Go Back  PPRuNe Forums > Flight Deck Forums > Tech Log
Reload this Page >

Concorde question

Tech Log The very best in practical technical discussion on the web

Concorde question

Old 9th Sep 2010, 16:52
  #301 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: on the golf course (Covid permitting)
Posts: 2,131
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
M2D

A B747-400 at max take off weight (398tonnes) ex LHR would typically have a V1 ~ 155 kts, a Vr of about 170 and a V2 of 182 kts, so not dissimilar V1 speeds, but very different Vr and V2.

[I should add that this figures are for using reduced thrust and about 1.6 EPR on the RB211-524G engines where max thrust is about 1.72 EPR. Full thrust may result in an increased V1, I would guess].

This would suggest similar braking capabilities bearing in mind the differing TOWs involved. As to the relative brake unit weights I couldn't comment, nor therefore on the relative design pros and cons.

Numbers offered purely in response to your request.
TopBunk is offline  
Old 9th Sep 2010, 20:05
  #302 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Uranus
Posts: 360
Likes: 0
Received 3 Likes on 3 Posts
Were there ever any female pilots / FEs? Or did any women pilots ever fly Concorde?
Shaft109 is offline  
Old 9th Sep 2010, 21:25
  #303 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: FL 600. West of Mongolia
Posts: 463
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
TopBunk
Thanks very much for the info; totally blows my argument out of the water as far as a near V1 reject. (The Vr figure does not really matter so much; we aint going to be much braking there ).
I was repeating what we were told at the training school at Filton in the early '80s. OK, no 744s alive then but certainly 'Classics' around aplenty. (I'm sure the Classic's V1 figures are not going to be a mile away from the '400's). Perhaps more relevent is going to be the brake energy required for landing (average Concorde landing speed was around 160 KTS, how does that compare to the 744?).
Thank you again for the info TopBunk, and sorry for coming out with such bilge previously

Dude
M2dude is offline  
Old 9th Sep 2010, 21:28
  #304 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: France
Posts: 2,315
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Originally Posted by Shaft109
Were there ever any female pilots / FEs? Or did any women pilots ever fly Concorde?
Two names...

Barbara Harmer at British Airways.
The first female Concorde airline pilot.
She became F/O on Concorde in 1993.
After the end-of-service, she continued to fly 777s with BA.
.
Béatrice Valle at Air France.
After a long career as a pilot, she finally was selected for Concorde... and then the Paris crash happened.
But she persisted, and in the end she did 35 return flights CDG-JFK before the final end-of-service.
She then became captain on 747s.

Apart from Jacqueline Auriol, well-known French 'aviatrice' and test pilot, who flew once on the Concorde prototype, I do not know of anybody else.

And no, there is no record of any female F/Es.

CJ
ChristiaanJ is offline  
Old 9th Sep 2010, 21:37
  #305 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: FL 600. West of Mongolia
Posts: 463
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Shaft109
Were there ever any female pilots / FEs? Or did any women pilots ever fly Concorde?
The world has only ever had one Concorde female flight crew member, a really wonderful lady who is known as Barbara Harmer. Barbara was an SFO on the BA Concode fleet, joining us in 1993. You can read all about her here:
Barbara Harmer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

After she eventually left the Concorde fleet, Barbara became Captain Harmer, flying the Boeing 777 for BA.

Oops ChristiaanJ, never knew about Béatrice Valle, salutations to her also.

Dude
M2dude is offline  
Old 9th Sep 2010, 21:53
  #306 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: FL 600. West of Mongolia
Posts: 463
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
landlady
I was a stewardess on The Beautiful Bird for a few years, and I know first-hand the love that we all had for our beloved 'Connie'. I started my flying carreer with Freddie Laker in the early 70's, and was on the inaugral SkyTrain to JFK on July 4th 1976. I am still flying for BA,and over the years I have been honoured to fly with some amazing crew, and like others on here, I count myself truely lucky to have been part of the Concorde Family.
landlady you are so welcome here, I'm sure the great people reading and contributing to this wonderful thread would love to hear any anecdotes or recollections that you might have about your experiences on our wonderful aeroplane.
Again, I'm sure I speak for all our 'family' members when I say 'welcome landlady'

Dude
M2dude is offline  
Old 9th Sep 2010, 22:14
  #307 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: France
Posts: 2,315
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
landlady,

I've only been on a Concorde flight once, and since that was the last-but-one Air France "round-the-bay", it's fairly obvious the very special party atmosphere on that flight was not quite the same a on a regular flight.

