A Lost L-1011 Right Here In Atlanta!

L-1011 Parked in a Field at Lockheed Martin in Atlanta, Google Maps

So yes, the Lockheed L-1011 is my all time favorite aircraft ... as you can probably tell from me having blogged about her for years and my active involvement in reconstructing a L-1011 flight simulator at the National Museum of Commercial Aviation. However, I was always really saddened by the the fact that the great L-1011 who really propelled Delta from a small to a super large international carrier had completely departed the Atlanta area. However, as of today I know that I was wrong.

Click here for a map view.

There had been a rumor that a L-1011 was parked a Lockheed Martin Marietta here in Atlanta some years ago, however, rumor also had it that it had been scrapped and removed. Well, Google Maps now confirms that as of spring 2013 this magnificent old aircraft is still sitting forgotten in a field off to the side on the premise of the Lockheed Martin Marietta / Dobbins Air Reserve Base right here in Atlanta. What a find! I am so glad this aircraft, while in very rare shape, has not been destroyed! And, I have been driving by it every day for the last 10 years without knowing that one of the last remnants of this great machine is sitting hidden by just a line of trees. 

L-1011 Parked in a Field at Lockheed Martin in Atlanta, Google Maps

So now the big challenge starts. How can I get to see this aircraft? Getting permission to access the Lockheed Martin Marietta facility is probably not easy, but certainly worth a shot. If you can help ... please let me know. Also, it would be amazing if we could somehow prevent her from going into the scrapper.

L-1011 Parked in a Field at Lockheed Martin in Atlanta, Google Maps

Update: 

"In the pictures, it looks to be an ex-EAL plane.  I base this on the paint job.    In addition to the fact that it is missing the engines, it appears to also be missing the passenger doors, flaps and slats.  If that is an ex-EAL plane, and IF it might be the ex-N301EA (remember that it was N302EA at delivery) the L-1011 that I flew on, that might be the "door" to help you get access to it.   (You "personally know" a person who was the flight test engineer on the plane.  If  you have a laptop, take it along with you and show the necessary people the photo you have -- 2010/August/History: Lockheed L-1011 Ship 3 (1003)...)   You can verify which plane it is by it's manufacturing serial number - which is/was 1003.   If I remember correctly, the plate that has the serial number was on the forward side of the L-1 entry door (the forward-most entry door on the left side).   It is best to go by the serial number, because the registration number can change many times.  I also did some test work on S/N 1004.  We did a cold-weather test on it in Calgary, Alberta - verifying that the various systems would operate in the cold weather they have." (Don Pierce)

L-1011 CPT Installation: AC Buildout - Power Buses - AC Tie Bus and Flight Station Buses

L-1011 Trainer - AC Tie Bus and AC Flight Station Buses

Slowly but surely the power distribution for the trainer is taking shape. Today we worked on the AC Tie bus and the AC Flight Station Buses. The image below shows the three AC Flight Station Buses. Each bus has a relay that is controlled from a "R" labeled circuit breaker on the CB3 panel. There is also a 120V relay that is for sensing voltage on the flight station bus to communicate to the computer as well as the annunciator on the Electric System panel.

L-1011 Trainer - Flight Station Buses

Another important AC bus component is the AC Tie bus. The tie bus is used to allow all AC sources to work together or to act as fail over for one another. Below is the AC Tie bus in the current build out phase. The bus has the relays for the three engine generators on the left together with one 120V relay used for sensing power on the bus. Eventually relays for External Power (Ground Power) and the APU simulation will be added.

L-1011 Trainer - AC Tie Bus

In additional to the work on the AC buses we also added a few more instruments to the flight engineer's instrument light bus. Below is how far we have gotten in bringing instruments onto the light bus.

L-1011 Trainer - Integral Instrument Lighting -  Continued

L-1011 Trainer - Integral Instrument Lighting - Continued

L-1011 CPT Installation: DC Buildout - Annunciator and Switchlight Dim/Bright Bus

L-1011 CPT - BRT/DIM Light Bus Test

Here is a test of the DIM/BRT Annunciator and Switchlight bus. The switch light used for the test is the IDG Disconnect Switch. The LOW PRESS indication is for the oil-pressure in the IDG. Anyway, annunciator power comes from Circuit Breaker CB3G16 which in turn receives power from the DC Essential Bus. 

