I think you are mixing things up now, Jackonicko. You might want to study basic aerodynamic before telling other people how incorrect they are. "Drag exceeded lift", is nonsense. Drag exceeded THRUST.

basil, did your Concorde friends agree that 160 kts was a typical rotate speed?

John Farley, from another thread:

I showed these to a Concorde pilot I had dinner with recently, who agreed with JF's figures.

I was also told that there is a maximum tyre groundspeed limit of 217 kts, and that a 5 kt tailwind might not extend the take off length very much, but it had to be taken into account to avoid the tyres being overspeeded whilst still on the runway.

Northern Lights,
Typo error on my part. yes, rotation speed at MTOW 193 kts. I stand corrected.

Cosmo

Many thanks!

Many apologies!

Quite correct!

But being on fire alone was not the cause.

Jackonicko,

ONE LAST TIME......
I DO NOT DISREGARD ANY PROCEDURES/LIMITATIONS/RULES. How dare you imply that I do. (I hold flight engineer, maintenance engineer and commercial pilots licences). I am simply saying that there is more to it than that, going by the book is very important, but it is just one facet of the job. If you were any sort of "professional" aviator you would realise what I'm on about. What I'm talking about here is called airmanship, and is, to a degree intuitive. This comes only with experience, and it seems you have little of that with regards to airline flying.

Is JACKONICO a WIND UP MERCHANT or what??? :rolleyes:

Probably time to put this thread to bed now. The Concorde accident revealed many other areas of concern regarding its operation by Air France; without doubt it ultimately crashed after departing controlled flight, but the causal factors were not restricted to alleged FOD alone, it would seem.

Others have suggested that commercial operators push the envelope of safety; if that is true, it is outrageous. Whilst commercial pressures exist, as we well know, the Captain, not a FE, not a maintenance worker and not a company bean counter, is the person who is ultimately responsible for the safe conduct of any flight. The Company might be considered to be part of the crew in the CRM process which exists to give the Captain the best advice and assistance in HIS/HER decision making - but it is NOT sitting in the driving seat.

Poor marketing might kill an airline; however, poor operations will certainly kill people.

[ 15 September 2001: Message edited by: BEagle ]

Basil,

Apologies. I'd interpreted you as saying that intuition was more important than procedure. You had seemed rather dismissive of the breaches of rules and regs by the Concorde crew that day, and seemed unwilling to condemn such lapses. Thank you for clarifying your position, which I now take to be that procedures and regulations are vital, compulsory and non-negotiable, but which may be interpreted with the benefeit of experience and intuition. I now assume that you wouldn't condone taking off overweight, but don't feel that it was all that relevant in this instance. If that's a useful summary of your position, then we agree, and I apologise for misunderstanding you.

(Edited to add that I'm an amatuer aviator, but, I hope, one with a professional attitude to airmanship!)

[ 16 September 2001: Message edited by: Jackonicko ]

Could the tragic events last Tuesday be the saviour of Concorde as the rich and famous wont have to travel with the riff raff and therefore far less chance of this happening on a CONCORDE???