Stansted 17-1-2017, the old Tristar and a few others

[andygolfer]

A nice bright afternoon enticed me to Stansted today but it was awfully quiet. I spent most of the time walking round the north side perimeter fence to get some pics of the old Tristar which is still occasionally used for tug towing practice, it's looking very sorry for itself now unfortunately. It was very quiet on the biz front so not much to take pics of I'm afraid. Here are a few of them though.

starting with the Tristar which arrived in 1998 as G-CEAP and was registered G-IOIT for Classic Airways, this one never flew for them but was retained for tug towing training while their other Tristar met a sad end at the hands of the scrap man.I looks a very poor shadow of it's former self now...

G-IOIT (ex. G-CEAP) L.1011 Tristar, Stansted 17-01-2017 1385 by Andrew Goldsmith, on Flickr

G-IOIT (ex. G-CEAP) L.1011 Tristar, Stansted 17-01-2017 1404 mono by Andrew Goldsmith, on Flickr

G-IOIT (ex. G-CEAP) L.1011 Tristar, Stansted 17-01-2017 5929 by Andrew Goldsmith, on Flickr

G-IOIT (ex. G-CEAP) L.1011 Tristar, Stansted 17-01-2017 5935 by Andrew Goldsmith, on Flickr

a couple of B.777 N777AS
N777AS B.777, Stansted 17-01-2017 1358 by Andrew Goldsmith, on Flickr

N777AS B.777, Stansted 17-01-2017 1349 by Andrew Goldsmith, on Flickr

some more from the north side
VP-CPA B.737 BBJ, Stansted 17-01-2017 1435 by Andrew Goldsmith, on Flickr

VP-CPA B.737 BBJ, Stansted 17-01-2017 1347 by Andrew Goldsmith, on Flickr

G-POWD B.737 Titan, Stansted 17-01-2017 5914 by Andrew Goldsmith, on Flickr

one arrival:
G-HARA S.76, Stansted 17-01-2017 5959 by Andrew Goldsmith, on Flickr

and another as the sun went down, if this had arrived 5 minutes earlier the sky would have looked much better, I was willing it to speed up!:
B.737 Ryanair at sunset, Stansted 17-01-2017 5981 by Andrew Goldsmith, on Flickr

hope you like them C&C welcome

Andy

[PorkScratching]

Your efforts have paid off again Andy - those shots are a great record of the old TriStar, and in lovely light too. Looking at the tyres I don't think it's been tugged about for quite a while. At the last "Spotters Saturday" the Aerozone lady said it was probably going to be scrapped soon and she hopes to get the nosecone for display, and any other bits that are still in reasonable condition.

[andygolfer]

Your efforts have paid off again Andy - those shots are a great record of the old TriStar, and in lovely light too. Looking at the tyres I don't think it's been tugged about for quite a while. At the last "Spotters Saturday" the Aerozone lady said it was probably going to be scrapped soon and she hopes to get the nosecone for display, and any other bits that are still in reasonable condition.

Thanks Nick, I hadn't noticed the tyres, a couple look totally flat when I zoom in on the original and others pretty deflated (a bit like ipswich fans this morning!). Even Kwik Fit would struggle to sort that out in less than a couple of hours.

for those that don't know (and are interested) here's a brief history of it's working life:
I't a Tristar 50 and it started life as G-BEAL with British Airways and then British Airtours and Caledonian, in 1994 it became SE-DPM with air Ops before returning to the British register as G-CEAP with International Airways in 1996 (it went back to Caledonian for a while in 1997 and was sold to classic Airways as G-IOIT in 1998, delivered to Stansted in April 1998 but never operated by them.

I flew on a couple of British Airtours Tristars so will have to look back to see if this was one of them if I have the records still.

HTH
Andy

[Mike]

Nice set Andy, I've always been fond of Tristars but have only flown in a couple of Delta examples from Gatwick to Atlanta and back. That one looks so sad and really needs to be put out of it's misery.

[andygolfer]

Nice set Andy, I've always been fond of Tristars but have only flown in a couple of Delta examples from Gatwick to Atlanta and back. That one looks so sad and really needs to be put out of it's misery.

It does look sad but in a way I hope it lasts a while. If the ex RAF ones at Brunty DO go to the States this would be the only one left in the UK albeit in crap condition. Would be better if one of the Brunty ones were preserved though.

[andygolfer]

this afternoon I went through some of my old photo prints and found this one of G-CEAP / G-IOIT in it's original identity as G-BEAL of British Airways which I took at Heathrow around 1980 (I don't know the exact date). It looked slightly smarter then!

British Airways Tristar G-BEAL LHR c.1980 by Andrew Goldsmith, on Flickr

andy

[PorkScratching]

Lovely shot Andy, the TriStar looks great, and I always like that SAA livery. I'd say it was taken around 1984/5 - T4 is looking substantially complete and it opened in 1986.