Going way off thread but you are referring to one of my heroes...The instigator if you like of Low Cost Airlines...
He was a very difficult man to work for! An early day version of Michael O'Leary! The difference being one of personality; people liked Freddie whereas most people find M O'L insufferable.
I spent 40 years in the aviation business and to many of us he was something of a hero, particularly when he took on BA and Pan Am with his Skytrain service. $99 return, turn up and fly...
He was of course ultimately destroyed by the big boys and the DC-10 crash when an engine fell off the wing of an American Airlines DC-10. This led to the worldwide grounding of the whole family of DC-10's, engineered in part by Boeing and Boeing aircraft operators. The fact is that the DC-10-30's operated by Laker were a totally different animal from the DC-10-10's that were operated as bus-stop jets by the major American Airlines.
American Airlines had their own unique way of doing an on the wing engine change using a fork lift truck, changing the engine and the pylon at the same time in order to reduce down-time. The area of the wing where the engine pylon was mounted became subject to cracks due to this method of doing engine changes and was further exacerbated by their high number of landings compared with flying hours. Typically an AAL DC-10-10 took off flew for 1 hour landed, took off again for another hour and landed again so the number of landings was approximately the same as the number of hours flown. This is guaranteed to take years off the life of an airframe. Ultimately one crashed when an engine fell off the wing during a landing as I recall and the aircraft burst into flames when the wing fuel tanks were ruptured as a result of the cracks caused by AAL's engineering methods and the high number of landings.
Laker's DC-10-30's were designed from the outset as long haul aircraft; aircraft take off, flies for 7-8 hours and lands hence a stress reduction factor 800%. Nevertheless the NTSB and FAA grounded all variants for just long enough to put Laker out of business...
Unfortunately Laker had selected American Airlines as his USA servicing and maintenance company and so when AAL fell foul of the NTSB / FAA because of their somewhat cavalier approach to servicing Laker was affected whether he wanted to be or not..
Laker abandoned the Uk a result of the UK's support of the NTSB / FAA findings; he continued to operate in the Caribbean for a while still under the Laker Airways flag but kept a very low profile...He died in February 2006 a great loss.
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