BRU Tristar visit
 

Nice to see the Tristar 500, in RAF colours, landing at Brussels BRU airport for the military side around 1400UTC today. A fine looking machine, even if somewhat flawed in its design!

Ok, I'll bite.

Care to elaborate on the aforementioned design flaws?

Ok, so will I. Why do you believe that one of the nicest to handle wide bodied airliners has a fundamental design flaw?

Bite?
 

Bite? That was not the plan.

However, I feel the aircraft is far too complicated for its own good. I compare directly with the DC10 & B747. Even down @ basic engineering, such as "waste systems" the aircraft is a nightmare. Within BA Engineering the 2 most feared courses were the BAC 1.11 & the Tristar. & why? Because, when the British aircraft industry went t#ts up (not all its own fault) a lot of the designers went to Burbank where they worked their complicated over design into the Tristar.
The DC10 & 747 early models were not without their failings either. But as an operating aircraft they worked because of "keep it simple stupid" design.

Lockheed ran into severe financial problems, unfortunately, the aircraft was not updated. While the MD11 worked & the B744 took the table. May be an advanced & improved Tristar would of worked. I doubt it.

As Maggie said "the market speaks" & it didnt for the Tristar L1011, a mans machine!

By way, still a great machine!

Best rgds

Jumbo;

AF/RC
 

Handle well she might, but a commercial airliner isn't designed just for circuits and bumps.

She was terribly short of legs. The -500 made up for some of that, at the expense of payload due to the shortened fuselage. Active ailerons (were they? I never flew the L1011) helped a little more and that brought the spec up to roughly where the DC10 was when it rolled off the production line. IIRC the L1011 had 237 seats where the DC10 had 273 with the group that operated both. Granted, the DC10 was a much simpler a/c, remember the chain operated outflow valve on the forward fuselage below the F/E's station. Tristars built~ 250. DC10's built~500

BA didn't give/sell them to Aunty Betty because they were making 'loadsamunny'. Quite the reverse I'd have thought, and pleased to see them go.


Wonderful technology-with Direct Lift Dump, or whatever it was called to enable a constant pitch attitude on approach, etc, but not something so innovative that everyone else has subsequently rushed to incorporate those innovations.

A wonderful cutting edge commercial airliner all ready to make money...I don't think so.

All because of design flaws.

S


Edit. Overlapped with Jumbo a little (timeline) but the thrust is the same.

All very good and valid points, just thought I had to defend the old girl a little;)

I thought all the RAF Tristars were ex-PanAm?

RAF Tristars - Previous Operators
 

Ex-British Airways: K1, KC1 & C1.

Ex-Pan Am: C2 & C2A.

Rigga you fool. ;) ..... You should know by now RAF never ever buy aircraft that are common to the rest of the fleet, far better to buy a jumble and mishmash of operators cast offs, then throw money at them. :p

The DC 10 may have had the advantages over the Tristar, but the Tristar just looked right with its flowing lines, unlike the DC 10 with its tacked on rear engine look.

Serious question from me for a change. I thought our Tristars (mixed fleet or not) were quite a sucess. Is that not the case? Always seemed to do a cracking job taking me all over the globe.

The Tristar never had a design caused accident.


Not something the DC10 or MD11 could come close to claiming :eek:

Design-wise it was pretty much spot on. In terms of technology, it's only now being left behind by the very latest airliners such as the 787.

Commercially, it wasn't a success; over ambitious engine design (on which most modern RR Trent engines are derived from) and ETOPS aircraft such as the 767 made it more costly to run.

The BA decision to drop them was largely based on some false assumptions (that it had four engines) and they wanted them back when they realised the error! But for a large carrier to be seen to drop such new aircraft at the time was its undoing.

Way ahead of it's time, sadly to its deficit. Why buy a Merc (L-1011) when a Mondeo (DC10) will do?!

And only the RAF would end up buying as a tanker the only one of the two trijets off which you couldn't hang wing-pods.

But BA wanted rid of them, and the government wanted to help them......

RAF Tristar at YYZ
 

Well, the Tristar I saw taxiing in at around 1755 on October 12, 2011 certainly brightened my homeward commute even more, although I have no idea what it was doing at Pearson International. Lovely jet, though.:ok:

Was probably going Tech..

When they first arrived the RAF took the in flight entertainment out... Cannot have the passengers not sitting their bored witless, however it went back in later I believe.

IFE is an extra weight these days as most military pax seem to have their own personal entertainment systems that can be used in-flight. The original IFE was removed because of maintenance costs IIRC and replaced on the SA run with an individual video player, again proving costly in rechargeable batteries and a horrendous penalty clause if the videotape was 'misplaced'.

The L1011 was 'sold' to the RAF to make Thatcher's privatisation of BA work, to the tune of 60million quid. Once this had gone through feelers came from BA for a leaseback due to the capacity shortfall...:cool:

But auto land was an optional extra ;)

"The L1011 was 'sold' to the RAF to make Thatcher's privatisation of BA work, to the tune of 60million quid."

???
At the time the press announced they had been gifted, free, along with the spares - just as the VC10s had been earlier
Otherwise the RAF would have had their preferred second-hand DC10s, which if memory serves correctly were offered by Branniff (who had presumably gone bust by then??)

'
'At the time the press announced they had been gifted, free, along with the spares - just as the VC10s had been earlier
Otherwise the RAF would have had their preferred second-hand DC10s, which if memory serves correctly were offered by Branniff (who had presumably gone bust by then??)'


Braniff never operated the DC10 :sad: