History: Early Lineup N1011, N3001 and N301EA

Pictured is a line-up of the first three L-1011s produced. The picture is a Lockheed press image from Don's archive but was not dated. I would assume that it was taken in either 1971 or 72? The image was taken at Lockheed's Palmdale facility in California and it shows, from front to back, N1011, N3001 painted in TWA colors and N301EA painted in Eastern Air Lines colors. N1011, the one in the very front of the picture ended up becoming a movie prop for Disney before it was scrapped. At least portions of the cabin and the cockpit section of N1011 got rescued and are now on display as a cut-off at the Delta Air Transport Heritage Museum in Atlanta. Delta re-painted the prototype aircraft to Delta colors. I am still amazed that Lockheed did not preserve the iconic N1011 as a museums item, but I guess after Lockheed pulled out of the commercial market holding on to the commercial aircraft legacy was not that important. 

Cockpit Design Study: L-1011 Center Console and Throttle Quadrant

Here are more detail pictures of the Lockheed L-1011 owned by the Delta Air Transport Heritage Museum. This is a closer look at the center console and the throttle quadrant that has a number of critical aircraft controls such as:

Speed Brakes
Pitch Trim
Engine Thrust Levers
Engine Reverse Thrust Levers
Flaps

and a number of others such as the roll and pitch (not pictured) disconnects and the parking break (not pictured either).





Just aft of the throttle quadrant is the center electronics bay. The Lockheed L-1011 cockpit at the museum as a few simulated heads in it, but it has the original ROLL an YAW trim controls.

Field Trip: Delta Air Transportation Heritage Museum L-1011

Today, I took a trip to the Delta Air Transport Heritage Museum in Atlanta. The museum has a Lockheed L-1011 fuselage section and cockpit on display (this is all that remains of the L-1011 prototype N1011). Here is how the museum describes the L-1011 exhibit: "Hangar 1 houses a modified Lockheed L-1011 that was bought from the Walt Disney Corporation and cut down to just the cockpit and first class cabin. This particular L-1011 was the first L-1011 manufactured by Lockheed. The cockpit is fully lit with all controls still movable. The cabin is a museum store where Delta memorabilia can be purchased."



All the pictures are panorama images stitched together from a number of shots, so if you see something a little "odd", it's because of the way the software put the image together.



The right hand side seat has a normal seat cushion on it, somewhat atypical for a pilot seat, but not bad for it being on static display.



The friendly museum staff allowed me to take as many pictures and cockpit measurements as I wanted to. Thank you!