I've been away 'cruising' for a few weeks (lecturing about Concorde) and thought it was time I popped back into this wonderful forum.
There were a few questions regarding ground running Concorde, so here are some 'facts' as far as I recall (Wrinkled old brain permitting).
Concorde was ALWAYS ground run in the detuners at the BA Engineering base at Heathrow, with the parking brake ON. (Save idle runs on the ramp after, say, replacing a PNC actuator etc. on departure. The required high power nozzle trim run could be deferred until the aircrafts return to LHR). Sadly I can confirm that the Concorde 'Hush House' was being demolished when I was last over the engineering patch a few weeks ago, and is probably all gone now.
The detuner chocks were like nothing else you could imagine. They were HUGE steel affairs that needed wheels to be wound down in order to move into position (took a couple of guys at least to move). Once in position forward and aft of the undercarriage, the wheels would be retracted and these 'chocks' would be tension chained together. Believe me, nothing was going to move these suckers!!
Engines WERE NOT run in symmetrical pairs, but the adjacent engine always was run at idle power. The reason for this was so that there was airflow over the T1 probe of the adjacent engine, a winding in this being used by the alternate engine control lane if needs meant it might be required if the main lane failed during the engine run. The way that the aircraft was tethered meant that symmetrical high power running was not any sort of issue.
We were very mean too. In the summer the hangar doors of TBK opposite would invariably be open during the day, the challenge was to see how long it took for us to make them close the doors to shut out the din. (Like I said, Concorde engineers were mean
).
Good to be back
Best regards to all
Dude
