There are aircraft that show up in flight simulators, and then there are aircraft that genuinely deserve to be there. The Lockheed L-1011 TriStar is firmly in the second category. It was overengineered, ahead of its time, commercially unlucky, and absolutely fascinating, and IniBuilds has just published a detailed “Welcome to” video that gives us our clearest look yet at what the developer has been building for MSFS 2024. And it looks like a serious piece of work!
A quick history recap of the L-1011
For those less familiar with the aircraft, a bit of history helps frame what IniBuilds has taken on here. Lockheed produced the L-1011 between 1968 and 1983, with first flight in November 1970 and service entry in April 1972. Only 250 were ever built, well short of the 500 units the company needed to break even. The program is often remembered as a commercial failure, but the aircraft itself was anything but. Lockheed loaded it with technology that competitors simply didn’t match, including the first autoland system on a widebody, four independent hydraulic systems, direct lift control borrowed from military aviation, and a centre engine design using an S-duct that eliminated the pitch-up moment on engine failure that crews of the DC-10 and MD-11 had to manage manually.
The engine itself, the Rolls-Royce RB211, is a whole story on its own. Its development was so costly and so delayed that it pushed Rolls-Royce into bankruptcy, which in turn delayed the L-1011 program and handed American Airlines’ crucial order to the DC-10. When the RB211 finally flew, it was a genuinely exceptional engine that went on to power aircraft for decades, but by then the damage was done. Without the L-1011, there may have been no RB211, and arguably no modern Rolls-Royce as we know it today.
The variant IniBuilds is simulating is the -500, the long-range version with more powerful RB211s, a slightly shorter fuselage, a refined wing box, a larger wingspan, and a maximum range of around 5,000 nautical miles. Its first flight was in 1978.
What IniBuilds has built
The video, presented as a walkthrough by one of the IniBuilds team, covers the exterior, cabin, flight deck, and a full flight from JFK, and there is quite a lot to dig into.
On the avionics side, the standout feature is the navigation suite. IniBuilds says the aircraft includes three fully simulated inertial navigation systems, and the emphasis on “fully simulated” appears to be deliberate. This is not a GPS dressed up as an INS. Waypoints need to be loaded manually, the system drifts as you would expect, and position accuracy depends on correct initialisation.
Alongside the INS units sits a custom performance management system, the PMS, linked to a control display unit, which the developer describes as a precursor to the modern FMS. It handles climb, cruise, and descent optimisation by pulling digitised performance tables, calculates optimum flight levels, and can feed EER limits directly to the thrust management system in flight. For an aircraft from the early 1970s, it is a remarkably capable setup, and IniBuilds appears to have simulated it in meaningful depth.
For those who want a more accessible experience, the aircraft also supports GPS navigation with an optional Garmin unit on the glareshield, which the developer notes was genuinely used on real L-1011s in later service. A map display screen, historically fitted to at least some Saudi Arabian L-1011s, has been repurposed as a Simbrief integration tool, allowing batch import of INS waypoints with a visual overview of the route. It is optional, and purists can leave it off entirely.
The awesome L-1011 flight deck itself features five seats, a full flight engineer’s panel with electrical, engine, fuel, bleed air, pressurisation, and hydraulics sections, and uses MSFS 2024’s dynamic systems model for the bleed and hydraulic simulation. Circuit breakers are modeled and functional throughout. Lighting controls are extensive across both sides of the glareshield and the overhead.
The direct lift control system gets its own dedicated section in the video, and rightly so. In the landing configuration, the wing spoilers extend to seven degrees as a baseline. Pushing forward on the control wheel increases spoiler deployment to initiate a descent, pulling back retracts them to reduce drag and initiate a climb, with the elevator taking a secondary role. The result, according to the walkthrough, is a noticeably stable and smooth approach with rapid response to small corrections. The developer notes that spoilers respond faster than elevator inputs in terms of changing the aircraft’s lift profile, which is what makes the system work. It also burns more fuel, which is likely why no civil aircraft after the L-1011 ever adopted it.
The cabin is also worth mentioning. IniBuilds has recreated the distinctive vaulted ceiling design, the overhead lockers on one side only, the retractable airstairs accessing the lower lounge area, and the circular carousel of toilets positioned directly beneath the S-duct, which real passengers reportedly described as the loudest toilets in the world. Night lighting in the cabin captures the incandescent warmth of the era.
As for the EFB, it covers autocomplete flows, takeoff and landing performance calculations with automatic speed bug setting, Simbrief and Navigraph integration, stylised ground handling and load sheet pages, Leo Charts access included, and an onscreen operational flight plan formatted to look like a period dot-matrix printout.
No release date yet
IniBuilds has not announced a price or release date. The video is framed as a “coming soon” announcement, and is the first substantial public look at the product. Given the depth of what has been shown, it is clearly well into development, but no timeframe has been confirmed.
The L-1011 has had a few representations in flight simulation over the years, but nothing that fully captures the depth of its systems in a modern simulator. If IniBuilds delivers on what the video shows, this could be one of the more interesting releases of the year for anyone drawn to classic airliners.
