Rog747. The Eastern Tristar was still with BA in 1980 that's when it visited Jersey
It was a dry lease

Well remembered, it was indeed amongst them. As was this:

Problem: Evidence of leak on right main landing gear.
Solution: Evidence removed.

You are correct. The autoland story is a myth. An aircraft needs autoflare to autoland. If the story were to be correct at the very least the aircraft would have sustained severe damage

The way I heard of the Brize heavy landing of a Tristar was that the aircraft was, in fact fitted with autoland facility, but that it was a rushed circuit which failed to give the autopilot the required time to stabilise and this resulted in the very firm landing which was indeed an autoland! ( or more correctly, attempted autoland! )

It was, like the B747SP, built for long range but soon overtaken by more modern aircraft. The rationale for offloading them was that Lord King's remit was to get BA ready to be privatised and they were desperately short of cash. The B707s and VC10s had followed the Viscount fleet into retirement, 2 new build B747-236Bs were sold before delivery to Malaysian and G-KILO was flogged off to Cathay. A further two B747-136s, G-AWNI/K went to TWA and BA were delighted to offload the TriStar 500s to the RAF. BA were a hugely lossmaking and dysfunctional org back in the day.

So what else is different?

I seem to remember that having sold the long-range Tristar 500s British Airways acquired some South American routes from British Caledonian for which the Tristar 500s were ideal had they not already sold them. They flew the new routes with the shorter range Tristars and we at Heathrow ATC regularly received Diversion Arrival signals from Madrid as they had had to divert to refuel.

This is likely what prompted the lease of the pair from Air Lanka.

Meikleour - essentially correct.
The 'rushed circuit' gave too short a 'finals' to allow the mandated distance to establish. The resultant 'hunting'(What's it doing now'?) was the sircraft performing 'what it said on the tin' ! Super aircraft, DLC was excellent and the autoland was exceptional. It was the first type I tech instructed on at Cranebank and held a small, but definite preference over the subsequent 747 - Classic and 400. The flight deck was 'Texan sized' and the flight deck observer's seat was perfect. Chatting to the Fleet manager he reminisced on a double LHR- CDG one day where the only time he saw the ground was taxying in and out at either end !:D

My first Tristar was 'inadvertant'; I'd been offloaded (ATCO Famil Flight) in Milan (by Alitalia) and managed to get to Paris Orly and transferred to CDG/Heathrow for a one way trip. As you say the jump seat behind the captain was superb with a lull length window right next to me.
My next Famil flight was Heathrow O/I Larnaca with that superb view all the way.
As we shut down at Heathrow, the door opened and in came the purser with a tray of drinks for us; a mniature of whisky topped up with champoo; perfect end to a great flight.

Cornish Jack, also the RW08 ILS (as it was then) had a glideslope which undulated due to local terrain. It was OK to fly manually down to 200' a.g.l., but not auto-coupled.

is still stated for the RW07 (as it now is) ILS!

The -500s were delivered in 1979-80, just as the Thatcher government came in with goals to improve efficiency, and then privatise the airline. There were a number of poor performing long haul operations, often multi-stop, and once the 707s and VC-10s were disposed the -500, being by then the smallest long-haul aircraft in the fleet, tended to operate these, so they were sold off in 1983 to the RAF. Meanwhile, a parallel government initiative was to shore up B Cal, so BA services to Saudi (profitable) and B Cal services to South America (marginal) were swapped in 1985, and BA leased a couple of -500s from Air Lanka for several years to run these.

The order to Lockheed was for six -500s and eight -200s, the latter being the latest and most capable of the standatd bodied Tristars, having essentially the -500 engines etc in a full length frame. These didn't last much longer, being withdrawn after about 10 years, with the reductions at the start of the first Gulf war in 1991. A couple then returned the compliment to Air Lanka, and were leased out to them for a while, continuing to turn up most days at Heathrow.

The -200s having only 10 years in service is surprising, especially given the -1s flew on for another decade with Caledonian. Such a shame, as BA had nothing between the B747 and B767 at LHR for five years til the first B777 arrived, and they flew for 25 years or more.

Beagle , thanks for letting us know the ILS state . We'd heard that it was an offset Loc. And thus we'd never a/landed off that , but senior RAF decided to test it , with heavy landing following .
If memory serves the Eastern lease was N304EA ..... always heard about the 'Ghost of Flt 401' , which a 'gurlfriend said appeared on several night flights ... due to galley equipment having been salvaged from Flt 401 , N310EA...............Mind you 'wot happened in the underfloor galley stayed in U/F galley !
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 ....... 393Y + babes in arms , and 16 Flt 'n CC ..got my personal best SOBs well past 400 . The -200s had no U/F galley and thus max seats well reduced ; possibly no increase in max. ldg. wt. which could affect payload . Nominally , if replacing a Cale DC10 , we had 40 + more seats .... M.86 , gas 'n go in Santa Maria , we'd be in the Carribean before you ...
Others have explained the financial need to sell very well .
They were 25+ years old when I got to fly them , wonderful analogue machines . Brilliant wing , well less than 210 kts clean - 375kts VMO.. MMO brain fade but up towards M0.89 , 400+ SOB , 1 tonne spares pack in the hold .. go 7 hrs , gas 'n go another 7 hrs , land by a beach somewhere ....
Not to mention the hotel bedroom which was the flt deck , the window ledge behind and to the left of P1 seat converted readily into a perfect bunk for our 3 year old J/Seating home . When not asleep , he was having more fun than our village playground ... racing up and down in the lift with 'Bootful Blonde Tracey.
Even us flt. deck did not get to do that ! Engineers year or not .

rgds condor .

I never observed the underfloor galley, apparently accessed by the catering cart elevator. What provision was there for a breakdown of it ?

I'm guessing you were on the Caledonian Tristar fleet by the end. I recall their very last flight, although I wasn't on board. It was Sunday 31 October 1999, end of the schools half term week, and end of the summer holiday schedule. We were returning from Faro to Gatwick late afternoon, on a Sabre 737. At Faro there was a Caledonian Tristar, also for Gatwick, stuck AOG which had apparently been there since late morning. This was the very last day of the Tristar fleet, they were to be withdrawn then. I wonder if the handling agent had disposed of their common spares a little early. Anyway, we boarded our own flight on time. When we got to Gatwick the Tristar was still on the arrivals board as awaiting information, possibly they were waiting for something to be flown out.

Next morning, back to the office. About lunchtime in comes the chairman, looking uncharacteristically jaded. "Rotten end to our week away. Plane broke down at Faro on the way home, it was 12 hours late, didn't get in to Gatwick until well into the early hours. Just stuck in Faro airport departures. Kids completely restless".

Thank God we didn't run into them ! I've sometimes wondered if the aircraft paperwork had also been set to expire on 31 October as planned, and a ramp check on arrival might have shown a little discrepancy ...

Motor failures were rare, but IIRC in extremis (a F/A trapped down there, for example) the elevator could be moved up or down by hand by inserting a brace handle in the appropriate hole and winding it about a million times.

Sounds a bit like the Puma manual gear extension (of old?)

Questions for current Puma chaps/chapesses:

1. Is it still the same on the new improved Puma?

2. If so, remind me how many pumps of the lever required.

Sheesh now you tell me.
Years ago when I flew left hand seat in XW 941 from Farnborough, I was handed the FRCs and told 'you have been briefed on the emergency undercarriage lowering system haven't you (wink wink)?'

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

There certainly were DC-10s with an underfloor galley, but I'm not sure whether Laker's DC-10s were part of that batch.