If anyone missed last night's 'Concorde's Last Flight' documentary and would like to see it, it's available here for the next 28 days: Concorde's Last Flight - 4oD - Channel 4


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RealFish

Here's the BA Hangar Video -



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BEag's

As you have listed some of your Concorde moments, I would just like to add that
as a non military flyer, I did once get to fly the Concorde simulator at Filton and
it was an awesome experience. The cockpit looked dated, but it was just such a
great experience to even get close to flying something THAT special.

Ironically, one thing we did during one of the 'flights' was to fly between the twin
towers, with the sim instructor pointing out that it could not be done in real life of
course!

Brooklands
 

For those wanting to pay their respects I can highly recommend visiting Brooklands where they now have a Concorde open to the public.

Brooklands Concorde

Brooklands is a cracking place to visit. In addition to Concorde there is the Vickers Vimy replica, the Hampden fished out of Loch Ness, the Sultan of Oman's VC10 full of gold velour, not to mention many other interesting aircraft, vintage cars and bikes galore.

The place has real spirit, well worth a visit.

She was a beaut. Those French sure could build 'em.

Concorde was built both by the French and the British from components made in both countries. This was quite an achievement at the time, given that the UK used imperial units and France used metric units - and the language barrier was pretty significant as well.

But the 'Anglo-French' agreement at least stopped any politicians from trying to cancel the programme.

The aircraft had such iconic status that it was never referred to as 'a' Concorde or 'the' Concorde, just as 'Concorde'.

ba's return to flight campaign had just started when the news came through about the 11 September World Trade Center outrage. At least 40 of Concorde's most regular passengers were murdered by Moslem terrorists and both ba and Air France struggled to find sufficient passengers to justify a regular service. As soon as ba announced that it was killing off Concorde, all remaining seats were snapped up.....

As Jock Lowe said, ba could have flown Concorde for another 20 years.

But some major marketing initiatives would have been needed to ensure that adequate revenue was generated.

speaking of revenue

i do. i love the look of the thing. agreed though, it's not concorde.

i was told that emirates pay about 4million a year to have that model there, that's probably why - they're prepared to pay more than BA are. it's all business at the end of the day, which is what killed off concorde :(

Feathers McGraw

A tyre did not fail. Not in the sense I think you infer anyway. The destruction of the tyre was caused by a metal strip, about 15 inches long by 2 inches wide, which had departed from a DC10 that had taken off before Concorde. The metal had deformed itself in such a way that whatever way it landed on the ground it had a sharp edge uppermost. Concorde ran over it and it shredded a tyre. A piece flew off and ruptured the inner port tank...............later when they returned Concorde to service they placed moulded panels on the base of every tank so that if such an incident re-occurred only 7 litres/sec of fuel could escape.

breakadjuster

I assume you were not being sarcastic about the fuel state in Walpole's Concorde on landing at LHR because in fact it was CRITICAL. It was a requirement that something like 10,000kgs of fuel was on board at landing to avoid a massive change in the CofG. In this case the fuel was much lower than that and it would have sat on its tail if it had gone all the way to the gate and had to be re-fuelled first. The last moments of that flight could have been very serious indeed.

As a matter of fact FL, myself and another PPRuNer were given an incredible insight into the incident by one of Corcorde's Captain's on a table that was a scale version of the runway at CDG. It was a very bad incident but VERY bad luck - nothing else.

Edit: I am prompted to say that the tyre piece that hit the tank did NOT rupture it. But it did set up a pressure wave in the fuel that did! Apologies.

Why was it necessary for the pilots "slam" the throttles open on take off rather than do it progessively?

Re the reports of fire before the metal strip was struck, eyewitness evidence is notoriously unreliable and really needs to be treated with caution. The witness may not have seen what they genuinely believe to have observed.

For instance, I could have sworn that the infamous World Cup Final tackle by de Jong on Alonso was two footed. Subsequent video review showed that it was not.

I'm totally with Topbunk. Just a load of recycled tosh with a lie attached -- that they had new evidence on the causes of the crash. Then we had the sentimental ravings of Hutchinson (how does flying it and loving it qualify you to pronounce on its safety?), Walpole, Lowe et al and, the "sheer beauty" bla bla bla cannot get over the fact that all other civil airliner development came to a screeching halt because we were locked into a money pit that sucked in all aircraft development capital.

Sure it was gorgeous, great to fly, lovely to look at, and it was certainly an amazing technical achievement but hang on.... The US looked at it and discovered after sonic bang tests in 1964 that the public would not tolerate them over land: not distant, muffled, blanket-on-the-timpani soft thumps like in the film, but great thunderclaps. We and the French, however, just pretended it wasn't an issue, and ploughed on, heads in the sand, throwing good money after bad, and labelling all sceptics unpatriotic. Heads remained in the sand after the Dulles incident in 79 when they realised that they could not stop tyres exploding, and they just beefed up the rubber and hoped it wouldn't happen again.

It was magnifique, but that is not the kind of guerre taxpayers need or should ever be fighting. What is it about Concorde that causes normally sensible people to suspend their critical faculties?

And yes, previous poster, you did see something nearly the same a few years ago. Concorde, A Love Story, was a Timewatch broadcast in 2003 and covered almost identical ground.

Frangible.

