Concorde question

[M2dude]

We are talking about the same guy. I was on his last trip, it was 'stacks' of fun. He is one great guy and wonderful pilot.

Dude

[ChristiaanJ]

Originally Posted by M2dude

...a few trivia questions...

Not sure all of them are pure trivia!
Even myself, who supposedly knows the aircraft fairly well, is hesitating on several!

Answers tomorrow

Give us a couple of days at least, Dude!

CJ

[M2dude]

ChristiaanJ

Not sure all of them are pure trivia!
Even myself, who supposedly knows the aircraft fairly well, is hesitating on several!

Wow, you surprise me my friend. OK, answeres on Thursday then.
(I used to do regular quizes for the aircrews, you should hear what THEY said about me )

Dude

[EXWOK]

It was a delight to hand fly supersonic. With autostabs working it was a pleasure to fly through the whole regime, although from M0.95 to about M1.3 it was a bit squirmy - as though someone kept playing with the trims.

Take-off was flown without flight directors as there was no AFDS mode which suited the juggling of roc vs acceleration. If the AP was going to be used them one Usually hand-flew without fly director until you got to the barbers pole when Max Clb could be engaged on FD and AP. mostly we'd just use the FD and hand fly to the subsonic crz.

It really was a very hands on aeroplane - probably the last type out of LHR where one routinely tracked NDBs and VORs every departure (via CPT) without the aid of a flt director let alone a moving map!

Which is one of the many reasons we all loved flying it!

PS pls excuse all the shpelling mishtooks - am using a tiny touchscreen keyboard.....

[M2dude]

ChristiaanJ

Only in LAND mode could both APs be engaged at the same time, with normally no.1 flying and no.2 as a "hot" standby.
The system was referred to as "fail active", in that no.2 would already be synchronised to what no.1 was doing, and would take over totally automatically, without a hiccup (except an "oh merde" from the pilots, probably).

Your quote from memory is correct, although Land PRIME only was required for the second autopilot to be engaged.
Autopilot disengagememnts in Land mode werer in fact extremely rare. (Love the 'oh merde'bit though). The most comon autoland problems were the loss of Warning and Landing Display LAND 3 annunciation. Most problems were due to a failed flare test in the Pitch Computers at G/S capture and failures in the BCII inertial comparator.

Dude

[Cron]

My question concerns lighting. Not many decent pictures showing landing lights etc being used in anger.

Concorde appears to have a much reduced frontal area for the housing of such lighting.

There is also the question of lenses having to withstand supersonic flow.

And also the angle of attack on landing (hope I have the right terminology there) seemingly pointing any lighting into the sky.

Cron

[ChristiaanJ]

Originally Posted by EXWOK

It was a delight to hand fly supersonic. With autostabs working it was a pleasure to fly through the whole regime...

Thanks, EXWOK.
I was involved with tweaking the autostabs in those very earliest days... and it's still satisfying to this day to hear from the "users" we got it right!

It really was a very hands on aeroplane - probably the last type out of LHR where one routinely tracked NDBs and VORs every departure...

NDBs? You're kidding, no?

CJ

[M2dude]

EXWOK

It was a delight to hand fly supersonic. With autostabs working it was a pleasure to fly through the whole regime, although from M0.95 to about M1.3 it was a bit squirmy - as though someone kept playing with the trims.

This is the Mach Trimming that was incorporated into the Electric Trom Computers for certification purposes, that I mentioned in a post here about a million years ago (same thread though). With the CG being controlled correctly you'd always notice it of course when you were hand flying, and would get a sore thumb winding the trim down to fight off the nose up Mach trim demand.

PS pls excuse all the shpelling mishtooks - am using a tiny touchscreen keyboard.....

And you a steely eyed supersonic jet pilot too

Dude

[Nick Thomas]

Thanks everyone for such interesting replies. Yet again Concorde suprises me!
M2dude am looking forward to your answers on Thursday especially Q2!
Regards
Nick

[EXWOK]

Christiaan - yep, NDBs.

There are several SIDs ex-LHR based on NDBs if some kind of RNAV isn't available. Relevant to conc ops was the CPT SID in which one tracked in and out of WOD NDB.

Seems a bit passé now.....

[EXWOK]

Autostabs

PS I can confirm you definitely got the autostabs right!

[ChristiaanJ]

Originally Posted by Cron

My question concerns lighting. Not many decent pictures showing landing lights etc being used in anger.
Concorde appears to have a much reduced frontal area for the housing of such lighting.

