Remembering the DC-10: End of an era or good riddance?
 

Remembering the DC-10: End of an era or good riddance?

What do you think?

BBC News - Remembering the DC-10: End of an era or good riddance?

It was unpopular with Maintenance. Everything was more difficult than it should have been.

PAL & JAL flew them regularly on their HK routes. Not nearly as advanced or capable as the Lockheed Tristar...but benefitted commercially by the early delays in getting the Tristar in the air
CX happily flew ex Eastern Airlines Tristars so I am biased in favour of the RR powered Lockheed

I thought it was a great plane. Nicest one to fly qua handling. This said after having only flown DC-8's, MD-11, B747 100'200 and B737 NG. :D

Ex DC10 driver.

Did what it was designed to do - I enjoyed it.

Not as good as the VC10.

That should get the tongues wagging!!

Indeed, the VC10 could get out of Joburg on a hot afternoon. The DC10 had
to wait until 2am with only enough fuel to get to Nairobi.

The DC-10/TriStar debate will never end, it seems.

But why did the DC-10 outsell the 1011 by nearly 2:1?

The BBC story is a bit unfocused. The TK incident out of Paris, the AA incident at Chicago, the FX hijacking and the UT incident over Niger had decidedly different causes - the latter two could have occurred on any aircraft.

I hate reading stories written by people that have no idea what they are talking about.

I loved the 10...best handling airliner I ever flew. I was fortunate to fly all series, the 10,15,30 and 40.
The 15 was a rocket, but the 30 was the machine of choice. The DC 10 was a mechanical nightmare to the maintenance folks, but for us pilots it was delight to fly

Arguably the Chicago accident too, come to that.

The TriStar was a domestic and medium haul beast for too long, the DC10-30 came to market long before the less capable L1011-200 and the long haul market was sewn up. 386 DC10s v 250 L1011 if you take the government mandated KC10 out.

Laker DC10 Southern Bell | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Best things about the DC10

Standby ticket was £10 (no such thing as APD in the good old days) - nearly always got on
Great view from jumpseat
Underfloor Galley Travel was great, didnt have to mix with Joe Public

I was fortunate to fly both the L1011 and the DC10. The L1011 was hands down a nicer flying airplane than the DC10 but I suspect that the cost of operation was slightly higher. The fact that the L1011 did not come out with a real long range airplne until near the end of production really hurt Lockheed. Still an awsome flying airliner but even todays standards.:ok:

DC 10 says goodbye
 

I thought the slat retraction when the hydraulic lines were severed by the departing engine was something that could only have happened on the '10. Didn't other airliners had mechanical locks to hold the slats extended, the '10 relying on hydraulic pressure to hold them extended?

Don't forget Sioux City

. . . that is in the BBC article if you bothered to read it

the Air New Zealand TE901 into Mount Erebus in 1979

this prang has had vast coverage here on proone and elsewhere
in books and articles and docos .. . . . . but nowhere is it
suggested that there was anything wrong with the aircraft's airframe or engines before
it made the CFIT.

even so there are those who contend that the accident investigators at the site could have been more thorough in picking through the wreckage. none of the engines were retrieved for instance . . . . . which in itself later wound up a few conspiracy theorists

this is not the place to reopen this huge can of worms. . . . just like to hear briefly from anyone who may have some specific and cogent thoughts on this subject

Both.

Although, it's interesting that it almost managed to outlive its successor in passenger service.

The whole story won't be over until KLM put that out to pasture.
Looks like there's World Airways still using it too ?

Sioux City aint in that article Fantome.....

Purely from a passenger perspective, a horrible bloody plane. Noisy and a lot of movement if you were in the tail section. KLM operated the D1M combi with the cargo in the tail section, and that short stubby cabin.

Its successor the MD11 was not much better.