Bangladesh's Sky Capital Airlines has added two TriStars to their fleet. One of them is the well known S2-AET and the other one is ex-'S9-GAR' now registered S2-AKB.
Here are a couple of photos of S2-AKB @ Flickr: Photo 1 Photo 2
Operator list was already updated in the site's Links section.
What is the latest on the L-1011?Monday, November 2, 2009 at 7:50AM
Still moving forward. Due to the past experiences of giving out dates, etc. and then hitting another delay, we will not be announcing anything regarding arrival, etc. almost until she taxis onto the runway in Roswell. (Not quite.) Larry Brown has spent a LOT of time on the phone, will a host of highly qualified individuals volunteering their time to work on "paperwork" and to repeat, the project is moving forward! Just stay tuned here and we will post the latest when it is appropriate to do so.
The 23rd October, CS-TEB departed to Ilorin in Nigeria, with 'Med View' MEV3333 callsign, but it seems to be operating Kabo Air's Hajj flights to Jeddah from there.
MSN 1206 euroAtlantic CS-TMX - scrapped at Lisbon (LIS)
MSN 1240 euroAtlantic CS-TEB - ferried to Amman last 12th September for C-check
MSN 1241 Luzair CS-TMR - stored at Victorville (VCV) / for sale
MSN 1248 Luzair CS-TMP - stored at Aqaba (AQJ) / withdrawn from service
A very interesting article about the Lockheed TriStar (its history, present and uncertain future) was published in the current issue of Airliner World magazine. It seems the next issue will also have an article about military TriStars.
MSN 1206 euroAtlantic CS-TMX - scrapped at Lisbon (LIS)
MSN 1240 euroAtlantic CS-TEB - active and based at Lisbon (LIS)
MSN 1241 Luzair CS-TMR - stored at Victorville (VCV); future unknown
MSN 1248 Luzair CS-TMP - stored at Aqaba (AQJ)
Thanks to Privilege Jet Airlines information, the current status of MSN 1242 TL-ADW (an ex-TAP L-1011) was changed from 'Unknown' to 'Active' in the site's Fleet section.
It's nice to see some of these old boys still kicking around.
This press-clip from brazilian Flap magazine (Issue 226, Feb. 1991) states that VASP leased TAP L-1011's to increase their capacity in the RIO-SSA-RIO route, taking advantage of the long parking time that these aircraft had at GIG airport: the flight from Lisboa arrived early in the morning and the aircraft wouldn't make its return until evening.
However it seems the real deal was a little bit different. TAP used to make a stop at SSA (Salvador) in their route to RIO two times a week. So VASP bought a block of 60 economy seats on the legs between SSA/RIO/SSA. VASP's marketing sold these seats with the following slogan in portuguese 'RIO - Salvador e Salvador - RIO, pela VASP com sotaque português' which means 'Rio-Salvador and Salvador-Rio, fly VASP with portuguese accent'.
It was added to the site's Memorabilia section a rather old TAP brochure from my childhood entitled "Big enough... Small enough...".
After some years with the slogan "An airline should be big enough to have 747's", TAP had to change its marketing strategy when it phased-out the 747's, so the L-1011 was "just the right size" for a 'new' airline which had lost significant traffic from its old ultramarine colonies.
This brochure marks a new era of TAP-Air Portugal which superseded this one:
It is also available in the Articles section a new incident report (portuguese only) about a TAP L-1011 which had a double engine flameout just after landing from a flight from Rio de Janeiro due to fuel starvation, in 1983. Many thanks to GPIAA.
TriStar500.net, the official site of this blog, was recently updated on the following sections:
Fleet: update of the 'Actual status' of some aircraft listed;
Airlines: it was added the new safety card of Luzair (2008 module) to which I am proud to have given some kind of contribution;
Articles: new 'Flight reports' sub-section with links to some of my L-1011 flight descriptions as a cabin crew member which you can also find via my other blog. Although written in portuguese, if you're not able to understand this language, you can always appreciate the photos and some short videos you can find there;
Links: also added a new 'L-1011 operators' sub-section with links to the sites of the current L-1011 operators all over the world (unfortunately, not many these days...)
