BEA Tristar a Glasgow 1972

Eastern Airlines N305EA. Used as a demonstrator and was painted in Court Line colours prior to attending Farnborough 1972, where it wore the BEA titles in the photo.

I saw it in Court Line titles at Luton and I think, at the time, it was the largest aircraft ever to fly into the airport.

Correct Filton Flyer 17 sep 1972.

Lovely to see that photo, I have a similar one taken from the terminal just below that position. I believe it flew in to show that Glasgow could now take larger airliners after a runway extension. The date I have is 17th September 1972, which was after the Farnborough Show. I remember seeing it flying over the house, then rushing to the airport to see it on the ground.

My dad was the airport plumber and had access to the whole airport and back then he could take me around with him . i was still at school back then but when if left i worked for servisair then British Caledonian and then British Airways.

As it happens, there are several very nice slides of this aircraft at Farnborough for auction on ebay at the moment: http://tinyurl.com/7p8bwsv

It was BEA both sides and only temporary so perhaps BEA themselves put the logo on for the show and you saw it before that.

Just a single photo taken from the roof of Glasgow Airport.
scanned print.
Hugh McMillan’s Photographs
http://www.flickr.com/photos/75122977@N05/

Nice picture. How did you manage to get on the roof Hugh? I seem to recall about that time there was a restaurant which was high up that looked out on the apron but it was further along if I remember right.
OG

And here is the other side, in Eastern livery, spotted at Gatwick on August 17 1972.

(Edit)…err, hang on, it’s the same side. D’ohhh..can anyone throw light on it?

I think it was BEA both sides on the Eastern livery.

The logo being low to make it visible the whole time makes sense.

A similar treatment was done for Court Line.

Well, almost…

Actually that’s Lockheed’s demonstrator, probably on it’s way to Farnborough. I think it had Eastern titles on the other side. Uniquely the BEA logo was below the windows – presumably so that it was easily visible during display flying. BEA would have been one of the launch customers, but delays to production meant that the merger with BOAC had happened before any Tristars were delivered.