Bellerophon
Deciding that they would like to maintain this groundspeed, they went ALT HOLD and MACH HOLD at around FL530. They maintained their groundspeed, so the story goes, but the autothrottle then progressively reduced the N1, as the aircraft weight reduced, over the next couple of hours, into the prohibited range!Did you ever hear of any such event?
Ahhh this 'other operator' (I'd quite forgotten our code for *** ******). And as for this obviously baseless story
.... er yes it did happen. I should really have qualified my post and said 'The controlled N1
as long as the aeroplane was operated CORRECTLY was always at least in the upper 90's, well away from our blade resonance area'. I don't quite recall after the engines were removed post-flight (At Rolls-Royce's insistance) whether the entire LP compressor sections or just the first few stages had to be replaced at the engine overhaul base. In either case it was a rather expensive piece of experimentation.
ChristiaanJ
Can somebody explain to a "Volts and Amps and Ohms ancient" what "hotstreak injection" is/was (without getting scabrous)?
Certainly my friend (but hey, remember that I'm an old Volts and Amps and Ohms ancient at heart too
).
The lighting of a reheat flame can be achieved in three ways:
1) By using an electric arc ignitor.. the least reliable system, although relatively simple in concept.
2) Catalytic ignition, where the reheat fuel is sprayed over a platinum based catalyst, spontaneously igniting. I recall that although generally reliable, eventually the catalyst compound erodes away and you are left with no ignition source.
3) Hot streak injection (or ignition). I this case a sizable jet of fuel is injected through a single injector placed the the combustion chamber of the engine, a powerful streak of flame then 'shoots out' of the turbine, and ignites the reheat fuel. Generally reliable as long as the injector itself does not carbon up (as our new friend
Howiehowie93 pointed out). What amazed me with this system when we were looking at it for Concorde, was that the Olympus 593 designer I spoke to at Rolls-Royce told me that it has a negligible effect on turbine blade life, as the hottest part of the flame does not hit the blades themselves, and also of course it is a very short duration burn anyway (1 - 2 seconds).
And Christian my friend, you should indeed 'rabbit on' here about some of your observations regarding Concorde electronics technology, you have a unique insight here as (probably) the only Concorde systems designer that regularly visits 'here'. I'm sure I speak for many of us here when I say that your experiences are unique and your contributaions are always illuminating. Come on, let's have some Volts/Amps and Ohms
Best Regards
Dude
