Lockheed's L-1011 "Tristar"

I was looking through some old slides yesterday and came across the set shown below.

Here is the story behind them:-

Many, many years ago - in May, 1974, to be exact - myself and a good friend of mine happened to be two of a group of aeronautical enthusiasts (he belonged to the Aviation Historical Society of Australia and I was an invitee) who were invited to enjoy a demonstration flight in the All Nippon Airways (ANA) Lockheed L-1011 "Tristar" which was on its delivery flight to Japan.

Lockheed, with the co-operation of ANA, had arranged for the aircraft to be demonstrated to airline representatives from Ansett, TAA and QANTAS....and also the RAAF, as I learned many years later.

We boarded at Sydney's Kingsford Smith airport - adjacent the QANTAS 747 hangar, if memory serves -  on a beautiful morning.

After takeoff (to the south), the flight turned northwards over Wollongong  and then headed north along the coast and turned south somewhere near Gosford.

One of the shots below was taken within the cockpit; I was looking at the throttles and trying to get the pilot's hands into the frame.

The reason for that was that the aircraft was landing itself.

The L-1011 was coming down the approach path, the pilot's hand off the controls (throttles and yokes) and the pilot did not place his hands back on the controls until the aircraft was running along the tarmac.

Amazing technology back then.

This feature was one of the standouts used by Lockheed to promote the aircraft.

No Australian airline bought the Tristar.

It is said that QANTAS held an option but it died when Lockheed cancelled production.

Airlines by that time were being lured by the twin fan-jets being promoted by Airbus and Boeing and the tri-jets - Lockheed's L-1011 and McDonnell Douglas's MD-11 (nee DC-10) - were too expensive to buy and operate.

The following photos were taken with my Praktica 35mm camera and are digitised from the slides.

They will enlarge a bit more when clicked.

 

 

 

 

 

When we left the aircraft on returning to Kingsford Smith, each passenger was handed a memento of the flight, a polyester-resin dome with a Tristar flying over Australia.
I still have mine (slightly chipped on the edge).............

 

Whatever happened to the ANA demo aircraft (Registration JA-8506), I hear you you ask?

Well, it served with ANA until February 1985, when it went to Boeing, of all places!

There it stayed until March 1985....so I would think it was undergoing a "between operators" service.

That month, as N762BE, it commenced operations with Hawaiian Airlines, where it stayed until February 1995, when it came under the ownership of someone or something called "Rich AW Ltd.".

In February 1999 it went to Orient Thai Airlines and in 2002 was in storage at Roswell, New Mexico.

Incidentally, anecdotal evidence shows that pilots who flew the L-1011 during its life with major carriers just loved it....so it must have had a lot going for it.

I think it would have looked great in QANTAS, TAA or Ansett livery.

UPDATE: 1/10/2018
Here are some links to Ron Cuskelly's excellent "The Lockheed File" website.

The site contains an enormous amount of reference material relating to Lockheed aircraft registered in Australia and, in addition, to aircraft with an Australian connection, under the heading "Oddities".

Scroll down to Tristar Australian Demonstration Tour on that page for the start of the L-1011 section, with photos.....including "what ifs" for QANTAS, Trans-Australia Airlines (TAA) and Ansett Airlines.