Lockheed TriStar: The Most Technologically Advanced Commercial Jet of Its Time

by Graham Simons

In April 1972, after six gruelling years of design and development, the then Lockheed California Company (now Lockheed Martin) delivered the most technologically advanced commercial jet of its era, the L-1011 TriStar, to its first client, Eastern Airlines.To mark the moment, Lockheed decided to make an impressive statement about the capabilities of its new medium-to-long-range, wide-body trijet airliner. It did so in spectacular fashion. Overseen by two test pilots, a total of 115 crew members, VIPs, Lockheed employees, and selected reporters boarded a TriStar at Lockheed’s Palmdale plant in California. The subsequent 4-hour, 13-minute flight to Washington Dulles Airport was achieved with virtually no input from the two pilots in the cockpit, the TriStar’s Automatic Flight Control System being ‘engaged from takeoff roll to landing’. It was, Lockheed proudly claimed, ‘the first cross-country flight without the need for human hands on the controls’.As Lockheed themselves note, in a similar fashion to other iconic passenger airliners before it, the L-1011 had faced daunting challenges on the way to its inaugural flight. Divergent needs from competing airlines led to design challenges. Financial difficulties ravaged its engine’s manufacturer, Rolls-Royce, whilst a recession, fuelled by the world’s first oil crisis, lessened the demand for commercial airliners.Lockheed, though, battled through these challenges, which even included international allegations of bribery, with the result that the TriStar, famed for its large, curved nose, low-set wings, and graceful swept tail, remained in production until 1984, by when 250 examples had been built. The toll on Lockheed, however, was too great and after the TriStar it withdrew from the commercial aircraft business.In this revealing insight into the L-1011, the renowned aviation historian Graham M. Simons reveals the full story of this airliner’s design, development and service over the decades since 1970.

321 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 30, 2021

Reviews

[Daniel · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book suffers from sloppy editing; there are just too many typos, missing words and grammatical errors, it is really annoying. Unfortunately this work is a rushed job, not up to par with the author's previous books, such as Boeing 707 Group: A History and Lockheed Constellation: A History. The research offers good coverage of the story of this technological marvel of its day. This technological leadership was not sufficient to achieve a commanding commercial success and the author describes how and why it happened; financial woes at both Lockheed and Rolls Royce marred the development years of the plane and cut into its sales potential. A very similar situation occured when Bombardier was forced to sell its C series to Airbus and the plane has since become a viable product line as the Airbus 220. This just shows that technological advances are not sufficient to garner sales.

I still remember the summer of '73 when I was in proximity to the Montreal airport watching with interest with friends at the newly arrived Air Canada Tristars taking off and landing. Pilots were undergoing type certification training (Simulator training was more limited in those days). We were amazed at the lower level of noise of this plane in comparison with first generation jets. It was smokeless and the amount of power available was obvious judging at take off distances. I rode on the type several times with Air Canada, Air Portugal, Delta, charter operators...it was always very smooth, comfortable and because of its advanced technology it could land in no visibility conditions. Because the plane was not a huge commercial success the manufacturer decided to focus on its military products. So after McDonald Douglas was taken over by Boeing, there remained only one major civil airliner manufacturer left in the USA. Boeing and Airbus have since become a duopoly: the era of multiple airliner models undergoing development from several manufacturers at the same time is a thing of the past.