Despite these new updates, if you're looking for TriStar500.net's updates, news, photos, etc, you should either bookmark or visit this blog, since it's intended to be the dynamic part of the site.
euroAtlantic's L-1011 was spotted yesterday out of the hangar at 'Foxtrot' apron (Lisbon Airport), now with all its three engines mounted, nav ligths ON, movements in the cockpit and some maintenance activity around it.
Let's hope she will make it into the skies very soon!
euroAtlantic's TriStar msn 293B-1240 was again moved to Hangar 6 in order to mount engine #2 (the one that was still missing) and to finish other tasks. The aircraft should return to the skies soon, probably next week.
More news about the L-1011 which will be ferried soon for Airline History Museum:
L-1011
DateTuesday, April 21, 2009 at 2:53PM
We would love to say everything is finalized and we know for sure the L-1011 will be coming in this Sunday, the 26th. HOWEVER, there are still some paperwork hang-ups so we are unable to absolutely confirm the arrival date and time, at this moment. Check back here for the latest, as it will be posted on this site as soon as we know.
Kansas City’s Wheeler Downtown Airport will soon score a first when a Lockheed L-1011 flies in to become a permanent part of the Airline History Museum.
An almost pristine example of one of the most beloved modern airliners will fill an important gap in the museum’s collection, allowing it to show the evolution of passenger aviation from the 1930s to the wide-body jet age.
Officials say an L-1011 has never landed at the downtown airport before, and this is one of only two operable planes of that model left in the U.S.
“We wanted to save her from being chopped up,” said pilot Paul Pristo of Arizona, who bought the aircraft and donated it to the Kansas City museum. “We want to give her new life as a 300-seat auditorium.”
The plane will be used in an educational program for school groups and adults, said Paul Sloan, the museum’s executive director.
The public is invited to watch the L-1011 arrive at the airport about 2 p.m. next Sunday. It will be parked outside the museum at Hangar 9 — it’s too big to fit inside. Tours of the plane will be free that day.
This particular plane was once flown by Kansas City’s hometown Trans World Airlines. But it never served the downtown airport, as Kansas City International Airport opened in 1972, the same year the L-1011 began service.
They don’t make planes like this one anymore. In fact, it was the last passenger plane Lockheed made.
A vintage TWA promotional placard at the airline museum brags about it as “Kansas City’s first big jet,” offering daily 8:30 a.m. ambassador service to Los Angeles.
“This is what an airplane should be,” the placard proclaims.
Museum member Larry Denning of Liberty agreed, and he should know. He used to pilot this very plane.
“It was a smooth airplane to fly,” Denning said. “And the passengers loved it. It had a lot of headroom.”
The L-1011 was the top of the line in electronics at the time. The doors were electric instead of manual. The coat closets whisked hangered garments away into storage. The galley was below the cabin level, which was serviced by elevators. Also, the plane had an automated landing system that kept it at an even pitch, making descents more pleasant for the passengers.
Those elevators still work, as do the video screens, which will be used by the museum to show educational films about aviation. The plane still has its three, 42,000-pound Rolls-Royce engines.
This plane had been refurbished for commercial use, but that deal fell through and it was sitting in a hangar in Roswell, N.M. Larry Brown, a founding member of the airline museum, located it and began the process of trying to acquire it.
It was way beyond the museum’s budget, but over many months of negotiation the owner reduced the price to $100,000. Pristo, who previously had donated a Lockheed Constellation “Connie” to the museum, agreed to buy the plane.
The museum still needs to raise about $14,000 to cover the costs associated with preparing the plane for the special-permit ferry flight to Kansas City. The 1½-hour trip will consume about 5,000 gallons of jet fuel.
The L-1011 evokes an era — not that long ago — when flying was still special, when the trip was almost as important as the destination.
“Everybody took a shower before a flight,” Denning joked of those days. “No one wore flip-flops.”
