Alpine Flyer
Well, the deHavilland Dash 7 has one, and I will take exception to anyone denying it airliner status.
And a darned good airplane too
Is it true that Concorde was always flown by the highest seniority BA captains, copilots and flight engineers? Would Concorde usually be the last rung on the ladder before retirement for Captains/FEs or was it usual to return to slower equipment after a stint on Concorde?
One for my 'winged' friends really, but with BA it was an issue of seniority, with a long waiting list for selection. As far as I recall there were only ever a couple of cases when a captain left the fleet for another aircraft, most would very happily fly Concorde until retirement at 55. The senior first officers generally had to (reluctantly) change fleets when they got their commands, however there was as far as I remember two exceptions here, where an SFO was able to 'jump seats' to captain. SEOs would stay on Concorde until retirement. (In all the years that I can remember there was only one case of an
SEO switching fleets from Concorde). A pilot friend once put it to me that if your passion in life was as a flyer of aeroplanes, then there was really nowhere to go after Concorde.
And, sorry if I missed this, would Concorde thrust levers move during autothrottle operation?
Oh yes, Concorde had a 'real' full flight flight regime autothrottle. The autothrottle actuator would drive all four levers together via individual isolation clutches and the computer used the sum of all four lever angles. In the unlikely event of an engine being shut down in flight, the A/T could still be used. There was an isolation switch on the roof panel that would enable the affected engine's thrust lever to be isolated and closed to idle, the computer using the sigmals from the other three engines, demanding a now higher lever angle to compensate for the failed engine.
Lastly, Concorde was originally to have had a large moving map system. Any insights into why and how that got scrapped along the way?
The prototypes I recall had a DECCA moving map, but with the availability of INS (and the decline and finally shutting down of the DECCA chains) made the system a waste of time (not to mention space).
Dude