Quite right!
Nevertheless there were three separate sets of landing/taxi lights there.

Quoting from the manual:

Two main landing lamps, one mounted in each wing root leading
edge, have retractable/extensible mountings and when not in
use are retracted in the lamp housing.
Two land/taxi lamps, similar to the main landing lamps, are attached to the
nose landing gear bay doors. The land/taxi lamps extend to
an intermediate position for landing, upon which they
automatically extend to the full position for taxiing, thus
changing the beam angle to compensate for the attitude change.
Two taxi/turn-off lamps, one mounted on each side of the
forward fuselage, provide ground illumination to identify
runway turn-off points.


These are the 'main' lights in the wing leading edge (600W each).





These are the lights in the nosewheel doors ("only" 450W each).

There is also the question of lenses having to withstand supersonic flow.

All three of the sets of lights had a cover to blend them in smoothly with the structure, much like the cabin windows.

The heat was less of a problem, actually.
The lights themselves were high-power sealed-beam units, the main units were 600W each, and the ones in the nosewheel doors were 450W ... nothing like your car headlights.
As a matter of fact, on the ground you were not suppossed to turn them on any more than 5 minutes in any 10 minutes.... they got a lot hotter when switched on, than they did in supersonic flight.

And also the angle of attack on landing (hope I have the right terminology there) seemingly pointing any lighting into the sky.

Good point!
What happened was that the main landing lamps in the wing roots were angled such, that they pointed straight ahead at the right angle to "hit" the runway during the landing itself.
Once the aircraft touched down, the land/taxi lights in the nose gear door extended further and lit a wider expanse of the runway ahead (see the earlier quote from the manual).
And then the third set of lights in the nose helped you to find the turn-off to the taxiway.

One nice little detail.... on F-BTSD, the Concorde at the French Le Bourget museum, those lights still work, and on G-BBDG, the Concorde at the Brooklands museum that was saved from the scrapheap, they brought those lights back to life, too.

CJ

[EXWOK]

In service we tended to use only the wing-mounted main landing lights, as the nosegear door-mounted lights caused light buffeting which could be felt in the cabin.

They would, however, be pressed into service in really skanky conditions, or if it was felt they would help the aesthetics when a photographic detail was arranged.

[HalloweenJack]

CONCORDE SST : INSIDE CONCORDE ITEMS 30-41

the last photo in the series should show the 4 lights in use as described

[NW1]

A memory which really stuck re. hand flying supersonic was how solid it felt - and how the extreme TAS (about 1200kts) vividly demonstrated the relationship between TAS / angle of bank and turn rate: you rolled on 15 degrees of bank and it seemed like the HSI heading reference had stuck - it just didn't turn. From memory turn radius with 30 degrees AOB at M2 was about 50nms...

Re the autostabs: it felt like the puppet's strings were cut with them off, but switching to Mechanical Signalling as well made it truly horrible. I only ever flew the sim in this config, I understood they used to do it at base but stopped it because they feared lives would be lost. A pal once memorably described it as like trying to fly a dustbin lid around. And so it was! Plug it all back in (Electrical Signalling and Autostabs) and it all snapped back into shape beautifully. So ahead of its time...

There were no doubt pitch trim changes transonic due to the mach trim system, but a more obvious effect in the 0.99-1.3 range was due to shockwaves forming and fading assymetrically causing minor oscillations in all axes: if you watched out front while hand flying the accel or decel you could make out the nose descibing what felt like figures of eight as the trim changed in pitch and yaw. Roll too, and gentle pressure was required on the cc to avoid overcontrolling and PIO - a bigger problem with the Conc than some other types...

Memory lane - this is fun!

[ChristiaanJ]

Originally Posted by EXWOK

In service we tended to use only the wing-mounted main landing lights, as the nosegear door-mounted lights caused light buffeting which could be felt in the cabin.

Interesting.
Judging by the picture from the maintenance manual below, once the nosewheel was down, the main landing lights just lit up the ground below the nose, but not ahead.
Did you just rely on the runway lighting plus the ambient light (town lights reflected by the clouds, etc.) or did you usually extend the nosewheel door lights once you were down?





CJ

[EXWOK]

We either switched to the taxy lights or just carried on with the taxy/turn lights which were often ample.