This is a rather old photo of Eusébio (ex-Benfica football player) and Amália Rodrigues ('Fado' singer) aboard a TAP L-1011 TriStar, which you can confirm by the particular design of the overhead lockers. You can also see the old blue bulkhead decoration. I really miss those times :)
. . . update on the arrival of our L-1011. Paperwork delay in getting everything done for the ferry flight, so she will now arrive 2 weeks and one day later--Sunday, April 26th. Time to be announced but most likely will be in the afternoon.
The airframe to be preserved seems to be an ex-TWA L-1011 (msn 193B-1066) currently with N700TS reg number and WAL livery. See photos here.
When I came across with Air Utopia and the trailer of their L-1011 DVD, I was really amazed by the spectacular images of the preview but a little bit skeptical about this producer since I never heard of them although it seems they're in business for quite a while.
Despite being an unconditional fan of the L-1011 (hell! I started working as a Flight Attendant and one of the reasons - if not the main one - was because I wanted to fly the TriStar again and that was the only way to achieve that goal) it took some time until I decided to purchase a copy of this DVD.
The aircraft depicted in this film is the oldest L-1011 in the world still flying and the first one to be converted to a freighter standard in 1987. We are talking about MSN 193A-1012, the 12th TriStar coming out from production line.
This particular aircraft (a dash 1 TriStar) was delivered to Eastern Airlines in November of 1972 (more than 37 years ago!) with N311EA registration. Then it was converted to an L-1011-1F freighter and delivered to Tradewinds in 1991.
After 2004 it was exported to Thailand where it flew for SkyEyes and Thai Sky Airlines, the last one having ceased its operations in 2006 and leaving all its three TriStars in storage at Bangkok (DMK). In 2006 and after two years without flying, a new owner decided to pick up MSN 1012 and that's where our adventure starts.
Before jumping into the movie itself, let's see some technical information about this aircraft from Lockheed's Goldenrod Issue:
Type: -1
SN: 1012
Config: F (= Freight)
Engine: 22B
GTOW: 430K (pounds)
MLW: 358K (pounds)
ZFW: 332K (pounds)
FUEL: 160K (pounds)
Hrs: 61.460
Cycles: 27.086
Air Utopia's DVD begins with the final inspections and preparations for the delivery ferry flight from Bangkok (DMK) to Dhaka (DAC) in Bangladesh. This is a short hop flight of approximately 830 nautical miles:
Flight Route
Inside the airframe they were also carrying a spare engine.
We can see refuelling procedure and the use of drip-sticks to ensure they have the correct fuel quantity reading in the cockpit gauges.
They pressurize the hydraulic systems still without engines running (with the help of the Air Turbine Motors) and cycle the landing gear on the ground by pulling the lever to the up position. Obviously the landing gear wouldn't retract (unless the aircraft was completely jacked up) but they done that to guarantee there were no hydraulic fluid leaks.
A rather unusual and spectacular view of the TriStar is given when they are checking #2 engine, entering the S-duct as shown in the trailer. As they check the fan blades one by one, one can clearly understand why they do that "tac-tac-tac-tac" sound when they are windmilling.
Then a complete walkaround inspection and cockpit pre-flight preparations and checklists are carried out with lots of technical details explained by the narrator. The L-1011 cockpit provides the best panoramic view of all widebody jets with large and curved windshields.
A quick peep of the FESC (the electronic bay as it is called on the TriStar) is also shown.
Finally we have a successful start-up of the engines filmed from inside and outside where we can hear the typical and amazing low-frequency sound from those RB211-22B engines. First they started up #2 engine as it's nearer from the APU and you will have less pneumatic energy losses along a shorter duct. Then they open the crossbleed valves and slightly advance the #2 power lever in order to have more pneumatic pressure to get #1 and #3 engines into life. This is a very usual procedure for starting up the TriStar engines and that I saw many times when I worked for Luzair.
Take-off is filmed with simultaneous dual perpectives: one from inside the cockpit and a RH wingview from the cabin.
