First, I must apologise to Stilton for hi-jacking his thread. I had inadvertantly asked a question in the wrong thread and have only just realised it, so sorry Stilton. The good part of this is all this delicious Concorde info that were are privileged to be receiving from M2dude and ChristiaanJ is all in the one thread. Unless anyone has any objections maybe the Forum Moderator could merged the other 2 threads into this one.
Thank you for the CoG answer. 6 feet sounds like an awful lot but then I am only able to compare it to the littlies that I fly. The ability to use the trim tanks to only have to use a ½° of elevon must have made a substantial impact on performance and the resulting reduced fuel consumption. To think it was all computer controlled at the time when the PC didn't even exist.
M2, you have said that the fuel system was a work of elegance and the above desciption give me a small insight into this. I know that I am just going to have to find books written about this lady to find out more. I have been lazy when asking about item that I could Google but there was a method behind my laziness. When you and Christiaan share your knowledge there is always a personal anecdote or insight that will never be found in any books that I may be able to find. Gentlemen, for this THANKS seem so insufficient.
The TOC=TOD had me thinking and I believe insomnia may have assisted with some understanding (otherwise the stupid sign for me comes out again
). Gee I hope I have this even partly right. I assume that when accelerating to Mach 2, that it was done while climbing. I was initially stuck with the compression factor of Mach 1 and without thinking the same would happen at Mach 2 (A C Kermode was the hardest book I have read that I didn't understand
). Therefore with that in mind I was stuck trying to figure TOC=TOD. Am I right or even slightly so in thinking that cruise climb and cruise descent
was the flight and there was minimal actual level cruise in the "pond" crossing?
I had also forgotten to take into account the speed factor, DUH!! Subsonic climbs, what 35 - 45 mins to FL4xx and then it is in level cruise for the next 6 hours before TOD. The lady took what, about 3.5 hours, and the extra 20,000 feet it had to climb and descend ate up or into any level cruise it had (or didn't have). Am I on the right track or am I making an ass out of me and me.
I was in the jump seat of a B767 on a trans Tasman crossing, CAVOK, when about 2,000 feet lower a dot followed by a straight white cloud approached and passed by. I found that impressive so the 2 supersonics passing at the speed of an SR71 must have been spectacular. Shame radar track isn't available on You Tube. Oh yes, did they boom you?
As you have said, fuel flow was reduced the higher you got. I think it was 5T per powerplant at FL500 down to 4.1T at FL600. Was there any figures for higher the Levels? I am curious to see how much less fuel would have been used at the higher FLs considering it was reduced by 900Kg/hr for just 10K feet. Very interesting what you said about when the temps were ISA+. I would never have thought such a small temperature change could have effected such a signifigant performance result. It also sounds odd, as you said, the faster you go the less fuel you use.
Last greedy question for this post. How much of the descent was carried out while supersonic and how did this affect the fuel flow?