The Lockheed L-1011 TriStar was the most advanced aircraft of its time. Despite this, it was a massive failure that left Lockheed on the verge on bankruptcy. But why was this?
At a time when jet aircraft had just become popular, with almost every airline using jets, the Lockheed L-1011 should’ve been a major success. However, several factors caused it to fail dramatically, here’s why!
Pre-L-1011
In 1952, British Aircraft manufacturer de Havilland released the first jet-powered airliner, the de Havilland Comet. Following this, Boeing released the 707 in 1958 and Douglas released the DC-8 in 1959.
These jets had made piston-powered aircraft like the Boeing 377 and Lockheed Constellation irrelevant. However, by the mid-1960’s, airlines were looking for larger aircraft that could transport more people.
Due to this demand, Boeing introduced the now-world famous Boeing 747. However, for some routes, the 747 was just too big, with other aircraft like the 737 or 727 not being big enough to cope with the demand.
Boeing attempted to remedy this by introducing the Boeing 747SP. This aircraft was a shortened variant of the first 747, the 747-100, which had a lower range and passenger count.
Despite this, the market wasn’t entirely satisfied. As with the 747-100, the 747SP had high operating costs, which made it mostly unprofitable to operate on the routes it was intended to be operated on.
However, in 1971, Douglas Aircraft introduced the DC-10, a trijet with a similar range and passenger count, but with lower operating costs. Lockheed saw an opportunity and decided that they’d give it a go.
Development
Lockheed had previously left the commercial aviation market in 1961 after the introduction of jet aircraft. However, had gone on to produce some of the best military cargo aircraft in history!
After studying the design of the DC-10, Lockheed had their engineers draft up a trijet with similar specifications. Lockheed told their engineers that they’d have to take the best technology of the day and implement it in the new jet.
If that technology didn’t exist at the time, Lockheed told their engineers that they’d have to invent it. Something that Lockheed’s engineers were eager to do. Despite this, Kelly Johnson, Lockheed’s best engineer did not aid the development.
After a few years of designing what Lockheed internally designated as the L-093, Lockheed formally announced the L-093. Several airlines were interested in the L-093, now marketed as the L-1011, including Eastern Air Lines.
In 1968, it was announced that Eastern would be the launch customer of the L-1011. An internal company naming competition yielded the name “TriStar”, with all subsequent marketing material calling it the Lockheed L-1011 TriStar.
Service
The L-1011 first took flight on November 16 1970. After several more tests, and some minor adjustments, the Lockheed L-1011 TriStar officially entered service with Eastern Air Lines on April 26 1972.
Lockheed would subsequently develop several variants of the TriStar to be used in different capacities for different airlines.
Commercial
Lockheed delivered the first L-1011-100s to Eastern in April 1972. Lockheed subsequently developed two other variants, the L-1011-200 and L-1011-500. Saudia was the launch customer of the -200, and British Airways for the -500.
The L-1011 was used on lower-density, high volume routes, that a 747 would be too big to operate on. Delta became the largest user of the aircraft, operating a fleet of 70 L-1011s.
After Eastern went bankrupt in 1991, its routes and aircraft were up for grabs. During its time, Eastern had operated 40 L-1011s, mostly L-1011-100s. After their bankruptcy, Cathay Pacific acquired Eastern’s L-1011 fleet.
PSA became quite famous for their L-1011s, which had a smile painted on the aircraft’s nose. During the early 1970’s, Eastern began referring to their L-1011s as “Whisperliners” due to them being very quiet for their time.
Following the introduction of ETOPs laws in the 1980’s, aircraft manufacturers began to release more fuel efficient and faster twinjet aircraft. As such, many major airlines began retiring their L-1011 fleets.
Whilst the vast majority were stored or scrapped, many were sold on. Some of these L-1011s ended up as charter aircraft or were leased out to other airlines. Many of these airlines were low cost carriers, located in Asia or Africa.
On January 7 2019, almost 50 years after the L-1011’s first flight, the L-1011 took its last commercial flight. Since then, the only flights the L-1011 has been taking is as a part of very limited (and rare!) heritage flights.
Failed Soviet-L-1011 Deal
In March 1974, the Soviets had no long range airliner. The only Soviet long range airliner in production was the Il-86 which had, in 1974, stalled due to several design issues.
As such, the Soviets turned to the US for an answer. The Soviets were particularly interested in the L-1011, and began negotiations. However, these negotiations were subsequently derailed by President Jimmy Carter.
These negotiations saw the USSR attempt to buy 30 L-1011s, and license produce another 100. However, Carter wanted to make sure that the workers wouldn’t have their human rights violated, the USSR wouldn’t comply.