After cleaning the wing, the crew tries to engage the autopilot. And then the first difficulties start to come up. The autopilot 'A' handle switch is completely stuck in the OFF postion and autopilot 'B' always trips OFF shortly after being engaged. The brave crew of this aircraft decides to proceed with the flight and handflies the L-1011 until a cruise altitude of 27.000 feet, demonstrating the recognised handling and aerodynamic qualities of the TriStar. Somewhere during their cruise the crew resets some pitch and roll C/B's and autopilot 'B' becomes operational. We can ear someone saying "Now we can relax, who wants a Martini?"!
But they were wrong... Suddenly engine #1 oil pressure reading gauge in the Flight Engineer panel shows zero and they have to cutoff the engine to avoid damage to it. With so many adversities happening and that are normal for an aircraft that was in storage for so long, it's amazing to see how this experienced crew handles the situation without any sign of stress. They decide to return back to Bangkok and fortunatelly now they have the help of the autopilot. If you couldn't see the instrument gauges in the front panel you could never say they were flying with a wing engine out. However, final approach and landing is perfectly handflown by the captain and he achieves a really smooth touchdown. With one engine reverse inop and perphaps due to the assymetric braking, the brakes of one main landing gear became hot and captain decided to taxi-in with idle reverse on engine #2.
What was intended to be a delivery flight happened to be a fantastic test-flight which Air Utopia had the luck to record with their cameras.
Everyone that's ever been involved with aircraft [L-1011] has a special place for it in their hearts and it's gonna go down in history as one of the classic widebody transport of all time.
In my case I really do miss it. Today Airbus may build the A380 and other great aicraft. They're still too small when compared with the TriStar!
With a running time of 115 minutes, I really would like to thank Air Utopia for this great production. I have some other L-1011 cockpit DVD's but this is clearly the best insight view of the TriStar I have ever seen.
If you are interested you can easily order your examplar from Air Utopia website:
Barq Aviation has recently bought all three airworthy L-1011-500's from ATA Airlines which went bankrupt in April of 2008. These aircraft (MSN 1220, 1229 and 1238) were in storage since then at Victorville Air Base (VCV) and are now being readied to fly towards their new home and owner somewhere in the Middle East as we can see in this photo. Barq Aviation also owns msn 1230 (ex-N194AT)
The only active L-1011 left in the FAA registry is now N140SC from Orbital Sciences. This aircraft is supposed to be modified into a -200 standard (currently is a -100) in order to get RB211-524B engines which still have technical support from Rolls Royce and from some MRO shops
CS-TMR (293B-1241) of Luzair, currently stored at Victorville, seems to be listed for sale
CS-TEB (293B-1240) of euroAtlantic is finally getting its modified engines installed and being prepared for return to service. Together with CS-TMP from Luzair, these are the last portuguese TriStars left
EDIT: in fact, there is still another active N-registered L-1011: N388LS from Las Vegas Sands Corporation. Thanks to visitor Howie for the correction.
The IS&S Flat Panel Display System (FPDS) is an easily installed cockpit upgrade for the Tristar L1011 aircraft. The Primary Flight / Navigation Displays are designed to replace the existing EADI and EHSI display, altimeter, airspeed, vertical speed indicators. The Engine Instrument Display System (EIDS) is designed specifically as a low-cost upgrade of the Tristar engine instrument cluster, replacing primary and secondary engine indicators.
This easily retrofitted replacement system is compatible with the existing cockpit configuration. It provides all existing primary flight, navigation, engine related parameters, hydraulic indication, and flap and trim position indicators using five (5) AMLCD (Active Matrix Liquid Crystal Displays) in lieu of over 73 LRUs. Its unique design concept permits accelerated modification of graphic display formats, and as importantly, rapid certification.
CS-TEB can be seen in front of TAP's Hangar 5 (LIS/LPPT) standing without all its engines. These are going under modification according to IP5 AD.
euroAtlantic CS-TEB - under maintenance at Lisbon (LIS)
euroAtlantic CS-TMX - scrapped at Lisbon (LIS)
Luzair CS-TMP - stored at Aqaba (AQJ); still waiting for C-check
Luzair CS-TMR - stored at Victorville; future unknown; photo here
