To consider the L1011 "the best airliner in the world" might not be very realistic when today there are planes like the Airbus A340! However, by the time when this aircraft was built, certainly, was one of the best.

Lockheed tried with this plane to get part of the B747 market that was having lots of success in the early 70s. The purpose was to build an airplane that would serve the medium/long course routs where a 747 should be half-emptied. The result was the splendid trijet to which I dedicate this page. However, by that time, the big rival of the L1011 was the DC-10 (built by Douglas Company) which won the race for the widebody trijets market (there were built 446 DC-10 against 250 L1011, although 60 DC-10 sold were the military version KC-10 used by USAF). This happened due to inicial problems with the TriStar engines and the Rolls Royce bankruptcy. Eventually, when those problems were solved, the Lockheed company had to finish the L1011 program because the financial losses were too high and the number of orders too low as DC-10 was going ahead, despite some technichal problems which led to some tragic disasters. The TriStar was the only civil jet constructed by Lockheed. Today, Lockheed is more known by its military and aerospacial projects. Ironically, the latest L1011 models equiped with new engines, that were more powerfull, had better performances than the DC-10 (which was also a widebody trijet very similar to the L1011). Other of big problems that Lockheed had in its project was the range of initial L1011s. They couldn't achieve the DC-10 mark in this issue. The L1011 was the perfect plane to cover coast to coast in America but not enough for Transatlantic flights. The Tristar 500 was the desperate effort to save their project but unfortunatelly it came too late...
One of the aspects that makes the L1011 different from the DC-10 is the position of the engine number 2. While the L1011 has this engine incorporated in the fuselage, the DC-10 has it installed in the tail.
The main companies that acquired the L1011 were Delta Airlines, Eastern, TWA, Air Canada, British Airways, Pan Am, Saudia, Gulf Air, Cathay Pacific, All Nippon Airways and TAP.
Most of the L1011s are still in service but many were scrapped or are out of service.