L-1011

[Spooky 2]

Not the 'aft pressure bulkhead' but the main floor support beams were too weak. Most notable early accident involved a European charter airline (I believe it was Spanair); a lower cargo door came open (or came off), the resulting loss of pressurization sucked the main floor down, causing it to give way, and the a/c broke up inflight. I believe this was the accident that revealed the flaw in the construction the the a/c and resulted in the fix, but there may have been other incidents/accidents.

As I remember, that was the history, but I guess someone will correct me if I am wrong.

DA

Turkish DC10 that had departed Paris. Rear bulk bin door seperated from the aircraft because it was closed improperly, thus causing the decompression and subsequent floor beam failure.

 

[PlaneDrvr]

Turkish DC10 that had departed Paris. Rear bulk bin door seperated from the aircraft because it was closed improperly, thus causing the decompression and subsequent floor beam failure.

I remember now, you are correct, it was a Turkish DC-10, thanks for the correction on that part. I think I got everything else right, so at least I was close.

DA

 

[HA25]

there there was an identical situation to the Souix City crash of the UAL DC-10 back in 1972 where the rear floor gave and severed all 3 main hydraulics.. but they used the 3-engines to control the a/c and brought it in to land safely. The captain's name I recall was Bryce McCormic. That one wrote the book for engine power as a control and gave the UAL guys something to work with, even though they didn't have the benefit of a #2 engine.

 

[Spooky 2]

there there was an identical situation to the Souix City crash of the UAL DC-10 back in 1972 where the rear floor gave and severed all 3 main hydraulics.. but they used the 3-engines to control the a/c and brought it in to land safely. The captain's name I recall was Bryce McCormic. That one wrote the book for engine power as a control and gave the UAL guys something to work with, even though they didn't have the benefit of a #2 engine.

An outcome of the Turkish DC10 crash was a total re-evaluation of the decompression characteristics of all widebody aircraft of that time including the DC10, L1011 and B747. I think there was an AD that required significant structural changes in the floor designs on each of these aircraft albeit the DC10 to the brunt of this issue.

 

[Spooky 2]

I'd say that any airplane that could do a CAT III autoland with an engine out in 1972 is pretty dammed awesome in my book. My uncle flew it for the last 10 years of his career at Eastern in the 70's. He said it was only second to the Connie in his book. Of course he had a love for anything Lockheed, he was a P-38 driver in the war.

I would imagine if it wasn't for the RB211 basically bankrupting RR, and causing delays, the L-1011 would have had much more of a succesfull career.

It's interesting that most L1011's were delivered with anolog autopilots, but a few at the end of the line, most notibly the -500 came with the new fangled digital autopilot which was not certified for EO autolands. Go figure. Some -500 had the anolog AP while others had the digital ones. Made for interesting below landing miniums takeoff alternate selections.

 

[Sonic Cruzer]

There was a spoiler design system that allowed the aircraft to stay on the glideslope without having to pitch the aircraft's nose up/down.

Sounds like a 777.

 

[GogglesPisano]

there there was an identical situation to the Souix City crash of the UAL DC-10 back in 1972 where the rear floor gave and severed all 3 main hydraulics.. .

This accident had nothing to do with cargo doors. The #2 engine fan blew and severed the hydraulics.

 

[Spooky 2]

This accident had nothing to do with cargo doors. The #2 engine fan blew and severed the hydraulics.

Goggles, I think he was referring to another incident that occured prior to the SF UAL DC10 accident. I seem to recall it happening but can't remember the details.

 

[GogglesPisano]

Goggles, I think he was referring to another incident that occured prior to the SF UAL DC10 accident. I seem to recall it happening but can't remember the details.

Sorry V70T5, I read your post too quickly. There was an AA DC10 incident over Windsor in 1972. The cargo door, in fact, failed, and took out the hydraulics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_96

(imagine, a DC10 on a 'commuter' flight from DTW to BUF.)

 

[FearlessFreep]

When it was first being launched he L1011 nearly killed Rolls Royce & Lockheed. I remember seeing magazine covers & articles covering the event.

I have never flown the aircraft, but have talked to a number of people that have.

DLC - stands for "Direct Lift Control", from my understanding this would raise the spoilers to keep you on the glideslope without changing your pitch angle. Talking to some people I seem to remember some of then saying that it would land with a very high nose angle.

I did fly a Delta L1011 sim, the 1011 has an interesting trim switch in the yoke, basically it is a little trim wheel that you can select whatever trim you want. Pretty nice idea. I do remember seeing some indications of the DLC operation, but I cannot remember specifically what it was.

A maintenance person that I talked to said that one of the reasons that the L1011 is not in widespread use is that maintenance is very difficult because it is modularized - meaning that there are specific electronic chassis that need to be pulled and replaced from that aircraft. As such each chassis requires specific and specialized maintenance equipment to be overhauled. This was supposedly a holdover from many of the military aircraft that Lockheed had built and this design concept did not work well for smaller operators and I am sure that all the testing & maintenance equipment would be disappearing at this point in time.

 

[rjacobs]

My dad flew them at TWA for 4 or 5 years and he said that was the best airplane he flew in his 30+years of airlines service. He said it was so comfortable it was like flying a lazy boy. Cat 3 Autoland was awesome on it, he said when it would land, the only way you knew you were on the ground was the spoilers would fully open and the nose would drop through the horizon on the AI. It could also be evac'd quickly as TWA found out when one caught fire on the ground in JFK-3 mins(I think was the number, may have been shorter) for a full boat with nobody getting hurt at all, thats pretty impressive. The only thing he didnt like was having to go out the roof on a cable if you had to evac out of the cockpit. Nothing like the sound of 3 RB211's at full power on takeoff, thats something I still remember about riding in them(and the fact that there were like 12 or 13 lavs that wrapped around the back of the plane, not sure why I remember that).

