Nick Thomas
[QUOTE]Going back to expansion and paint. With the aircraft expanding approx 6 inches and a temp change up to 127`c, I guess a special kind of paint; able to withstand such adverse conditions; must have been used? When deciding on the paint specification was any consideration given to the overall weight of the paint?[/QUOTE
Can't remember much about paint spec's, but a lot of experimentation/trial and error was carried out with different paints until the right one was found. I remember when G-BOAD was delivered, that copiuous sheets of paint had peeled off in flight. Finally a superb polyurithane paint was found that did the trick perfectly.
Did the repeated expansion and contraction cycle have a detremental effect on the ulitamate life of the airframe?
Yes Nick, the life of the airframe was limited by the number of supersonic cycles, however modifications carried out extended the life of the airframe significantly. (and more were planned).
And the 'hat in the gap' stories are quite true.
ChristiaanJ
Many years later, I discovered that several airline Concorde pilots did not even know the function existed....
This was the real beauty of the autostab' on all 3 axis; you could just safely take it all for granted. The Mach 2 engine out case was a classic, as not only would the aircraft yaw towards the dead engine but there was an adverse roll input, where the wing on the same side would LIFT due to the excess intake air for the failed automatically being 'dumped' through the now open spill door. If for any reason the aircraft HAD been under manual rather than autopilot control, then life without autostab would be rather uncomfortable to say the least. And putting further Concorde's achievements in terms of stability; the world's only previous large delta winged Mach 2 aircraft, the B58 Hustler, had the slightly awkward feature in the case of an outer engine failure at Mach 2, in that the yaw forces were sufficient to tear the fin off. This happened on more than one occasion during service life of the Hustler, but engine failure (or far more likely a deliberate precautionary shut-down) although hardly a non-event in the case of Concorde, it was routinely dealt with without drama or danger.
Dude 