L-1011 CPT - BRT/DIM Light Bus Test

L-1011 CPT Installation: AC Buildout - Power Buses

L-1011 Trainer - AC/DC Power System

Started the installation of the AC bus system today. The L-1011 has a number of AC buses and today we started installing the three primary buses: AC Bus 1, AC Bus 2 and AC Bus 3. Each bus has a control relay that turns power to the bus on and off and will be controlled via the Electric System panel on the Second Officer's console. In addition to the control relay each bus also has a relay that turns on when the bus is powered, i use this to "sense" the state of the bus. Below is an image of the 3 primary buses as installed into the simulator power rack.

L-1011 Trainer - AC Bus System

Next will be the installation of the AC Tie bus as well as the DC Power buses. 

L-1011 CPT Installation: DC Buildout - Instrument Lighting Bus

L-1011 Trainer - Instrument Lighting Bus

Most of the L-1011 instrument panels have both backlit light plates that illuminate the panel legend as well as integral lighted instruments. Since the panel background and the instrument can be brightness controlled independently there are a number of lighting buses for various sections of the L-1011 cockpit. Building out the lighting buses for both the instruments as well as the light plates is part of the AC/DC system build out that we are currently doing at the museum.

The image below shows the 5V instrument lighting bus for the F/O console. The other images on the page show a number of instruments connected to the bus for testing purposes.

L-1011 Trainer - Instrument Lighting Bus 

On the actual L-1011 all instrument lighting is done with 5VAC circuits, however, for the simulator I will be using 5VDC. Below is an image of the three engine fuel quantity used indicators that I sowed you a few postings ago. The indicators are now installed into the cockpit and illuminated.

L-1011 Trainer - Instrument Lighting Bus

L-1011 CPT Installation: DC System Buildout

L-1011 Electrical System - DC Volts

Today I started the integration of the power systems with the Electrical System panel of the L-1011. The Electrical System panel is located on the lower Flight Engineer's console (see picture below). The Transformer Rectifier (T/R) units, and the Battery Simulator are now connected to the electrical panel. The image above shows the 24V DC output from T/R number 2. The DC voltage on the actual L-1011 is actually 28V DC, however, 24V DC work just fine all instruments that we have tested so far. 24V DC is a lot easier to obtain.

L-1011 Electrical System Panel - DC Meters

Below is a short video showing the operation of the DC Volts meter from different sources. The video shows an under-voltage on T/R 2 and no power on the ESS DC T/R, the Batter and the Standby DC Bus.

In addition to connecting the DC Volts and DC Amps meters to the T/R units I also installed the simulated T/R Remote Circuit Breakers. The remote circuit breakers are controlled with "R" labeled breakers on the CB3 Circuit Breaker panel. To be exact the circuit breakers are CB3E16, CB3E17 and CB3E18. For the simulator, the circuit breakers control three 24V relays that switch the T/R1, T/R2 and T/R 3 units on.

L-1011 T/R Remote Circuit Breaker Simulation

The image below shows the T/R1, T/R2, T/R3 and BATT units powered on. This would be case with either all three engine generators producing power, or, with the AC Tie Bus powered by either the APU or EXT Power.

L-1011 Trainer - Transformer Rectifier Units

Avionics Bending: AC Frequency and Volts Indicators

L-1011 AC Frequency and Volts Meter

The L-1011 Electrical Panel has two instruments that show the AC Frequency and AC Volts measured on a specific subsystem. The image above shows the frequency (left) and AC volts (right) measured directly from the 400Hz Inverter. The instrument on the left indicates 400Hz and the one on the right indicates 115V AC.

Both instruments on the L-1011 had been made by The Lewis Engineering Company which was later acquired by BFGoodrich and closed down in 2000 as a result of the merger. Here is the pinout information for these instruments:

Frequency Meter 152LCF5B

Pin      Function
1        5V AC Lighting (H)
2        5V AC Lighting (L)
3        Chassis Ground
4        115V 400Hz (H)
5        115V 400Hz (L)

AC Volts 152LCV8

Pin      Function
1        5V AC Lighting (H)
2        5V AC Lighting (L)
3        Chassis Ground
4        PMG DC Input
5        115V 400Hz (H)
6        115V 400Hz (L)

L-1011 CPT Installation - Flight Station Flood Light

L-1011 Trainer - Flight Station Flood Light Installation

Today we installed the flight station flood light into the Lockheed L-1011 trainer at the National Museum of Commercial Aviation. The trainer originally did not have this flood light, therefore, we retrofitted the trainer with a flood light fixture removed from an old TWA L-1011. The image above shows the flood light fixture after Jim mounted it to the the correct location on the aft overhead panel. Below you can see the flood light fixture outlined in red.