But from what I've read from other "trip reports", even a regular Concorde flight was never quite like a flight on any other aircraft.

So, welcome, and if you have any CC stories to relate... yes, please !

CJ

PS -- Can you imagine anybody doing a "trip report" about the usual eight boring hours on a 777 flight from CDG to JFK ??
And I'm sure you've often have seen the "Concorde grin" during your flights ....
ChristiaanJ is offline  
Old 10th Sep 2010, 07:09
  #308 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: on the golf course (Covid permitting)
Posts: 2,131
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Perhaps more relevent is going to be the brake energy required for landing (average Concorde landing speed was around 160 KTS, how does that compare to the 744?).
Not sure that the landing brake energy is more relevant, the RTO case must involve much more energy - a high speed, greater mass and less room to stop.

Anyway, at Max LW of 285 tonnes, the Vref25 is about 159 and Vref30 is 153, add 5 for the increment and you have the threshold speeds. At a more usual landing weight of 245 tonnes, they reduce to 148/142 +5 respectively.
TopBunk is offline  
Old 10th Sep 2010, 08:20
  #309 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: FL 600. West of Mongolia
Posts: 463
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Not sure that the landing brake energy is more relevant, the RTO case must involve much more energy - a high speed, greater mass and less room to stop.
Agreed TopBunk, it's just as the Concorde and 744 V1s are so close it shows that the 744 has FAR more kinetic energy to dissipate in a near V1 RTO.
Many thanks for the landing speed info

Dude
M2dude is offline  
Old 10th Sep 2010, 09:01
  #310 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: UK
Posts: 41
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Thank you for allowing me, a non-techy, to participate in your lovely thread!

Just a short story about the adorable, charming and all-round fantastic bloke, Capt. John Cook.

During an exceptionally busy flight (MPs, press with cameras and sound booms on board - cc trying to negotiate the aisle with mayhem abounding) - John came out of the F/D and was standing in the forward galley looking bewildered.

"What can I do for you, skip?" I asked as I rushed in to replenish a drinks tray.

"Oh Landlady, thank goodness.... I'd love a coffee but I can't work the boiler............"

This from a training captain par excellence, with a twinkle in his eye who knew every inch of that machine - (and in the days before bev makers), who just wanted to save me a job!

I hope the angels are making your coffee now, John.

But that's what everyone was like....we certainly were a team which, I'm sorry to say, isn't always the case these days.

Now boys, I will leave you to get back to your sprockets and widgets.
landlady is offline  
Old 10th Sep 2010, 09:35
  #311 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: FL 600. West of Mongolia
Posts: 463
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
landlady, your recollections of JC are so typical of what most people that knew him had. He was an astonishing character, an extremely talented flyer with a wicked wit to match. I remember many years ago, while travelling as 'passenger' with him on a charter flight, I was in the rear cabin during taxi, when there was a minor problem on the flight deck. Over the PA came these dulcet tones 'OY, AC/DC (due to me having an avionics 'bent', this was John’s nickname for me), GET YOURSELF UP HERE NOW'. With my street cred' totally blown away, a (then) young and highly embarrassed me slunk his way up to the flight deck, trying not to look at the 100 or so faces looking at me in total mirth.
I think everyone that ever came into contact with John misses him enormously, like all of his friends I know I do.
Please keep posting landlady, your memories are priceless to us all.

Dude
M2dude is offline  
Old 11th Sep 2010, 09:43
  #312 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: On the lake
Age: 82
Posts: 670
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Concorde nose gear collapse

My one abiding fear (apart from obesity) about buying a ticket on Concorde was 'what the hell happens' in event of a nose gear collapse, or landing after failure of the nose gear to extend?? The very tall nose gear with the relatively short wheelbase geometry would suggest such an event would be carastrophic.

Can any of the learned design types on this forum tell about the considerations involved - was there a procedure to handle it, or would it just do a pole vault and compress into an accordion? Were special design features incorporated to make such an event unlikely, or was it even survivable?
twochai is offline  
Old 11th Sep 2010, 10:41
  #313 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: FL 600. West of Mongolia
Posts: 463
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
hmmm.. As far as the design goes the failure of a nose gear to downlock was extremely, EXTREMELY remote. There were three ways o lowering the nose leg (Normal, Stanby,as well as free-fall). As a matter of interest the main gear sort of had four ways, where the free fall could be assisted by bleeding engine P3 air into the equation also.
Being rearward lowering, the airstream of course helps matters a lot with respect to the nose leg lowering
One of the wing'd chappies I'm sure can come up with the flight procedure for such an event. (Never happened in the 35 years of Concorde flight testing and airline operation).

