Lockheed L-1011 TriStar N700TS Landing and Taxiing at MKC 01-30-2010

Final flight and landing of this graceful lady which was saved from being scrapped at the Roswell International Air Center in New Mexico by the Airline History Museum in Kansas City, Missouri. She is now a part of the museum's collection and will be open for tours in a few months. My apologies for parts of the video being shaky. I had to stand on a car bumper to clear the top of the fence, and it didn't make for a stable platform. It didn't help that those powerful Rolls Royce engines were shaking the ground a bit, either, but I'm not complaining. :)

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Lockheed
• L-1011
• TriStar
• N700TS

[KLEBRUN]

· @hoof2001 From what I understand, the Airline History Museum of KC has limited funds. If I am correct, a lot of their funding comes from donations. The people that work on their planes volunteer their expertise and time. Someone told me that they had paid over $100,000 for the aircraft and the owner wanted an additional $40,000 for the engines. They tried a donation drive to buy the engines, but weren't able to come up with the money before the deadline the owner of the engines set. (cont)

[KLEBRUN]

· @hoof2001 From the AHM website "Unknown to many, the engines were never part of the deal. We got the L-1011 for the price we did with the condition we could have the plane flown from Roswell to Kansas City but the the engines would not belong to us and would then be removed. When there was great interest in "saving" the engines it was thought we could necogiate those terms but the engines owner was not willing to sell them to us (they were sold to a third party). (cont)

[KLEBRUN]

· @hoof2001 "Even though we never intended to fly it again, we do want the plane to look intact, so it was very disappointing when the replacement engines we were to receive also went elsewhere. There is a crew here several times a week working to get a viable way for the L-1011 to be open for tours and they will also undoubtedly be part of whatever solution we find to get the plane looking whole again."

I agree, it would have been nice if they could have kept them.

[WhiteBoyx5]

We still have these in the UK in RAF Service, They are Based at RAF BRIZE NORTON here in the UK only a few Miles from RAF Fairford which host USAF Aircraft on a Tempory Deployment Basis. So here you can still seem em flying.

Type in RAF TRISTAR on the Search to find them. Good Luck all

[KLEBRUN]

@WhiteBoyx5 There's some great videos under your search term. Thanks for the info.

[tchapman1977]

Is this graceful lady a -100, -200, or -500 variant?

[KLEBRUN]

@tchapman1977-- From what I've found out, she is a Lockheed L-1011-385-1 TriStar 50. She was delivered to TWA in April 1974 as N31019. If you google N31019 and N700TS, there are pictures of her in her TWA livery as well as her recent history. Unfortunately, the engines were scrapped.

[505stealth]

@neruni  titanium$....mucho bucks

[neruni]

The Tristar was the most gracious bird in the air.

[hoof2001]

@KLEBRUN Why did they scrap the engines? If preserving the aircraft, then the engines are a part of that aren't they?