L-1011 Trainer - Flight Station Flood Light Installation

L-1011 Flood Light Fixture

Here is what the flood light fixture looks like power off and powered on. The original fixture used fluorescent tubes that output quite a lot of heat. We replaced them with LEDs that are similar in color temperature and intensity.

L-1011 Trainer - Flight Station Flood Light Installation

L-1011 Trainer - Flight Station Flood Light Installation

The fixtures outputs a pretty nice and even light in the cockpit. The flood light is powered by the Ground Service Bus as would normally not be used while in flight.

L-1011 Trainer - Flight Station Flood Light Installation

L-1011 CPT Installation - Annunciator Lighting System

L-1011 BRT/DIM Light Bus Control

All of the Caution, Warning and Advisory annunciators and switchlights on the L-1011 can be switched between two illumination intensity modes. The two modes are BRT (Bright) and DIM. There are two switches for BRT/DIM selection in the cockpit. One switch is located on the overhead panel light controls and switches the pilots annunciators and the second switch is located on the Second Officers light control panel (as seen in the picture above) and controls the light intensity of annunciators on the flight engineer's station.

The BRT/DIM switch is an alternate action latching switch that controls a relay that switches the respective BRT/DIM LGT bus from 24V to 10V ... hence changing the intensity of the illumination. Below is a short video that shows the BRT/DIM logic implemented on the workbench using a SPDT 24VDC relay.

Avionics Bending: Fuel Consumed Indication

L-1011 Fuel Consumption Indication System

The Engine Fuel Consumption indicator in the L-1011 cockpit consists of two instruments. The "Fuel Used" instrument located on the Second Officers lower console and the "Fuel Flow" (FF) instrument located on the main instrument panel. There is one of these instrument combinations for each engine.

The instrument on the right is the Fuel Used indicator which receives signals from the fuel flow meter installed as part of the engine fuel flow system. The signals received from the sensors are then routed through the Fuel Used instrument to the Fuel Flow instrument shown on the left in the image above.

Fuel Used Schematic 

From Lockheed L-1011 WDM, 1981

The Fuel Used Instrument is a GE 8DJ171 LWA 3

Fuel Flow Schematic 

From Lockheed L-1011 WDM, 1981

The Fuel Flow Instrument is a GE 8DJ170 LWA 1

Typically on the L-1011 every instrument has a test switch right on the instrument that drives the indicator to a predefined position. However, as you can see, the Fuel Flow instrument (on the left) does not have a test switch, because, it is tested via the Fuel Used instrument.

Below is a short video the shows the test of the Fuel Used and attached Fuel Flow instrument using the two position test switch on the Fuel Used Instrument

L-1011 CPT Installation - DC Hot Battery Bus

L-1011 Trainer - AC/DC Power Buildout

The last few weeks there had not been overly much to blog about. We continue work on the AC/DC power subsystems for the trainer. In the image above you can see 24V T/R units that will simulate the 3  transformer rectifiers (T/R) that are powered by the aircraft engines as well as the BATTERY simulator. There is only one more T/R unit that is missing and that will be for the DC Essential (ESS) bus.

All the power supplies are convection cooled and the video clip below is a short clip of the fan monsters coming alive.

The hot Battery bus is used for a lot of things on the L-1011; like APU start up and some very basic instrumentation. One good example for the use of the hot battery bus are the clocks in the cockpit. In order to not loose time, these clocks are powered by the hot battery bus on the actual aircraft. To stay as close to the original as possible, we are simulating the aircraft's battery with the 24V 20A power supply pictured below.

L1011 Trainer - Battery System Simulator

This supply forms the battery as well as the hot battery bus and is now driving the Haydon clocks installed in the Simulator. Below is a short video of the clocks running of the central universal time base as well as the 24V Hot Battery bus.

L-1011 Trainer - Clocks on Hot Battery Bus