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The Lockheed L-1011 Tristar

Lockheed Tristar.jpg

Essentially a return to Civil Aviation for Lockheed since the Constellation IIRC, and made back it's Development Cost by ~1983.

The question I have is: What would have happened had the Tristar - a plane that had to, and actually did, live up to its Promise of being able to Land Itself - Failed Commercially? What would've filled the resultant gap made for mid-sized Widebody's? DC-10 despite it's safety record? Hawker-Siddeley Trident? Something - or even anything - else?

And what of Lockheed itself, had it been forced to nurse a wound like that?
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