[Biggles78]

1) How many fuel tanks werer there on Concorde? - Lots
2) How many seats were there? - 12, the rest were freight bays
3) At what approximate altitude and KNOTS EAS was Mach 2 achieved? - Very high and very fast but NOT very very fast
4) Only one BA Concorde had three different registrations, what was it? - The one that was made at Filton
5) What was the maximum permitted altitude in passenger service? - Feet, metres or FL?
6) How many wheels on the aircraft - Just enough
7) How many flying control modes were there? - Fast, very fast and very very fast
8) How many positions of nose droop were there? - With the STOP or without?
9) What was the first microprocessor application on the aircraft? - Pacman (wild guess)
10) How many main electrical sources were there? - Tomato and BBQ

So what do I win?

[M2dude]

Concorde Trivia Quiz.. The Answers

As promised here are the answers to our trivia quiz.

1) How many fuel tanks were there on Concorde?

Actually there were 14 (but if you are not necessarily a Concorde person, 13 is acceptable). There were '13 fuel tanks, numbered 1 - 11' as we used to tell all the visitors to the aircraft, (The wingtip tanks 5A & 7A making up the extra 2) PLUS a single small scavenge tank at the rear of the aircraft that was used to remove fuel from the vent lines and return this fuel via a transfer pump back to tank 3. (A fuel level sensor would trigger the pump with only 1 US Gallon of fuel in the tank). If the trim gallery became over-pressurised (ie tank 3 already full to the brim) an overflow relief valve (ORV) underneath the rear of the aircraft would open and dump the contents of the tank overboard. There was a flight deck indication if the scavenge pump was running in flight to give the crew an indication that a tank somewhere was probably over-filling and to take the appropriate action. There was one added goody about the ORV; If you were on the ground with the refuel door open and due to a refuelling overfill anywhere, fuel entered the scavenge tank, at 7 gallons the ORV would open and rapidly dump the fuel on the floor. For this reason a vent pipe and fuel drum was often placed underneath the ORV during high load refuels. If this was not fitted and you just happened to walk underneath the aircraft at the wrong moment during fuelling........
As a total aside to all this (or me going off on a tangent yet again) the fuel tanks themselves were gently air pressurised above 44,000' to around 2.2 PSIA. This was to prevent the beginnings of any boiling of the fuel in the tanks, due to the low ambient pressure/high fuel temperatures, causing pump cavitation. (Boiling itself could not occur much below 65,000'). A small NACA duct at the right side of the fin was used to supply the ram air for tank pressurisation, the two vent valves in the tail cone, one per trim gallery, closing off automatically at around 44,000', the pressure being controlled by a pneumatic valve, with full automatic over-pressure protection. OK sorry guys and gals, back to the answers:

2) How many seats were there?

This is the stinker.... there were 114 (although at entry into service there were 115!!). 100 passenger seats + 6 cabin crew seats + 5 flight deck seats (including the fold up seat in the aisle at the rear) PLUS 3 LOO SEATS (Originally 4 loos, the fourth loo being removed in the early 1980's).

3) At what approximate altitude and KNOTS EAS was Mach 2 achieved?

50,189' and 530 KEAS, but we'll settle for anything around FL500 being correct.

4) Only one BA Concorde had three different registrations, what was it?

Aircraft 216, G-BOAF, the last Concorde ever built. When 216 first flew in 1979 she was a variant 192 'British Unsold Aircraft' and was registered as G-BFKX. In late 1979, BA purchased the aircraft and it was subsequently converted to a Type 102 British Airways variant, and after modifications were complete, test flights were carried out from Filton under the registration of G-N94AF. This registration was to enable the aircraft to participate in the Braniff interchange between IAD and DFW, but when the Braniff Concorde adventure unfortunately ended in 1980, she was again re-registered to G-BOAF, this is how she was delivered to BA later that year.

5) What was the maximum permitted altitude in passenger service?

Easy one this I hope; 60.000'. (As we've said before this limitation was imposed because of the dual window failure / emergency descent time consideration, not as a performance issue. On test flights 63,000' was routinely attained, and altitudes of up to 68,000' were achieved during development flying. (On her maiden flight, G-BOAB achieved 65,000' and Mach 2.04; the first British constructed Concorde to achieve Mach 2 on her maiden flight, and the ONLY one of the original five BA aircraft to achieve this).

