Past or present Lockheed employee?

[neverenoughtools]

I have a throttle quadrant from an L1011 which I am restoring, and need a little help - which I hope the great and the good of PofA may give me!

The dust seals between the levers appear to have been made from the major part of an industrial or garage door seal profile. It's constructed from a polyester reinforced rubber and comprises a flat section about 5/8" wide and 1/16" tick. This then turns up by 45 degrees to form the 1/2" seal lip, and tapers from 1/16" to 1/32" at the apex.

I'm hoping that an ex-Lockheed employee will be able to tell me where it was bought in from - my emails to Lockheed themselves have fallen upon deaf ears unfortunately. I'm in the UK and none of our rubber product manufacturers do anything like it.

Am I in luck?

Thanks. john.

 

[Fearless Tower]

my emails to Lockheed themselves have fallen upon deaf ears unfortunately.

Not surprised. Unless you are emailing from a .mil or .gov address, they won't want to have anything to do with you.

The current LockMart is entirely focused on defense contracting and very far removed from the folks who excelled at building commercial airplanes.

 

[neverenoughtools]

Not surprised.

I wasn't either. The website doesn't exactly encourage owners of legacy airframes to 'visit our online shop for discount parts'!

I just had a thought, and notice that early 73 and 747s seem to use something similar.

So if any Boeing folks have an answer.....

 

[flyingron]

Trying to find someone who was left from the 1011 days may be difficult no matter what. LockMart is such a giant mash up. I am a former Martin-Marietta employee in Denver long ago. I worked as a contractor for IBM guys who got bought by Loral who got bought by Martin who got merged into LockMart. I also worked with a bunch of guys from Sunnyvale who really were original Lockheed guys but wouldn't know which is the business end of a 1011. I'd recommend talking to one of the remaining operators of the plane, but even those seem to be dropping like flies of late.

 

[Fearless Tower]

I just had a thought, and notice that early 73 and 747s seem to use something similar.

So if any Boeing folks have an answer.....

That is probably your best bet. I suspect that whatever was used was probably not manufactured by Lockheed itself and likely similar to what other manufacturers used.

 

[bnt83]

These guys have a huge catalog.

https://www.trimlok.com/

 

[neverenoughtools]

Flying Ron. You're confirming my worst fears regarding corporate behemoths!

I have emailed Orbital Sciences today, because they have the last active L1011. Fingers crossed.

Fearless Tower, it's getting on here, but I'll have a go at emailing Boeing tomorrow.

Brian, I can't immediately see anything in the online catalogue at Trimlok, but have emailed their European sales rep. Not sure what I'll do with the other 994 feet that I have to buy, but...

 

[SkyDog58]

If I had the time and inclination, I would dig out some of my old CD based L1011 manuals that I have in a box somewhere and see if I can find the part number of the part itself or even the material spec. Unfortunately, that would mean unpacking boxes that I have in storage.

Just curious as to why you are restoring it.

 

[neverenoughtools]

SkyDog, I have a part numbers for each of the four sub-assemblies (a curved metal strip to which one or two dust seals are riveted, and which fit inside the plastic quadrant cover moulding), but I suspect that that particular parts bin will have been emptied years ago.

I'm lightly restoring it in order to mount it in the most stupid car project. My father was the chief designer of the RB211, and worked with L'heed on the 1011. It's also getting a Jaguar V12 engine because he brought me up knowing that only engines with a multiple of three cylinders are any good. As I thought it only fitting that a 'real man's centre console' should be a throttle box, it had to be a TriStar one!

 

[neverenoughtools]

This is the seal carrier, marked 156022 101X518. You can see a rough cut edge which is where I suspect the rather larger original profile was trimmed to fit.

And the section that I need.

Yes, I'm in England, and we (reluctantly) do Centimetres here!

 

[flyingron]

If you can't find the right person at Orbital, I might be able to inquire. I've got some friends over there at the main office.

 

[Ghery]

Trying to find someone who was left from the 1011 days may be difficult no matter what. LockMart is such a giant mash up. I am a former Martin-Marietta employee in Denver long ago. I worked as a contractor for IBM guys who got bought by Loral who got bought by Martin who got merged into LockMart. I also worked with a bunch of guys from Sunnyvale who really were original Lockheed guys but wouldn't know which is the business end of a 1011. I'd recommend talking to one of the remaining operators of the plane, but even those seem to be dropping like flies of late.

When did you work for MMA in Denver? I was there from 1979 to 1983. Started out at DSC and then went down to the Waterton plant in 1980 and joined Defense Systems.