Capt Sim L1011 TriStar exterior released

[Garry Russell]

Cheers John

Now...that's more like it, Landor in midnight and grey.

Show it in all it's depressive "Glory"

[speedbird591]

all aboard...

Don't wait for me, thanks, John

I had to work on these from 1988-90 to get my promotion to Cabin Service Director. Horrible things - however many shades of grey they come in The low point of my career was having to work a borrowed Caledonian Airways bucket and spade one as a substitute for a scheduled Athens - Heathrow service. So embarrassing.

These screenies are making me as depressed as Garry

Ian

[Garry Russell]

Do the folks that love Landor know what colour it was??

Someone on Brit Modeller praised the stylish livery while showing off his model beautifully painted in.....white and dark blue (rather than cold midnight).

If it had really been like that it would not have been so bad.

[dfarrow]

Tristars must be like Marmite , love ‘em or hate ‘em , but not both . Dear old blunderbus , bought by BEA for 320 peeps to Paris or 300 back from Tel Aviv . 25 [ 10 after Ian flew them ] years later ; take off wt upped by 10% [ except dear old AI which had rolled off Leeds runway and across a field ] , 393pax + a dozen babies [ that’s 40 tonnes payload ] , 16 flt’n cabin crew + 1 tonne of spares pack ; ‘n we’d go 6 hours stop for gas ‘n go another 6 hours to a beach . Yes Caledonian was bucket and spade and unscheduled ! Just like Highland Division with sunshine and kilts .
Must be difficult to model with a brilliant wing ; vmo 375 kts , mmo .887 mach . But we did run out of puff with original RB211-22bs , got off the rwy ok ; but above 25000 ' vert speed 400' reducing to 100 fpm above 30000' .
Could slow down to 204 kts clean ! Boeings could not match that , indeed Trident territory but slow speed and lifting capability better. Approach was glider pilot style , descend on app with speedbrakes ½ out . To increase rate of descent push stick forward … nose did not go down! .. brakes came out more . Pull stick back brakes stowed and a/c lifted up with no change of attitude .
Made it difficult to go back to Boeing with pitch and power couple .
Auto flight was needlessly complicated , 2 channels , but 2 sub-channels to each , but autoland a dream in 35kts crosswind ; and flown from an hotel bedroom , tasteful in light blue ‘n not the Boeing brown ! Nice to be welcomed home personally every time , even / especially if it was a posse of engineers clutching spanners and spare parts .
Not even mentioned underfloor galley , lifts , ‘n electric crew seats ! They would be difficult to model .
Oh , and AF did look good in the Aer Lingus green for a few years on sub-let

ATB dave f .

[Garry Russell]

One bit of L1011 trivia

BA grabbed one at LHR to operate a Jersey to clear fog back ups. Being the only thing bigger than the One-Eleven and Boeing 737 it seemed a good idea at the time.

Only after it was loaded up did they realise that the steps in Jersey wouldn't fit so that had to be scrubbed.

A short while later the same situation arose and a TriStar sucessfully did the trip carrying a set of about three steps to connect to the fully extended set in Jersey.

The TriStars' visits to Jersey became unnessary when the 757 came on line.