El declive de los aviones trirreactores

Описание: The incredible rise and fall of tri‑jets: how three‑engine aircraft like the Boeing 727, McDonnell Douglas DC‑10 and Lockheed L‑1011 Tristar dominated the skies and then vanished in a few decades — uncover the engineering marvels, regulatory shifts like ETOPS, dramatic accidents, maintenance challenges and technological leaps that made three engines essential in the 1960s and 70s, then obsolete by the 1990s, and discover why these sleek, powerful aircraft with tail‑mounted third engines are now relics of an era when innovation dared to redesign flight A journey through aviation history reveals how in the late 1960s, commercial airlines faced ETOPS restrictions limiting twin‑engine planes to 60 minutes from an alternate airport, driving demand for multi‑engine designs; the Boeing 727’s three engines—two rear fuselage and one in the tail—were a perfect fit for short and high‑altitude runways, selling over 1 800 units and setting a new standard for domestic commuter aircraft; meanwhile, American Airlines’ push for a smaller but long‑range plane triggered the development of the DC‑10 and L‑1011 Tristar in the early 1970s, both designed to cross oceans with three engines that struck a balance between the inefficiency of four engines and the limitations of two, enabling wide‑ranging routes across the Atlantic, Pacific and polar regions with lower fuel consumption and novel onboard avionics; the L‑1011 boasted advanced auto‑land systems and was hailed as the Rolls‑Royce of the skies, while the DC‑10 earned praise for its adaptability from domestic to intercontinental service; however, as jet engine reliability skyrocketed in the 1980s, regulators extended ETOPS to 120 minutes in 1985 and to 180 minutes by 1988—allowing twin‑engine aircraft like the Boeing 767 and Airbus A310 to fly routes once reserved for tri‑jets, offering significant savings in fuel, maintenance and complexity; a crucial turning point came when the FAA eventually approved ETOPS durations of up to 370 minutes, effectively neutralizing the tri‑jet advantage; additional factors sealed their fate: tail‑mounted third engines required complex S‑ducts in the L‑1011 or direct intakes in the DC‑10, both increasing weight, cost and maintenance difficulty, and engine replacements—situated ten meters above ground—could take days compared to wing engines; safety incidents like American Airlines Flight 191 in 1979, where a DC‑10 lost an engine during takeoff causing 273 fatalities, spotlighted the vulnerabilities inherent in the complex design, even though design flaws weren’t solely to blame; public perception shifted away from “more engines equals more safety” as modern twins like the Boeing 777 demonstrated reliability with over 100 000 flight hours without failure, making simultaneous dual‑engine failure statistically negligible, akin to winning the lottery and being struck by lightning simultaneously; with airlines under pressure to lower operational costs in the 1990s, tri‑jets began disappearing from passenger fleets; McDonnell Douglas responded with the MD‑11, an upgraded DC‑10 variant, but with ETOPS dominance and changing airline strategies, only around 200 units were built; major carriers like British Airways and Singapore Airlines transitioned to efficient twins like the 767, 777 and Airbus A330, and even cargo giant FedEx phased out tri‑jets, calling the MD‑11 “strong but not economically viable”; passenger tri‑jets were effectively phased out by 2014 when KLM operated the last commercial MD‑11 flight; today only a handful remain in cargo service, firefighting roles or as testbeds, most parked in desert storage facilities such as the Mojave Air and Space Port, where weather‑worn DC‑10s and L‑1011s stand as silent icons of a bold era; pilots remember the L‑1011 as the smoothest aircraft they ever flew—an experience modern planes lack despite greater efficiency—underscoring the emotional bond between human crews and their machines; tri‑jets had a fleeting forty‑year reign yet left an enduring legacy about how aviation adapts to safety, technology and economic shifts; they teach that today’s cutting‑edge solution can become tomorrow’s obsolete relic, and although the return of tri‑jets is extremely unlikely given the advances in two‑engine reliability and power—engine models like the GE9X now deliver more thrust than all three engines of a DC‑10 combined—spotting any aircraft with a rear‑mounted third engine remains a nostalgic window into an age when engineers dared to reimagine air