 

[727gm]

Those AIA freighters sure were a sweet J/S ride to Honolulu, what with bunks, catering, and all. They may have kept flying if engine SB's(wink,wink) were treated like AD's.

 

[CopilotDoug]

Did FedEx develop the conversion for the MD-10? Is that just a modernized cockpit for 2 man crew?

 

[scottdonley]

Love the L10, I miss flying on it with TWA. I heard stories that the pilot's would try to land it better than the auto-land and would only do it 1 out of 10 times. It was cool looking coming into land.

 

[AV80R]

“He said it was a big piece of $h!t.”

Every pilot I’d talked who used to fly it (Delta & ATA) absolutely loved it. They all said the aircraft was years ahead of the competition.

“United and AAL were suppose to be L-1011 customers, but backed out and bought DC-10 when Lockheed could not deliver airplanes on time.”

Wow,
It sounds familiar doesn’t it? Is Airbus the “new” Lockheed?

…there was an identical situation to the SouixCity crash of the UAL DC-10…The captain's name I recall was Bryce McCormic…

The captain in the Sioux City DC10 crash was Capt. Al Haynes. He asked his dead-heading crew member (dc10 check airman) to control the aircraft by using differential power. I met Al Haynes many years ago during one of his “seminars” - amazing story.

 

[Publishers]

A couple of things,
1. Far fewer of them in the first place,
2. Maintenance cost was not good--ask Eastern Airlines
3. They were probably more comparible to the -10 and you do not see them being converted. -30 is range over weight-- the thing that makes a freigher.
4. The only thing that they had going for them was volume.

 

[fartknocker]

Did FedEx develop the conversion for the MD-10? Is that just a modernized cockpit for 2 man crew?

I'm not sure if FedEx or Boeing developed the conversion. The link below makes it soud like Boeing offers the conversion.

The MD-10 cockpit conversion involves fitting DC-10s (both current freighters and "new" ex airliner freighter conversions) with a two crew Honeywell VIA 2000 EFIS flightdeck with six LCD screens. The instrument panel layout is identical to that in the MD-11, and pilots can be qualified to fly the two interchangeably.

http://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/aero_02/textonly/ps02txt.html

 

[Tomct]

Had the PRIVILEDGE of riding the jump seat right behind the Capt. on a Delta flight! What an AMAZING airplane! Talk about FAST! Wish that I could have flown that BAD BOY!

 

[Irishav8r]

I dont think there was ever a factory built cargo L-1011 but I know that there was at least one converted L-10. The old American International Airways flew one (maybe more?) and it was bought by Kitty Hawk.

FYI
N311EA was the first L-1011F. It was an original Eastern aircraft. Cargo door installed in Mojave, CA in the 1989-1990 timeframe and was used by Tradewinds Airlines until a couple of years ago. The company that installed the cargo door went out of business (Owners of the STC) and therefore could not be overhauled(From my understanding). Kalitta(American International) had a few BA acft with a different door (A little smaller) All were conversions, none were built by Lockheed.

 

[Irishav8r]

The 1011 came to the market first and was successful, however, not having another engine selection would soon prove to be it's downfall.
As the 1011 enjoyed time in service with the airlines McDonnell Douglas pushed its DC-10 thru the certification process. Considering the huge political clout California weilded ( and did) they helped speed up the process and forced the DC-10 to market prematurely. There were several DC-10 accidents world wide and caused the fleet to be grounded. The defects were found ( had to do with aft pressure bulkhead I believe) and fixed and the 10 came to the market. Timing is everything as is a little help from your friends.

L-1011's were built in Palmdale, Ca.

 

[hkgorbust]

American Int'l Airways (Later became Kitty Hawk Int'l) operated six ex BA tri-tanics. All were converted by Marshall Aerospace in Cambridge, UK. The RAF also had some (? number) converted as well for cargo and possibly tanker ops.
Those (AIA/KHI) airplanes had an uncommon variant of the RB211, of which spares were not readily available. A more common engine could be installed with significant performance penalties, which was an unattractive option.
As it turned out, KH management had other plans for KHI, which didn't include any of the airplanes or the employees.

 

[belchfire]

I have been around some L-1011 folks and it was a typical Lockheed-a pilot's airplane from what I have gathered.

McD went with Pratt and GE engines. Lockheed committed to the RB-211 which was late on certification (putting the whole aircraft behind the DC-10 on deliveries). Further it was cutting edge for the day. Those systems were one offs on an aircraft that didn't meet production projections so spares are a problem. It can be maintenence intensive and unless you are a real systems technician troubleshooting is a problem...leading to excessive down time. The RB-211 has become a fine engine over time but like the aircraft it was cutting edge and failed to live up to early expectations.

Lockheed made the mistake of treating it's airline customers like a military contract IMHO. Give us some time and more money and we'll get the bugs out...

I've met two types. People that understood it and loved it and people that didn't understand it and thought it was only okay.

With regards to the comments about the DC-10. The DC-10 was the first McD airliner-Douglas Commercial had their hands tied by old man McDonell himself. There are lots of things that probably wouldn't have happend to DC-10's if the Douglas team had been left alone to do what they had always done so very, very well.

There was a point when the Douglas Commercial team flew out to STL and proposed a large twin-something like a 75 or 76. Old man MacDonell himself said and I quote "Kill it."

 

[CopilotDoug]

And my reference to FedEx pulling DC-10-10s out of the desert was based on a few airliners.net photos showing some ex-Hawaiian planes getting converted to the MD-10s this past summer. But I think FedEx took ownership of those planes a few years back.

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1150573/M/

 

[bocefus]

US Marshal Service just bought an ex Delta L10