6) How many wheels on the aircraft

Hopefully an easy one... there were TWELVE: 2 nose wheels, 8 main wheels and 2 tail wheels. (No, even I'm not nasty enough to include the wheels on the bar trolleys ). Oh, and there were 9 wheel brakes, one for each main wheel and as was mentioned in a previous post, a single steel disc brake for the nose wheels (the nose having a live axle), for automatic use during gear retraction only.

7) How many flying control modes were there?

Three modes; Blue electronic signalling, green electronic signalling and mechanical signalling. I suppose we COULD be pedantic here and include the Emergency Flight Control mode where even with a jammed control column/control wheel, strain gauges (and Safety Flight Control Computers of course) would still enable you to control the elevons.

8) How many positions of nose droop were there?

OK, three basically. Up (Duh!), 5 degrees for taxi/take off and low speed flight and 12.5 degrees for landing. As ChristiaanJ quite rightly pointed out in an earlier post, the prototype (and pre-production) aircraft landing position was 17.5 degrees of droop. (In my view the nose of the aircraft looked a little like an armadillo in this extreme configuration).

9) What was the first microprocessor application on the aircraft?

In 1977 the new digital Plessey PVS 1580 Aircraft Integrated Data System was progressively fitted to the BA fleet, this being the first microprocessor application on Concorde, this application being followed in several other systems during the life of the aircraft. The 'final' applications being TCAS and the superb retrofitted Bendix RDR-4A weather radar system.

10) How many main electrical sources were there?

No we are not including torch batteries and emergency lights etc. There were a total of seven main power sources: 4 x 60KVA AC generators, one per engine, a single 40KVA hydraulically powered emergency generator and 2 lead acid (or ni-cad in the case of G-BOAG) main aircraft batteries. (Not a terribly Re-Volting question I hope).

I hope this quiz was fun and not too perplexing to any of you guys.

Dude

[ChristiaanJ]

I copied this off M2dude's post a couple of days ago, and tried to answer it all offline without cheating by looking up the answers elsewhere.

1) How many fuel tanks were there on Concorde?
LOL... 13.
I suppose that, for the same reason there was no row 13 in the cabin, somebody decided to name two of the tanks "5A" and "7A", rather than call the tail trim tank (named no.11) number 13.
Yes, I forgot the scavenge tank.
And since it was "BA Concordes only" I didn't want to add the hydrazine tank on the two preprod and the two certification aircraft.

2) How many seats were there?
Good question.
As Nick asked, which seats?
Nominally there were 100 pax seats in the cabin, although originally up to 127 were certified.
Five (three plus two jump seats) in the cockpit.
Cabin seats for the cabin crew.... I honestly don't know. Seven?
Wrong twice... six cabin crew seats, AND I forgot to count the loos!

3) At what approximate altitude and KNOTS EAS was Mach 2 achieved?
Roughly, FL500 and 530 kts.
But not being a pilot I had to check an instant on my flight envelope crib sheet, which I have at hand all the time.....
It seemed pointless to be TOO precise, because that assumed ISA and creeping exactly up the right edge of the envelope.

4) Only one BA Concorde had three different registrations, what was it?
Without looking it up, no idea. My guess is G-BOAF, with a white-tail reg, a "British" reg, and a pseudo-American reg.
IIRC, G-BOAG never had a pseudo-American reg, but I'm not sure without looking it up.
Brain not completely addled, then.

5) What was the maximum permitted altitude in passenger service?
FL600, as certified.

6) How many wheels on the aircraft?
Twelve, if you count the two Spitfire wheels at the back

7) How many flying control modes were there?
Four. Blue, green, mechanical and ... what did we call it? Control jam, CWS?
Ah, thanks, Emergency Flight Control. I always considered it as a separate mode, even if it was virtually never used.

8) How many positions of nose droop were there?
Four. 0°, 5°, 12.5° and 17.5° (the latter only on the prototypes, and purely mechanically, after removing a stop, on the other aircraft).

9) What was the first microprocessor application on the aircraft?
No idea... you (M2dude) mentioned a Plessey data acquisition system?
It was after "my time"...

10) How many main electrical sources were there?
Again, not sure... You're presumably are talking about primary sources.
There was an AC constant-drive generator on each engine.
Then there were two DC batteries.
And IIRC there was an AC generator running off the RAT hydraulic generator when pillar came to post.
Reading M2dude's answer, I suppose the emergency generator just ran off the hydraulics, not specifically off the RAT. Far more logical.

Nice one, M2dude!
And certainly not all trivia!

CJ