Originally Posted by
Volume
What I always was wondering about: Why does Concorde reach V1 (or the "point of no return") already after less than 1/3 of the available runway ? I would always believe that the brakes (assuming they are intact) can decelerate the aircraft much more efficciently (especially on a dry runway with grooves) than 4 olympus engines with reheat (one of them limited in power) could accelerate it. I would always expect v1 to be reached after using half of the runway length.
Where did you get your figures from ?
I'd have to pull up the BEA report, get out the performance manual, and do some back-of-the-envelope figuring ... did you already do that?
One minor detail (and probably not relevant) when comparing 'engines' and 'brakes', is that it was not possible to 'hold' the aircraft 'on the brakes' at full power plus reheat.
CJ