https://www.airliners.net/photo/Brit...de-102/7172541

Not much to add, apart from picture taken from a unique angle.

Was a link to the FCOM / AFM ever published in this thread? I bet it’d make some interesting reading.

Thanks to those in the know, who’ve contributed to perhaps the most interesting thread on this forum.

CA, manuals can be found here, you may have to sign up to access, no fees involved though. There's enough info there to build one. ;)

https://ww2aircraft.net/forum/thread...srm-ipc.58385/

Awesome resource. Thanks a bunch!

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....cb4960dfac.jpg
Lego Concorde

I want one !

(apparently EUR 195 from Sept 23 - no ordering link found so far...)

Since we're on the subject of Concorde, I was watching an "Air Disasters' episode last weekend that touched on the Paris Concorde crash.

It got me thinking - what was the final straw that led to the crash? Was a very heavy Concorde unable to maintain altitude with two engines out? Or did the raging fire do critical flight control damage? Combination there of?

Too many factors cascading, but the ignition of leaking fuel led to major changes, including the crew shutting down an engine due to fire warning and the melting of considerable portions of the wing. Per the accident report a large contributor was a defective landing gear that, with one tire gone, swiveled and forced the plane off the runway where one engine ate a light. There was also a suggestion that additional drag from the misaligned gear slowed the takeoff which would otherwise have left the runway before contacting the metal strip. There were also overweight, tailwind, and leaving the ground below the calculated minimum airspeed.

Final Destination and Dead Like Me both offered more likely scenarios than the stack up of factors required for the Concorde crash.

There have been ample discussion about it, including here. I think one can safely say that the "final straw" was the rupture and ignition of tank 5 after V1. Their fate was sealed after that.

None of the reports suggested that the crew made errors in handling the plane after they elected to continue the takeoff after the first warnings.
None of the reports suggest that handling the situation different after they decided to continue would have changed the outcome.
So the only possible difference in the outcome could have been from two earlier points.
They elected to continue the take off after the bells went off, after V1 complying with SOP.
They elected to start the TO with 8kts tailwind, and questionable M/B numbers.

If they had rejected after V1 there is a chance more people would have survived, but it would have been the wrong decision as far as operating procedures, based on the information the pilots had.
If they had delayed the T/O, in all probability the same thing could have happened, and if it hadn't because they didn't hit the piece of metal it would not have prevented the crash for the right reasons.

That 25 year old airplane had less time in the air than the crew had on average, and the entire fleet had only around 300.000 hours in 25 years with 14 airframes. From inception till 2013 the 737 fleet flew over 250 million hours, and 1 crash per week over 40 years would have been equivalent in safety. The concord was an anomaly from the start.

If memory serves, best L/D speed was somewhere around 315 knots. Never mind the other issues at play, but with two failed engines it would have been impossible to have achieved that speed.

If it didn’t crash, would any airline(s) still fly it today? Or would the economics have become too much for it to continue?

Perhaps I wasn't completely clear in my question - I'm not questioning the crew's actions in any way. They knew they were in deep trouble and were looking to set the aircraft down again at another airport but were unable to maintain sufficient altitude and crash.
My question is why couldn't they maintain altitude - not enough thrust or fire related flight control damage (or some combination thereof).

A mix, with the fire eating into the right wing.
Of course shutting down a working engine didn't help but the eventual outcome was sealed anyway.

Too slow - they got into the drag bucket and couldn't leave. AoA is high, so drag is high. Getting out requires more thrust, but they lost one and shut down the other on the fire warning. Even leaving the ground they started behind - a little too heavy and too much tailwind. If they drop the nose to get a better drag situation they lose altitude and crash. If they don't the plane just mushes along without enough thrust to get out of the bucket. Had there been no fire they might have lost enough fuel to climb out, but with the fire they weren't able to wait long enough.

Olympus 593 ECU PCB identification
 

This may be a bit of a long shot.
I am trying to identify the function of two printed circuit boards from an Olympus 593 Engine Engine Control Unit (ECU). I worked on Concorde and its ECUs at Filton for many years in the 1970s and 80s.
When Concorde retired in 2003 I requested from British Airways and was given 2 ECU PCBs as a souvenir.
There were of course 8 ECUs on each aircraft, 2 per engine. Each ECU had about 20 different PCBs. I have sometimes wondered just what the function was of my 2 PCBs. Maybe someone knows or has the relevant ECU Overhaul Manual. I have already asked various organisations for help - Ultra Electronics the manufacturers of the ECUs, British Airways, Rolls-Royce Heritage Trust and some museums. I've had some helpful replies but no actual answers.
Marked on the PCBs ae their drawing numbers: 46546-629-0 and 46456-602-0.
I have tried to attach some photos but there seems to be some forum setting that's preventing this!
Thanks

Just re-read the whole thread from the beginning - still as fascinating as the first time I came across it :-)

All I asked was a question about not having an APU, what a delight this thread has been

That's an interesting challenge, but one that is very hard to solve. Have you tried asking on the Concordesst.com website and their forum? As you say, you would need to find a very specific overhaul manual and I don't know if a manual like that is even around, other than in a heritage collection somewhere.

Holy Toledo, went back to the start of this thread and was amazed. It will take some time to read through this, but thank you all for the contributions. Amazing. Thanks Stilton for your original question.

They never managed to attain the V2 of 220kt td, highest speed reached 211kt, not helped by having to avoid the holding 747 which they flew over missing the 747 by a matter of feet according to the cockpit crew. Last airspeed recorded was 136kt immediately prior to the crash.

For the weight they were at the zero rate of climb speeds were,

Gear Retracted - 0ne engine out 193kt - Two engines out 262kt
Gear Extended (the condition they were in) - One engine out 205kt - Two engines out >300kt

They had two engines effectively out.

So all things being equal two engines out would "need" 80kt to maintain VZRC (give or take). Wow...
Amazing that they managed to (barely) fly at 140 kt.