Dude
M2dude is offline  
Old 11th Sep 2010, 11:22
  #314 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Jungles of SW London
Age: 77
Posts: 354
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Panel machining.

One of my Scout Leaders, back in the sixties, was involved in (I think) programming the milling machines that milled Concorde wing panels from solid alloy billets. Dural I assume, I didn't think there was much Titanium in Concorde?

How much of the Lady's structure was machined from the solid like this? In one sense, it seems extremely wasteful, but in another it is the most perfect way of "knocking off everything that doesn't look like a wing panel." To paraphrase someone.

Roger.
Landroger is offline  
Old 11th Sep 2010, 14:02
  #315 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: `
Posts: 309
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Thumbs up

Landlady, you are yet another priceless asset to this thread. It may have been mentioned previously that much technical "stuff" about Her can be Googled but it is the personal stories that are added, make this thread so great and informative.

As said, your contributions will be most welcome as I am sure you have some excellent tales to tell about your adventures at Mach 2. So please post away and drag some of your colleagues in here as well.
Biggles78 is offline  
Old 11th Sep 2010, 14:59
  #316 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: France
Posts: 2,315
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Originally Posted by twochai
... what happens in the event of a nose gear collapse, or landing after failure of the nose gear to extend?
As M2dude says, there were about three separate ways of extending the nose gear, making the event extremely unlikely, and indeed it never happened in service.
It's a halfway interesting "what if" question...
Bearing in mind the c.g. is already almost over the main wheels... could it have been done by moving the c.g. as far back as possible, keeping the droop nose at 0°, and after touchdown keeping the nose off the ground for as long as possible?
The radome would have shattered, but the droop nose structure would have acted like a skid.
Just as well nobody ever needed to try it.

There is only one well-known case of a landing gear problem.

Visualise a moment the main landing gear. The main leg 'l' is held down in the vertical position by a large hydraulic "stay" '\' .
___
\l

(I know that, to most people, it looks at first like the retraction cylinder, but it isn't. The retraction cylinder is much shorter, and inside the wheel bay.)

Now the story... It happened during what was going to be the last-but-one flight of the British prototype, 002, during a demonstration flight at Weston-super-Mare.
After a slow pass with the gear down, the co-pilot flying the aircraft put it into a steep turn, retracting the gear at the same time.

The next moment, there was a very loud bang, and one of the main gear lights did not go "green".

Somebody from the crew went to the back cabin, where there is a small porthole to look into the wheel well. When asked what he could see, the answer was "nothing..." ; both the main stay and the retraction cylinder had parted company with the aircraft, and the gear leg was dangling free.

The pilot, John Cochrane, took over the controls, and brought the aircraft back to Fairford. With his guardian angel doing overtime, he managed to put down the aircraft and keep it straight during the roll-out, without the gear collapsing.

I didn't see the landing, but I saw 002 in the hangar the next day. By that time a steel bar had been fitted to keep the leg upright, but the damage was still impressive.
Later on, a spare stay was fitted, but 002s flight test career was over. She stayed in storage at Fairford for some time, and was then flown to the Fleet Air Arm Museum in Yeovilton, where she still can be seen to this day.
Wisely, for the few minutes flight, they did not retract the gear....

CJ
ChristiaanJ is offline  
Old 11th Sep 2010, 15:32
  #317 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: France
Posts: 2,315
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Originally Posted by Landroger
One of my Scout Leaders, back in the sixties, was involved in (I think) programming the milling machines that milled Concorde wing panels from solid alloy billets. Dural I assume, I didn't think there was much Titanium in Concorde?
There was some titanium, such as in the engine nacelles, but only in critical locations.
The first production Concorde (204, G-BOAC) was about a ton heavier than the last on (216, G-BOAF). IIRC most of that was achieved by judicious use of titanium in certain locations.
The aluminium alloy was not Dural, but a special alloy called RR58, AU2GN or hiduminium which was used because of its superior 'creep' properties ('creep' = slow permanent deformation under a combination of mechanical stress and high temperatures).

