L-1011 Tristar - too advanced for us

hello aviation fans sky here and we continue our trip through the world of epic wide-body try Jets the last video was about the McDonnell Douglas flagship dc-10 airliner today his brother and main rival arise the history of which in some ways is even brighter and even more dramatic Lockheed l-1011 tristar is a 3 engine wide-body airliner developed by Lockheed in the early 1970s the third wide-body passenger aircraft in the world after the Boeing 747 and McDonnell Douglas dc-10 the l-1011 became one of the most advanced aircraft of its time and in a way its technological advancement became the cause of its own collapse the history of this destructive awesomeness began in the 1960s in the age of the great search for ways to develop aviation while supersonic airplanes were losing their fans and Boeing was engaged in the creation of its giant 747 all experts actively argued at that time the huge promise of wide-body airplanes capable of accommodating several hundred passengers became clear but the Boeing 747 seemed to be too large in 1966 American Airlines officially presented their vision of the future medium and long-range air transportation of course with application of wide-body planes the operator needed an aircraft slightly smaller in size and capacity than the 747 but not requiring significant changes of the ground infrastructure their future aircraft was supposed to provide transportation between the aviation hubs in the u.s. Dallas and New York the cities of Central and South America as well as Western Europe the project of designing such an aircraft was immediately taken by McDonnell Douglas which had both the experience of creating commercial jetliners and the technology of a wide-body plane which they've developed as a military transport Lockett also had that experience the company was a supplier of military c-141 Starlifter transport and later on the c5 galaxy however it's experienced in the development of civilian airliners was rather modest despite the creation of such legendary planes as the Lockheed Constellation the time of those legends had passed and in 1961 they closed the production of the l-188 electra turboprop passenger airliners that were not particularly popular only 170 planes were produced in fact the production of jet liners in the United States at that time belongs to the Boeing and Douglas diabla nevertheless seeing the extreme prospects of the civilian sector and in parallel faced with difficulties in military contracts Lockheed decides to return to this market the chance for implementation of this strategy was that same vision of American Airlines the company launched a program to create its own wide-body airliner and given that both manufacturers were aiming at the same market their plans were very close in schemes and capacity but appearances can be deceiving the approach to the creation of aircraft from Lockheed and McDonnell Douglas was different the dc-10 project assumed the creation of an aircraft that would be sufficiently cheap would quickly enter the market and become popular enough to start mass production at the same time the need to ensure implementation in short terms with a limited budget led to the fact that the McDonnell Douglas plane was using many proven but old solutions some of which were used even on the old dc-8 so despite the use of the newest engines a white fuselage into the new layout the dc-10 in many ways was quite a classic aircraft this was justified a huge number of problems with introduction of the 747 almost destroyed Boeing while the dc-10 project was much easier to start Lockett took the opposite position their project l-1011 also had to receive a white fuselage the newest engines and a similar tragedy a of but this is where the similarities end unlike the very conservative McDonnell Douglas plane the l-1011 was to receive the entire set of technologies and innovations that were available at that time it was supposed to be the most effective technologically advanced and reliable plane in the class the aircraft was planned to have a capacity of up to 400 passengers in a white cabin with two aisles initially the option of equipping in a plane with two engines was considered it was even called the jumbo twin but the ETOPS limitations and the lack of thrust of the power plants let lock hit to the same conclusion as their competitors three engines unlike the creators of the dc-10 lockheed engineers adopted a different scheme for the tail engine location mounted not in the separate missile over the fuselage but inside the tail section with an air intake over the fuselage it was assumed that with this scheme the aircraft will get the best aerodynamic quality controls performance and also require in addition thanks to this arrangement engineers managed to reduce the weight of the aircraft since the engine in fact did not have a nacelle it completely compensated for a certain decrease in the efficiency of the engine that was receiving air through an S duct air inlet as a powerplant it was decided to use the rolls-royce rb211 engines the decision was risky but the 211 was potentially more promising and the installation of the British engines could