One, two, three or four engines? What is your preference? Today, most commercial aircraft are powered by two engines. In the past, you could find many more aircraft with three or four engines. So what happened to the trijet?
Trijets were once very popular, including legendary aircraft such as the Boeing 727, Lockheed L-1011 TriStar, Douglas DC-10 and the Tupolev Tu-154. Time has moved on and they’re pretty much all gone these days.
A Trijet Documentary
After the last video on the Boeing 747-400, this time we have a look at Trijets. Produced by Airliner Designs on YouTube (a sister channel to the extremely well produced Oceanliner Designs – if you’re into ocean liners, I recommend you check it out!) this documentary runs for just under 50 minutes.
Happily the production covers history all the way back to the 1920s. It outlines how and why aircraft with three engines came about in the first place. It then moves on to the story of why jets ended up with three engines.
Apart from the types mentioned above, the iconic Hawker Siddeley Trident is included, as well as the McDonnell Douglas MD-11. Everything is clearly narrated and the history is accurate based on what I know.
My only quibble with the documentary are a couple of the video clip choices. Certain pieces of footage are not the trijets at all, but it’s rare and only pure aviation geeks will notice that.
Overall Thoughts
Environmental considerations, efficiency and the fact engine tech has moved on means we probably won’t see a new trijet ever again. However, they certainly were important to the history of commercial aviation.
In my case, I’ve flown on board the Boeing 727, Douglas DC-10 and the McDonnell Douglas MD-11. Sadly, I never had the opportunity to fly on board a Lockheed TriStar. That would have been fun!
Did you ever fly on a trijet? Which ones? Do you have a favourite and why? Let me know what you think of the documentary and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.
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Featured image by Jim Newton on Airliners.net via Wikimedia Commons.