By 1976, Ilyushin had fixed the issues with the Il-86’s design. As such, when negotiations began to break down, the Soviets left. On December 22 1976, the Il-86 took its first flight.
Military
In 1982, British Airways and Pan Am began to retire their L-1011 fleet. At the same time, the RAF was bolstering its tanker fleet, beyond just its converted Handley Page Victor tankers.
As such, the RAF was drawing up specifications it needed for a tanker, converted from a wide body airliner of the time. Taking advantage of the current climate, the RAF bought six ex-British Airways Lockheed L-1011s.
In 1984, the RAF purchased three ex-Pan Am L-1011s to supplement its TriStar fleet. Upon being purchased, the L-1011s would be given to Marshall Aerospace. Marshall then converted them into transport and tanker aircraft.
These converted L-1011s would simply be known as Lockheed TriStars in RAF service, rather than Lockheed L-1011 TriStars as they had been previously. These TriStars would be based at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire.
In March 2014, as a part of the UK Government’s cost saving measures, all of the RAF’s TriStars were retired. Following this, six of the nine TriStars were stored at Bruntingthorpe Aerodrome in Leicestershire.
The other three would later be scrapped at various different locations around the UK. The TriStar’s operations have since been taken over by Airbus A330 MMRTs.
Launchbed
By 1994, most airlines had retired their L-1011 fleets. In 1994, Orbital Sciences, then an independent manufacturer of small and medium size rocket systems, acquired a former Air Canada L-1011.
Orbital Sciences nicknamed the aircraft Stargazer, which it has used ever since. In 2015, Orbital Sciences merged with Alliant Techsystems, to form Orbital ATK, giving the Stargazer a new livery as a result.
In 2018, Northrop Grumman acquired Orbital ATK, rebranding it as Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems. This also saw the Stargazer get a new livery as a result.
Since 1994, Stargazer has been a launchbed (also known as a mother ship launch pad) for the Pegasus launch vehicle. As of the time of writing, 44 rockets have been launched from the Stargazer.
In 2004, Stargazer was used to transport and run tests on the unmanned research aircraft, the X-34 (the fastest aircraft ever built!) To date, it is the only L-1011 still operating.
Specifications
Despite being a commercial failure, Lockheed designed three variants of the TriStar- the L-1011-100, L-1011-200 and L-1011-500. All of these different variants had different specifications to match their intended job.
As such, we will look at the most common variant. By far the most common was the L-1011-200. It’s specifications were…
| Length | L-1011-200 |
|---|---|
| Length | 177 ft 8.5 in (54.17 m) |
| Wingspan | 155 ft 4 in (47.35 m) |
| Height | 55 ft 4 in (16.87 m) |
| Crew | 3 |
| Seats | 256 |
| Cruise Speed | 593 mph (954 km/h, 515 kn) |
| Range | 4,150 mi (6,667 km, 3,600 nmi) |
| Service Ceiling | 42,000 ft (12,800 m) |
| MTOW | 466,000 lb (211,374 kg) |
How Safe Was The Lockheed L-1011 TriStar?
Despite only one Lockheed L-1011 being operated, especially with it being in private hands, it is still important to look at how safe and/or dangerous the Lockheed L-1011 TriStar was.
During its time, many of the airlines who operated it, marketed it as the safest aircraft of its time. This was especially so after issues were found with the DC-10 that led to several crashes.
These airlines, in particular TWA, marketed it based on the fact that, at the time, there had only been five crashes involving the L-1011. Of those five crashes, all of them had been due to pilot error, not the aircraft itself.
To date, there has only been 35 crashes involving the L-1011. Compared to other aircraft of the era, including the DC-10, it does make it incredibly safe. On paper at least.
Despite this, the L-1011 is remembered as one of the most dangerous aircraft ever. This is due to the fact that only 250 L-1011s were delivered, 35 of them subsequently crashed. 14% of all L-1011s produced crashed.
Of those 35 crashes, only five were fatal, resulting in 540 fatalities. Giving it one of the highest per flight fatality counts of any aircraft. Although the vast majority of these fatalities occurred during the L-1011’s first eight years of service.
Why Was The Lockheed L-1011 Such a Failure?
When it was introduced, airlines went crazy for the TriStar. Several airlines placed huge bids for fleets of TriStars. Many airlines had read the reports and understood that this was the next 747, just for shorter, long haul routes.
However, it was too advanced for its time. Lockheed designed the TriStar to do almost everything for the pilot, including landing. This was at a time when autopilots were only a relatively new invention.