make Locke his road to Europe easier despite the fact that the airliner was presented to the public under the official name l-1011 in the mid 1960s during the development Locke had decided to continue the tradition of giving names to their models as a result of the contest among its own personnel the aircraft was officially named Lockheed l-1011 tristar in 1968 an American Airlines tender was won by the dc-10 project the McDonnell Douglas plane was technologically easier and could enter the market faster Luck hits more complex model had the risks of delays besides it ended up more expensive the cost of the dc-10 was lower and thanks to the contest McDonnell Douglas managed to reduce the purchase price of its aircraft but despite the defeat in the tender Lockheed continued active work even after choosing the dc-10 American Airlines did not hide their interest in the l-1011 and the higher cost of the airliner could easily be compensated by higher efficiency lockheed marketers even turned this back to their own according to their descriptions the Boeing 747 was kind of a bus and the dc-10 was a budget option the cheap one Tristar was described everywhere as an innovative and a breakthrough aircraft and they had a good reason to say that bragging gave results the plane found its starting customers the TWA and Eastern Airlines in addition despite the complexity of the liner's assembly Blox it were working quickly enough and were catching up to the McDonnell Douglas the l-1011 tristar prototype made its maiden flight in November 1970 several months after the dc-10 however the successful development and the quite early beginning of the flight tests were interrupted by serious problems with the power plant the creation of a new and in many ways breakthrough rb211 engine turned out to be such a difficult task that it almost brought throws Roy to bankruptcy the company was in fact temporarily nationalized despite the fact that the government of the United Kingdom supported to work on the engine the program was far behind schedule certification and preparation of the l-1011 series production stretched for two years the initial customer Eastern Airlines received the first aircraft only in 1972 in parallel with the beginning of deliveries Lockheed sent one of the aircraft to the world tour the capabilities of the latest avionics were demonstrated during the Palmdale Dallas flight the airliner performed independent takeoff autopilot flight and automated landing that's right in 1970 t let's see how this plan could do those miracles the Lockheed l-1011 tristar is a wide-body 3 engine airliner with a low swept wing the powerplant is represented by three turbofan engines two of which has suspended on pylons under the wing and the third is placed inside the tail section of the fuselage air two this engine is being fed through the S duck channel which comes from an air intake above the fuselage the only option for the powerplant with the rolls-royce rb211 engines by the way the name our B stands for rolls Barnoldswick in honor of the town in which Rawls company was founded in the late 19th century these engines were impressive by their innovations free-spool scheme carbon-fiber fan high bypass ratio lightness economy however all these advantages had complicated the work and delayed the start of production prototypes began to be tested in 1967 and the finished engines appeared only in 1971 almost sending Rolls Royce to the better world nevertheless in operation rb211 showed its performance perfectly and with time it was being installed on other airliners due to the use of the newest materials the interior of the airliner had reached a width of 18 feet and 11 inches slightly larger than that of the dc-10 with closed fuselage dimensions the layout of the cabin had schemes from six six in a row two plus two plus two in business class to nine seats in a row two plus five plus two in economy class the maximum certified capacity reached 400 people but standard layouts with several classes of service provided accommodation of 256 passengers the capacity of the cabin was also increased by placing the kitchen on the lower deck in front of the center wing box this was partially a forced decision the engine placed inside the tail took the volumen of fuselage from the main cabin the l-1011 tristar received the most advanced set of onboard electronics of its time which was the reason for the creator's great pride the highest level of the onboard systems performance allowed the aircraft to take off automatically perform a number of operations on the ground and perform automated landings even in conditions of zero visibility Tristar became the first airliner in the class to receive a category 3c certificate and even under normal flight conditions the new automated system had the function of providing the softest landing with optimal speed and a sufficiently small angle of attack but despite all the automation the carpet was still designed for three crew members a wide-body airliner of that time was too complicated for two pilots besides the air regulation still required the presence of the flight engineer despite the implementation of the cutting edge technologies the