight from T3, I could swear I departed on one last week.

Very good ! And do I remember that just one BA flight, which I believe was Miami, was operated from T3 even back when BA long haul was over in T4, pre-T5 days ? I seem to recall an article (which frankly I thought unlikely) that said it was done to keep a BA presence on the committee that allocated Heathrow central area stands. Miami was chosen because of its length, it just fits nicely for the daily round trip to be operated by the same aircraft for days on end without the need to position other aircraft to and from the terminal. They used to use some of the "flexible" check-in positions at T3 that could be reassigned to different carriers through the day.

[DaveReidUK]

Interesting. In my time at BA (pre-T4), the opposite applied - Miami was one of the flights that operated from T1 for several years. I think (though I may be wrong) Chicago was another one.

The services in question were renumbered in the BA290 to BA299 range in order to maintain the principle that all flight numbers below a certain value operated to/from T3 and those above (principally short-haul) used T1.

BA uses the same long/short-haul flight number demarcation (above/below 300) at LHR to this day.

[condor17]

DR , something is nudging me to agree on ORD [ Chicago ] operating out of T1 as well as MIA.
Flight numbers on Short Haul are Even going out and Odd home . Longhaul the opposite Odd outbound , Even homebound !
Why ? I've no idea , but been like that since BA formed [ Mar '74 ].
Rereading this post , I see my memory was as bad just 1 yr ago .. Sorry DH for you having to repeat .

rgds condor .

[WHBM]

Originally Posted by WHBM

And do I remember that just one BA flight, which I believe was Miami, was operated from T3 even back when BA long haul was over in T4, pre-T5 days ? I seem to recall an article (which frankly I thought unlikely) that said it was done to keep a BA presence on the committee that allocated Heathrow central area stands. Miami was chosen because of its length, it just fits nicely for the daily round trip to be operated by the same aircraft for days on end without the need to position other aircraft to and from the terminal. They used to use some of the "flexible" check-in positions at T3 that could be reassigned to different carriers through the day.

Anyone able to confirm which terminal BA used for Heathrow to Miami in October 2007, which is when I recall this (obviously quite off topic for a Tristar 500 discussion).

[Sotonsean]

Originally Posted by WHBM

Anyone able to confirm which terminal BA used for Heathrow to Miami in October 2007, which is when I recall this (obviously quite off topic for a Tristar 500 discussion).

Terminal 3.

​​​​​​I flew with British Airways from LHR Terminal 3 to Miami twice in 2007.

When British Airways moved their long haul operation from Terminal 3 to Terminal 4 the Miami and later on Chicago flights moved to Terminal 1 instead. I believe Miami moved to Terminal 3 in the early 2000s and has remained there ever since. I could be wrong on the date though. But British Airways LHR to Miami flights have been at Terminal 3 for several decades, even with the opening of Terminals 4 and 5.

[ScouseJon]

Originally Posted by BSD

Around the early 80s there was a story that some of the BA/BEA/Airtours/Caledonian Tristars had different autoland fits. Some could autoland and some couldn't........

The story went that that a crew used to an autoland capable aeroplane, carried out an autoland at Gatwick one fine day and wrote in the tech log after landing "aircraft landed heavily and well left of centreline on autoland"

The engineers cleared the fault by writing in the action taken column "Autoland not fitted to this aircraft"

Love to know if it really happened.

I heard it slightly different, although it could be the second heavy landing that has been talked about. When ZE706 was introduced to 216SQN, a senior officer was conducting go-arounds at Brize Norton. He selected autoland and continued the approach. Now the story goes that he was too low and too close for autoland to be selected. But the junior copilot was too scared to say anything. As the Tri-Star is such a stable aircraft, it continued down the glide slope perfectly, but failed to flare and slammed into the tarmac, putting the undercarriage through the wing. The captain elected to go-around instead of staying on the ground and then completed a successful landing, albeit loosing a large volume of fuel from the wing tank. On disembarking the aircraft, the captain stormed into the line office and threw the tech log at the Chief Tech behind the desk, where it fell off the desk, dispersing it's contents all over the floor, declaring that the autopilot didn't work. The Chief calmly gathered the contents back inside the folder and then threw the book back at the captain, declaring that the autoland was not operational.

Not sure how true the whole of this account was, but the landing was certainly why ZE706 sat in Marshals for many years, which we used to call 'the Christmas Tree' which we regularly picked gifts from to keep the rest of the fleet flying.