Bearfoil
How well was she tracking?
Reasonably well, according to the BEA report. As I said
here, pages 147-154 deal thoroughly with the left main bogie, and conclude:
"Overall, the balance of forces at the centre of the bogie would result in self-aligning moment and two loads whose resultant is increased drag, that is to say a tendency to make the aircraft yaw to the left. The level of this drag would be at most around 1000 daN, very low in relation to the thrust of the engines. The influence of possible sideslip on the trajectory is thus very low or negligible."
Wings Folded
I see generally what you mean , but in what way could the BEA and ADP be held in any way responsible for Concorde's airworthiness?
There was
an assertion earlier in the thread that DGAC/BEA were culpable because in the opinion of the poster they allowed an un-airworthy aircraft to continue to operate. There was also an assertion that ADP were culpable because they didn't sweep the runway before Concorde's takeoff.
It strikes me that if you are going to argue that the crash occurred because Concorde happened to be on the runway in the first place you're going to have to question its airworthiness, which means questioning the authorities in the country that issued its C of A.
Similarly, if you're going to argue that the crash wouldn't have occurred if the strip wasn't on the runway, and you're defending the airline whose aircraft dropped it there, you're going to have to argue that ADP failed in its duties by not sweeping the runway.
I can quite understand why CAL's lawyer didn't fancy either of these approaches.