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the link below will get a two month free trail. The 1960's were a fascinating time for civil aviation. Full of incredible
stories like the story of how Lockheed, an aerospace company known for its
military aircraft, set out to build the world's most advanced airliner. And
that's exactly what they did. Passengers loved it's spacious cabin and
smooth, quiet ride. Pilots boasted about its handling, power, and ergonomics. Nearly 50 years ago, this aircraft could fly itself from takeoff to landing without
any of the pilots touching the controls. But this is also the same aircraft that
nearly bankrupt the company that built it. Generating billions of dollars in
losses and guaranteeing that Lockheed would never try to build another
airliner. When launched the L-1011 TriStar was the
most technologically advanced commercial airliner ever. Making leaps forward in
efficiency, comfort, and safety. The TriStar introduced innovations that
should have made it a commercial success. This aircraft should have helped
Lockheed leapfrog ahead of its competition. The Tristar featured a
highly advanced autopilot system. It could land the plane at certain airports
in completely blind, zero visibility weather, when other planes of the era, well
they would need to divert to other airports. And its degree of system
redundancy earned the L-1011 an excellent reputation for safety. Lockheed
even put extra effort into the TriStar's cabin. It wasn't your typical cramped
cattle car. It was different. It was sleek and spacious,
nothing like its competitors. This was, by just about any measure, a superior
aircraft. It was ahead of its time. But how did such a highly-revered aircraft
like the L-1011 turn out to be such a huge financial failure? To answer that
question, you have to go back to 1966. You could say it began with a man named
Frank Kolk, one of the head honchos at American Airlines. American was in the
market for a new type of aircraft. At the time there was a lot of excitement over
Boeing 747, a large, efficient wide-body promising to be lucrative for Airlines.
But Kolk worried about American's ability to fill seats on something as large as a
747. What he really needed was something that carried less passengers (around 250)
but with the efficiency of a second-generation wide-body airliner. So
Kolk put the word out to rival aircraft manufacturers. Boeing had enough on their plate they were busy raking it in with their
747 and 737 programs. But Douglas and Lockheed were interested. Kolk initially
wanted a twin-engine jet, but the Federal Aviation Administration 60-minute rule would prove to be a challenge. The 60-minute rule meant that
any twin-engine civil aircraft could only fly as far as 60 minutes from an
airport should it need to divert in an emergency. Not so practical for airlines
that wanted to fly across oceans. But a 3 engine tri-jet configuration could get
around the 60 minute rule, yet still be more efficient than the 4 engine jets
that were crossing oceans at the time. Douglas, which was in the process of
merging with McDonnell Aircraft, had a history of building successful
jet-powered airliners. They wanted to keep development costs low, so their
approach was to use technologies and systems which they had already developed.
Lockheed on the other hand, had never built a jet-powered airliner and their
last commercial aircraft, the turboprop driven Electra, well it was kind of a
disaster. Plagued by early accidents and poor sales. Lockheed had something to
prove, so they would set out to build an advanced airliner to make rival
McDonnell Douglas's entry look like yesterday's news. After all, this was the
company that had just finished building the SR-71 Blackbird.
So, surely they could handle designing an airliner. Lockheed's design called for a
center-mounted engine to receive air through a curving S-duct. The problem was, there wasn't an engine in production short enough to fit the installation. And the
only engine manufacturer to have anything on the drawing board that would
fit, was Rolls-Royce. But what they had looked promising. A lighter more
efficient engine that would give the L-1011 an advantage. But here's the thing,
someone at Rolls Royce must have been one hell of a smooth talker,
because Rolls Royce was about to seriously over promise and under deliver. Even before Rolls-Royce's engine would
fail the bird-strike test, shattering its innovative Hyfill fanstage to pieces,
it had been struggling. After years of work, it still couldn't meet the
performance requirements that it had promised Lockheed. And the financial situation at
Rolls-Royce was a mess. In 1971, it was forced to declare bankruptcy. And Rolls
pointed the finger squarely at the L-1011 program. But things were also
looking bad on Lockheed's end. Its own financial situation by now had
deteriorated. It struggled with cost overruns and other defense project
cancellations. And a Rolls-Royce bankruptcy would mean no engine for the
L-1011. Finding an alternative would mean massive delays that Lockheed was in no
position to ride out. But you can't get any more British than Rolls-Royce, and
the Government wasn't about to let a company of such national importance just
disappear. So, the British government nationalized the company and worked with
the Americans to guarantee bank loans for Lockheed, so that there would be an
L-1011 to purchase those Rolls-Royce engines. And this allowed Rolls-Royce to
sort out their engineering issues. And they ended up with a fantastic engine.
But for Lockheed, there was always an elephant in the room. For years, American
Airlines has dreamed of having a quiet plane with virtually smokeless engines
as comfortable as the 747, but able to land at almost any commercial airport.
Introducing the new DC-10 Luxury-Liner See, even before the whole engine debacle,
American Airlines had decided to go with the rival DC-10. McDonnell Douglas was a
proven manufacturer with a track record in civil aviation. Lockheed on the other
hand was the new player. While the L-1011 would pick up early sales from the large
Airlines, its sales would always lag behind the DC-10, even as the DC-10
started blowing out its cargo doors and sprinkling the Midwest with engine parts.
But the big problem was that these aircraft were too big fish sharing a
little pond. There wasn't a big enough market to support two wide-body tri-jets
and sales of both suffered for it. And by the late 1970's and early 80's, a
new kind of aircraft had entered the market. The efficient wide-body twin-jet
that Frank Kolk had always really wanted. Newly formed Airbus had introduced the
A300, taking a big chunk out of both L-1011 and DC-10 tri-jet sales. Lockheed
would only ever sell half the TriStars it would need just to break even, and
it was eventually forced to shut down production in 1984. The TriStar certainly
wasn't perfect. No machine is. Some claim it was over-engineered, making it a bit
of a maintenance hog. But it was the most advanced airliner of its day, save maybe
for the Concorde. The Tristar would earn a fantastic safety record and it was
loved by pilots and passengers alike. But it couldn't get past its rocky start and
the realities of an overcrowded and quickly changing market. The L-1011 was a
technological marvel, but by Lockheed's own admission, a financial failure. And
that goes to show you that great design, engineering, and business go hand in hand.
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The video keeps saying "advanced" like it is a great thing. From an airliners perspective, I'm not sure it is. They only want advanced planes when those advances will either make them money (allow them to go places or routes they couldn't before), or save them money (less fuel, maintenance, etc).
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I remember I used to travel with my dad around Soviet Union in 1985-1990. We took long jumps by Tu-154 and from a hub you go around by Antonov - 24, Yak-40 or whatever was flying there.Regional airport was a collection of designs starting from tiny Yak-12 up to giants like An-22 and IL- 86 All different ! My next time to fly was in 2003 and airport was full of generic same looking Airbus and Boeing's. So efficient and boring !
Also the plane that put RR on the Map