Concorde programme on BBC4
 

Just starting

(only just found out)

That's a shame, missed it. Production controlled assemblies for 2nd and 3rd noses whilst at Marshalls. Never gets mentioned that MCE designed and built nose and visor after 1st prototype. Not sure if they built all of them as I left in 1970

An interesting documentary all in all. A question, why did the first UK Concorde take off from Filton, but land at Fairford on it's first flight ? Especially as the latter was/is an RAF base.

I think the Filton runway was a bit short for the full flight test programme - it's something like 3/4 the length of Fairford.

Like the VC-10. Weybridge to Wisley, ie. factory to flight test centre.

This is fully explained in Brian Trubshaw's autobiography (page 91). He made himself very unpopular at Filton by telling them that their beloved Brabazon runway was no good for Concorde test flying, noting that it undulated so much that "one could not see one end from the other" among other things (such as the need to close the A38 road for every take off). RAF Fairford was not far away and had a largely flat 10,000 foot runway courtesy of the USAF.

I believe that Concorde had an airprox with a Hamble Cherokee on the approach to Fairford on the maiden flight. Is it true that they got on the backside of the drag curve due to this and had to apply re-heat (Concorde, not the Cherokee)?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/bristol/...00/7963821.stm

Go to 06.00 on the video to see the 'landing', At 06.30, Raymond Baxter misinterprets the increase in power as a possible go-aroud.

Aha! That explains it. In the documentary they showed, of course, the footage of Concorde barreling down the runway or more realistically popping up over a rise of one of the undulations ;-)

Old memories
 

Great to see the first flight footage. Caught a quick glimpse of my father at the aircraft steps with Trubshaw. He was 32 and the avionics systems lead for the prototype commissioning. I was 3 but I'm assured I watched the takeoff ! My father had worked with Trubshaw for some years on the VC10 flight test program at Wisley. By the way the aircraft was damaged the night before the first flight when a worker damaged the angle of attack probe with a moving staircase. My father had to rig a piece of wire around the stall warning breaker to stop it going off constantly. To avoid any complications with the CAA, the mod was done with Trubshaw's authority as Captain just after the airworthiness certifcate was issued. But Dad said Trubshaw was more upset about the failure of the radio altimeters prior to landing at Fairford -
Before the flight they had felt the need to compute the likely clearance over the perimeter fence at Fairford given the steep angle of approach on Concorde.

Probably more accurate to say the pitch/attitude angle at approach not the approach/glide path angle

Indeed, in several of the landings shown the first touch was the tail bumper!

Tut tut! Do that in a Comet 1 and you were Yorked !

I helped to do the drawings for that bit of kit, my only claim to fame!!

Pity they inter-cut John Hutchinson's analyses of the Paris crash with Bannister's 'company man' viewpoint. Here's Hutchinson uninterrupted, and well worth a look:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqOcYhzWUZY&t=27s

Wander , did a Suffolk schools science trip to Filton in early '69 . They were testing windshields with chickens and cannon . Word was that Marshalls designed and built prototype noses . Production nose were to come back in-house with BAC .
July '71 , at Cambridge for Flying Scholarship . Word was that all noses would be produced at Marshalls ; as only 16 a/c to be built .

rgds condor

Aahh, thanks Condor - very interesting. Still get a tingle when I see the aircraft, even in museums

SSD, Hutch was being remarkably restrained in the Duxford clip about the Air France Concorde accident.

Ignore Porky Bannister's company man comments - Hutch is infinitely more knowledgeable!

The AF Concorde was over MTOW, even further over RTOW - which wasn't even checked after the tailwind had been announced. The aircraft had been poorly maintained, the captain took unacceptable risks and accepted non-standard procedures; the flight engineer failed totally to follow correct engine fire warning SOPs....

I will never fly with Air Chance!

SSD,
Wow that analyses on the reason for the Concorde crash by JH in the third video is just truly fascinating.
Watched it twice and will no doubt do so again ....should be compulsory viewing for just about everybody in all walks of life. So many lessons!

mikemmb (#18),

Provided me with an explanation of a line which has always puzzled me:

(From Kipling: "The Grave of the Hundred Head":

A Snider squibbed in the jungle,
http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/pix/spacer.jpg Somebody laughed and fled,
And the men of the First Shikaris
http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/pix/spacer.jpg Picked up their Subaltern dead,
With a big blue mark in his forehead
http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/pix/spacer.jpgAnd the back blown out of his head.


Presumably by the same effect that had ruptured the Concorde fuel tank.

They're all at it

Concorde programme (part 1 of 2) just starting on Channel 5 now

Sorry again, only just discovered