The only thing pilots on the TriStar needed to do was takeoff. And even that was heavily automated by the TriStar’s systems. Lockheed had designed it like this, to make the TriStar the safest aircraft ever.
But here is where the issue came from… none of the pilots had ever flown an aircraft so advanced, not even in the military. During their training, pilots are taught a series of principles, which become ingrained over time.
The TriStar eliminated almost all of those principles, by not needing them in the first place. As such, pilots tried to flight the aircraft as it was taking off and even when it was landing, despite not really needing to.
This caused the pilots to overtax the aircraft on takeoff and landing, which, over time, caused undue stress to the fuselage which resulted in several crashes. As such, the TriStar got a reputation for being fairly dangerous.
When this reputation became somewhat widespread, many airlines chose to not buy the L-1011. Instead, they bought over similar trijets like the DC-10 or MD-11 (eventually) in order to avoid this.
Legacy
Despite being a failure, the Lockheed L-1011 did leave a large impact on the aviation industry as a whole.
Lockheed
Lockheed hadn’t made a commercial airliner since the L-188 Electra in 1959. They had decided that they were going to focus on military cargo aircraft for the foreseeable future.
Despite this, they decided to design the L-1011. However, with its failure, they reverted back to their previous stance on commercial aircraft: let McDonnell Douglas and Boeing focus on it.
In light of this, Lockheed left the commercial airline business in 1984. The only other commercial airliner designed during this time was the L-2000, an unbuilt supersonic aircraft, a competitor of the Boeing 2707.
The cost overruns of the L-1011, as well as the C-5 Galaxy, combined with the then-ongoing Lockheed bribery scandal, put Lockheed on the verge of bankruptcy. For both projects, Lockheed was forced to pay for the overruns.
By the late 1980’s, Lockheed had exhausted almost all of its financial resources. Soon after this, Lockheed was forced to ask the US Government for a bailout, or else they risked bankruptcy and their tech falling into Soviet hands.
At the time, this was naturally highly controversial, with Democrats and Republicans alike being split. Eventually, Lockheed was saved by an outside investor, before being merged with Martin Marietta in 1995.
Lockheed L-1011 TriStar
Today, there is only one active TriStar, nicknamed Stargazer, operated by Northrop Grumman as a launchbed for their newest rocket systems. The last commercial TriStar flight was conducted in January 2019.
As of the time of writing, there are only three non-military L-1011s that are still airworthy. Of the nine RAF TriStars, only six are currently airworthy, with the other three having been scrapped.
Two of the three non-military Lockheed L-1011s, are mostly used for heritage flights at museums. The other non-military L-1011 is used by Air Transat as an emergency trainer aircraft for their pilots.
As of the time of writing five L-1011s are in museums across the world, mostly in the Middle East and the Caribbean. One L-1011 is in the Delta Heritage Museum in Atlanta, Georgia, alongside other Delta aircraft.
There is one L-1011 currently serving as a gate guardian in Saudi Arabia. This aircraft was previously operated by Saudia and stands in front of the Saudi Arabian Air Force Museum in Riyadh, still in its Saudia livery.
Interestingly, two L-1011s, one in Kinshasa and the other in Bangkok, now serve as restaurants. Instead of serving poor-quality meals at 30,000 ft, they are now serving luxury meals at ground level!
The fuselage of another L-1011, which was previously operated by Royal Jordanian, is currently a tourist dive site at the Underwater Military Museum Dive Site in Aqaba, Jordan.
Future Aircraft
Despite its tech being too advanced for its time, Lockheed didn’t put it on a shelf to collect dust. Instead, they put it to good use on their other projects for the military, in particular, the F-22 and F-35.
Many of the systems pioneered on the Lockheed L-1011 have been slowly introduced on subsequent Lockheed aircraft. Of those that haven’t, mostly the self-landing technology, much of it has been redesigned.
A lot of Lockheed’s, and subsequently Lockheed Martin’s, modern aircraft have some limited self-landing capabilities. The systems that allow it to do so are based off the self-landing technology present on the L-1011.
Today’s jets, regardless of manufacturer, have highly advanced autopilot systems. A lot of the technology that made the L-1011’s autopilot so good has been improved upon and put in most airliners produced to date.
Due in part to the relatively high costs of trijets, once ETOPs laws were put in place during the 1980’s, no new trijets were designed. This laid the groundwork for long-range twinjets such as the 777 and 787.
The L-1011 was also extremely expensive to operate. As such, many airlines who operated them struggled with financial stability. Most future aircraft have since been very economical twinjets, with low operating costs!
Did you ever fly on the Lockheed L-1011? What was it like? Tell me in the comments!
Featured image courtesy of Steve Lynes via Flickr.