You said:

"Sure it was gorgeous, great to fly, lovely to look at, and it was certainly an amazing technical achievement but hang on.... The US looked at it and discovered after sonic bang tests in 1964 that the public would not tolerate them over land: not distant, muffled, blanket-on-the-timpani soft thumps like in the film, but great thunderclaps. We and the French, however, just pretended it wasn't an issue, and ploughed on, heads in the sand, throwing good money after bad, and labelling all sceptics unpatriotic."

You are exactly right on the issue of Americans not tolerating the noise levels of Concorde aircraft! That was certainly a major death nail in the project from the start.

Now, as I am clearly one of the people with my head in the sand, you are possibly in a perfect place to explain how, after the tests, the American public were still happy to have the U.S. SST rival land if it had gone ahead, but that would have been louder than Concorde!

Now from my head in the sand position, it looks to me like the American public had been persuaded that Concorde was an evil or ultra loud aircraft (or you can just read that as 'not built in the U.S'). But that the louder U.S. proposed SST (or their then currently flying but louder aircraft) were OK.

I would also be interested on your take on the current battle between two refuelling tankers proposed for the USAF. It seems that Americans don't like one of the bids in that contest too, and don't want it as it is rubbish (despite the reality of it flying and working already):confused:

Windriver

The engine control on Concorde was entirely electric/electronic, there were various inhibitors for N1 as the engines accelerated, in particular No. 4 engine had to have N1 held down until 60kt because while all four engines rotated in the same direction the four intakes were mirror images down the centreline of the aircraft and the inner and outer inlet pair had a different shape leading to different flow patterns and hence surge margin. The result was that the engine control units sorted it out on a per engine basis as the power came in. The reheats were also pre-selected and lit once all engines had stabilised in dry power. It was thus possible to bang the throttles open without needing to worry about engine parameters, normally this was done by the captain who started the stopwatch simultaneously with his other hand, the time on this being used for timing the noise abatement procedure.

PPrune Pop

When I say tyre failure, I was referring to the fact that a cut (possibly exacerbated by other factors) caused a large piece of tread to be shed. I've read before that the tyres used by each operator were different in this respect, maybe a similar piece would not have come off from a BA Concorde tyre. What I saw stated that one type of tyre tread would break up into small pieces, the other would not.

As for the tank rupture, try as I might I can't see how a hydraulic shock wave could happen unless the mandated air space in the tank was not present. Why that would happen I shall not comment on further.

My point was simply that the US abandoned development of their own SST when they found out that the sonic bangs would be unacceptable. That, and the eye-watering cost, killed the SST project. In 1964 they flew military jets in test flights across the continental US mimicking the routes that any SST -- US or otherwise -- would take and found the public wouldn't wear it. We found that out too during the west Britain supersonic test flights, but by then it was too late -- we had already spent the money. Everyone knew what a sonic bang was -- it is simply amazing to behold that no one had thought that part of it through. Condemned to flying over Mach 1 only over blue water, the economics were completely screwed.

A thought about the matching cut tyre tread piece and metal strip found on the runway - would one not expect a tyre cut in this manner while inflated to split apart completely at the cut? I've always been surprised that the tread piece found was still intact at the edges of the cut, which suggested to me that it could have been partially deflated at the point where it ran over the titanium strip.

I'm left wondering why Concorde was susceptible to fuel tank rupture from tyre debris. I have not heard that this applies to other types? Sorry if I am showing my ignorance but I am sure somebody will point out the obvious to me.

It wasn't a hydraulic shock wave, it was a pressure wave - don't ask me to explain it but someone on here can and I expect there is a good write up on it in Google too.

THIS is a good link.

CONCORDE SST : LATEST NEWS

So why did they continue development work on the Boeing 2707 until 1971 then?

I found an interesting thread from 2002, here http://www.pprune.org/spectators-bal...ther-view.html

In it, NW1 states:

"There are manufacturer approved procedures to increase fuel loading to above the nominal "full" levels. This adds a tiny amount (usually about 12-1500 kgs, or about 1.5% of the total fuel load). It is a documented, tested and fully approved procedure - the Concorde's fuel tank venting system works as published even when this "extra" fuel is loaded."

That makes me a bit happier about the whole "pressure wave" phenomenon.

Despite searching I can't find anything that gives any real detail on the Concorde fuel system, I'd like to know how the switch selections affect the configuration of the transfer pumps, fuel galleries and valves and how they were normally configured. If anyone knows of a good reference, please let me know.

Groundloop.

I also wonder (well, I don't really lol) why the U.S. were so happy to have the Tu 144 Charger flying over the U.S. now that the whole threat from foreign SST's is over! It seems NASA like SST's and found them a valuable asset.

I have to say, that although I ignored West Coast's comment, but found it funny, I just wish his sense of humour would still function when talking of refuelling tankers or VIP choppers!

A cherished memory
 

Picture this: beautiful clear skies. Me, enroute to Cardiff, flying at FL080 in Green 1 over Kent. Suddenly, a quintessential British voice on the frequency, announcing that he needed to put the gear down early because of some problem. He was given a lower level. I knew he was going to overtake me. Hell, EVERYTHING in that airway was overtaking my little Arrow. The weather being what it was I got a good sight of them pretty close up. I was having a great time. I thought nothing could top that.
And then Concorde passed underneath my little Arrow.... aaaahhhhhh.....