L-1011's 1st commercial flight was 40 years ago

In 26 April 1972, the L-1011 TriStar entered in service with Eastern Airlines.

• Flightglobal: The TriStar heritage 40 years on

TAP's First Class seats in the L-1011

When TAP Air Portugal introduced the L-1011 in 1983, the aircraft had a configuration of 12 First Class seats (2-2-2 abreast) and 234 in Economy. About one year later, TAP decided to end its First Class service and introduced the brand new C/CL called Navigator Class. Configuration was changed to 21C232Y with 2-3-2 abreast in Navigator Class.

In 2004, an exhibition of TAP Museum was held in Pavilhão do Conhecimento (Lisboa), where we could see some of those FC seats:

L-1011's First Class seats

Despite being wide and comfortable, they look rather vintage and quite primitive even when compared to current Top Executive product.

In the 'Memorabilia' section of TriStar500.net you can find one vintage ad about TAP's First Class in the L-1011.

OSC L-1011 and the NuSTAR mission

The L-1011 of Orbital Sciences Corporation is scheduled for a new launch of its Pegasus rocket in June 2012. Its payload will be NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) which will search for black holes, map supernova explosions and study the most extreme active galaxies.

Pegasus XL rocket © NASA

The Pegasus XL rocket is fully assembled inside a hangar at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. Technicians will tow the rocket to the base's runway a few weeks before launch and bolt it to an L-1011 carrier aircraft, which will fly the Pegasus and NuSTAR payload to Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. 

The L-1011 jumbo jet will drop the rocket about 40,000 feet over the Pacific Ocean, and the three-stage, winged Pegasus will light to propel the 800-pound NuSTAR satellite into a 340-mile-high orbit.

This L-1011 named Stargazer and registered N140SC is one of the few active TriStars left and was specially modified by Marshall Aerospace of Cambridge to carry the air-launched Pegasus rocket.

L-1011 Stargazer © Orbital Sciences Corporation

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