How much of the Lady's structure was machined from the solid like this?
Nearly all of the primary load-bearing structures and a non-negliable amount of the secondary ones.
(As an example of the latter, ever looked at a photo of the top of the wing of a Concorde with all those oval-shaped access panels? They were all machined.
In one sense, it seems extremely wasteful, but in another it is the most perfect way of "knocking off everything that doesn't look like a wing panel." To paraphrase someone.
It may look wasteful at first sight, but the resulting panels were lighter than a conventional 'sheet and ribs' structure, and that weight gain remained a gain during the life of the aircraft.
It also made for greater precision and repeatablity, more consistent quality, etc.
And the scrap from the milling operation was recovered and recycled....

CJ
ChristiaanJ is offline  
Old 11th Sep 2010, 20:24
  #318 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: Brentwood, CA
Posts: 22
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
As a humble, subsonic, low altitude and single engine pilot- I miss Concorde for all she represented. A magnificent testament to not only the human mind, but the human spirit. To human achievement!

A stunningly elegant and powerful symbol of national pride for the British and French, a globe spanning display of engineering genius that we all marveled at.

I can only imagine the excitement and fulfillment that those posting here must have felt for the time that they knew her. Those who flew her truly did solo under lucky stars. Those who maintained her, engineered her, looked after her must have enjoyed immense satisfaction by doing something that MATTERED in life. What more can one ask for?

The world is truly a much duller place without Concorde..alas.
Marty33 is offline  
Old 11th Sep 2010, 20:39
  #319 (permalink)  
Thread Starter
 
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Planet Earth
Posts: 2,084
Likes: 0
Received 8 Likes on 7 Posts
Christiaan,


Since you were discussing the scenario of a nosewheel not lowering and that the CG was over the main wheels may I suggest a rather (amusing at least)
possibility ?!!



With a nose gear jammed up but all other gear lowered normally could the Flight Engineer pump fuel rearward adjusting the CG aft sufficiently to allow the Concorde to settle back on her 'Tailwheel'



I realise there would be some damage, especially in light of what has been said about the occasional tailwheel contacts but I imagine it would be less than lowering the unprotected forward fuselage onto the runway.





Of course some pax might have to move to the back of the cabin too !



If the CG was adjusted this far aft would there be controllability issues ?




There could finally be a use for the 'full down position of the visor' landing in this attitude !
stilton is offline  
Old 11th Sep 2010, 21:24
  #320 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: France
Posts: 2,315
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Originally Posted by stilton
Christiaan,
Since you were discussing the scenario of a nosewheel not lowering and that the CG was over the main wheels may I suggest a rather (amusing at least) possibility ?!!
Why not?
Let's admit that being faced with that nasty situation in reality would not have been amusing....
But kicking the idea around a moment, why not? It's what I did seeing the question at first.

With a nose gear jammed up but all other gear lowered normally could the Flight Engineer pump fuel rearward adjusting the CG aft sufficiently to allow the Concorde to settle back on her 'Tailwheel'.
I realise there would be some damage, especially in light of what has been said about the occasional tailwheel contacts but I imagine it would be less than lowering the unprotected forward fuselage onto the runway.
Obviously depends a bit on the fuel remaining, but yes, I think one could have move the CG sufficiently rearward.

Of course some pax might have to move to the back of the cabin too !
LOL, don't you think they'd all would have moved as far back as possible anyway?

If the CG was adjusted this far aft would there be controllability issues ?
Possibly, but not enough that an experienced pilot couldn't handle it, I would think.

There could finally be a use for the 'full down position of the visor' landing in this attitude !
I don't quite follow you there...

One thing that promptly occurred to me for this 'no nose wheel' scenario is braking, since both engine reverse and main gear wheel braking act below the CG, so they'd both act to pull the nose down.
At some point, stick fully back, hence elevons fully up, will no longer be enough to fully counteract that, so you'll have to cancel reverse and braking, and probably commit to an overrun.
Your scenario of doing it as a 'three-pointer' on the tail might wel be the better one !


And while we're at it, what about ditching a Concorde?
It's hinted at in the Safety Cards.
It's been tried lots of times, with models in water tanks.
It wasn't really feasible.......

CJ
ChristiaanJ is offline  

Thread Tools
Search this Thread

Contact Us - Archive - Advertising - Cookie Policy - Privacy Statement - Terms of Service

Copyright © 2024 MH Sub I, LLC dba Internet Brands. All rights reserved. Use of this site indicates your consent to the Terms of Use.