Phew! What a fantastic read.
After about a week of 3-hour nights (not much on the telly) I have finally got to the end of this thread. Let me echo others in praising the patience and technical openness of the main engineering contributors, along with the excellent recollections of the pilots, cabin staff and many others.
I am afraid I have only been on Concorde around a dozen times, and as I live a few miles from Duxford, you'll probably guess that's 101 now in Hangar 1. Standing in the cabin I can only imagine the experience of actually flying in her, but you guys have certainly bought her back to life in my mind at least.
While reading the thread I came up with many questions (around ten or so) and these have been answered in later exchanges on the thread, however I do have a few left over:
1. The speed freak in me always wants to know "how fast"? Notwithstanding the principles outlined on p.55 by CliveL and M2Dude, if the intake system were somehow made "more leaky" and reheat were applied, in theory at least, how much more thrust could the 4 engines produce, in "ideal" conditions (I saw somewhere that -80C had been encountered)? If you then extrapolate the drag, what sort of peak Mach number might be attainable in short bursts (ignoring for now the detrimental effect on the airframe?)
2. There was a discussion or two of the (highly theoretical, expensive and unlikely) prospect of restoring one of the airframes back to flight around p22. However I don't think I saw 101 or 102 mentioned in any of these discussions, are these even further 'gone' (101 having sat outside for 20 years)? On the other hand, would the lack of sponge-like insulation mean less corrosion might have set in?
3. Again on p.55 there is mention of (naff) paint schemes and their bad effect on skin temperature. Was the paint on Concorde specifically chosen to radiate infrared (for example) to help cooling? The SR-71 (which I also visit at Duxford regularly - how lucky am I!) of course is matt black, which presumably radiates even better? When the airframe attained thermal equilibrium at the top of the cruise, what were the relative contributions to cooling of: radiation, cold uncompressed air passing over parts of the skin, the internal aircon (cooling from the inside), etc?
4. M2Dude referred a couple of times to robbing spares from other airframes. Spares that may have been 5-8 years old? What sort of testing regime must these spare parts go through to ensure they are still fit for flight? Is it labour-intensive?
If I can opine (at the risk of having M2Dude chastise me if he still reads this - as I am not staff) the computer he mentioned on page 37 sounds to me very much like a "bit slice" computer. These were typically constructed from discrete logic and quite often had very long words - 64 or 128 bits. I only ever saw one of these in my 30-year career in computing, a rare beast indeed. And yes I remember that Mil Spec TTL - back in the day I used to pop the lid off the ceramic packages and you can look at the gates, and even watch the silicon glow if you apply a bit too much Vcc! But I digress.
Thanks again for a fascinating thread.
Last edited by a_q; 4th Apr 2015 at 19:12.