tristar's ability to perform jumps through space-time were unfortunately not proven although they did try once it was quite fascinating the landing gear of the aircraft of all versions had three legs with four wheeled bogies of the main supports the l-1011 on average were lighter than the dc-10 and did not require the introduction of an additional leg under the fuselage production of the planes was deployed at the Lockheed planes in Burbank and Condell near Los Angeles naturally tristar's had several modifications which as it was usual back then were other generations than a family like it's done now the first model was l-1011 - one in general with the first series and in particular with this model Lockheed had some problems the complex design had better aerodynamics but it was heavier than it should have been a few dozen liners were produced before they had dealt with this issue the mother won wait four hundred and thirty thousand pounds more of a medium haul aircraft capable of flying at a distance of about four thousand two hundred and fifty miles it was the most popular version nearly 160 planes were delivered interestingly some of the aircraft received an optional sliding letter and some made in a particularly luxury version even had a rest area on the lower deck the l-1011 - 100 appeared in 1975 it received an additional fuel tank and began to fly 700 miles further the plane had good performance on relatively distant routes but because of the intermediate status was not popular it was a basis for the version 200 with forced engines which allowed to work in high-altitude conditions these planes found their place mainly in the Middle East a step forward in 1978 was the muddled l-1011 - 500 the fuselage and capacity of the aircraft slightly decreased and the liner weighed up to 510 thousand pounds mainly due to the additional fuel in exchange the range of flights increased to five thousand three hundred and forty five miles which had finally made it into a real long-haul airliner the problem was that due to the delayed rb211 engine's modernization the creation of this version was delayed too by the time the model 500 came to the market most operators had already purchased the DC 10-30 ironically despite all the technical difficulties in production the l-1011 proved to be a very impressive aircraft one of the most obvious advantages was the low noise level both in the cabin and on the terrain the lunch customer Eastern Airlines even named it the whisper liner the safety of the aircraft was also not bad for the entire period of operation there were 32 incidents six of which were accidents and five disasters which led to the death of 539 people only one of those disasters occurred because of the technical reasons in terms of the accident rate the l-1011 proved to be better than its wide-body competitors of that time which came in contrast with a very depressing image of the dc-10 the largest operator was Delta Airlines and the largest foreign operator Cathay Pacific most of the airliners were actively operated until the end of the 20th century and were replaced by the Boeing 767 and Airbus a330 models betting on the rb211 with a plan to enter the European market didn't pay off however the nationality of these engines created a demand from the UK the British military bought nine aircraft and modified them into transports and aerial tankers these aircraft flew until the middle of 2010 when they were replaced by the a330 mrtt the most exotic operator of the l-1011 was the orbital space corporation they bought the plane and made some serious modifications the upgraded aircraft called stargazer is able to carry out air launches of the pegasus carrier rockets to low-earth orbits stargazer is still in operation you can find many awesome launch videos despite the success in operation Lockett was unable to promote Tristar enough and make the program profitable the l-1011 was more complicated and advanced that most of its competitors but the solutions of technical problems and delays required time a resource they didn't have the market of the wide-body tragedies was under pressure from the Boeing and Airbus planes and was too small for two models the remaining small niche was occupied by the McDonnell Douglas flagship as a result locked it closed the Tristar program in 1984 having built only 250 planes this failure was a terrible strike for the company and that finally left the civilian aircraft industry however this was not the end soon the bountiful fortune made the future Lockheed Martin the largest military corporation in the world with an annual revenue of 60 billion dollars so no need to worry about those guys so this is the story of one of the most technologically advanced failures in aviation industry don't forget to Like and subscribe to the channel and comment below what do you think about this underrated miracle fast flights and soft landings to you [Music]

Channel: Skyships Eng

Views: 1,097,204

Keywords: L-1011, tristar, lockheed, lockheed tristar, lockheed tristar documentary, lockheed l-1011, l-1011 stargazer, stargazer, l1011

Id: dAjezUfdBXE

Length: 16min 44sec (1004 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 19 2018