Nice, thank you Bellorophon for clarification. The books makes it sound like it became something normal. :ok:

By the way, I highly recommend this book to everybody, a different point of view, new photos and nice info regarding this bird.

Nice!! Do you have any idea of the route? Supersonic over the North and Norwegian Seas then inbound continent? Or Supersonic only after getting to the Baltic Sea?

Nice info regarding BA004! But if a repair was needed, would BA004 take-off anyway to Gatwick or Birmingham? Has it ever arrived a bit late?

I always read/heard that above 300 knots the ride became veeeeery smooth, and that below this speed, the vortex became "active". IIRC this is written on Stick & Rudder and/or Calvert's book.


Thank you all, awesome topic!! :D

This thread is worth of cutting and pasting all the posts to make a book.

Is it true that the airframs had very little corrosion because during flight they were heated enough that any moisture literaly boiled off.

Does anyone have a photo of the inside of the baggage hold.

thank you as well M2Dude - i am just a humble fan of the concorde , being born after she first flew it was sad to see she was never built in the numbers they thought - but such a lasting legacy on shrinking the world - i doubt anything will surpass in many years.

We're presumably talking IAS?
For some reason, those figures sound familiar even to me.... (from some other discussion, probably).
It would definitely put optimum subsonic cruise at about 350 kts in the "conventional lift" zone.
I hope so!

CJ

Yep - IAS. (or technically, CAS before I'm corrected!)

IIRC 400kts IAS was approximately best L/D at departure weights. (Low-level, obviously).

Yes and no....
She's not that unique.... there are many vintage and "heritage" aircraft flying in the UK.

But more than anything else, I think the Vulcan is about as far as the Campaign Against Aviation is willing to go in the UK in terms of a "complex aircraft".
With less obstruction, and some more work, I would have thought a Lightning could have flown in the UK.
A Concorde... no way.
I would say... Teasin' Tina is a different case...
Yes, in a better state than 'SD, overall, and again much less complex than Concorde, and more in the category of the Vulcan.

In her case, I would say it's before all a matter of money.
After the Falklands, the Vulcan, in a way, was THE icon among the V-bombers, and the money was raised to return her to the sky (and we know with what difficulties).
Somehow, I can't see that enough money can be found to return a second, less symbolic, V-bomber to flight, however much she's shown us she wants to!
(Yes, I've seen the videos... and I've had the pleasure to meet her in person at Bruntingthorpe a couple of years ago.)

And are you forgetting 'Canopus' ? An even sadder story.

The "engine testing" was a publicity stunt, where they pretended to do a borescope inspection of one of the engines. In the end they did have a look at two or three of the blades of three LP compressor stages, and proclaimed the engines (note the plural) "were in perfect condition".
The picture below is not a moon crater landscape but a capture from the video published by the museum.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...anJ/Image7.jpg

Draw your own conclusions.

CJ

I've been wondering about that too.... just looking for an easy way to do a "copy and save" of an entire thread.
Any ideas?
It would need some editing afterwards, to bring the various sub-subjects together.

Quite true... it was a pleasant surprise during the major overhauls. People like M2dude can no doubt tell you far more about that.

It would probably have been a major factor in extending the service life, if other things hadn't put an end to that in 2003.

Even if the moisture did not literally "boil off", most of it evaporated, with structural temperatures up to 100°C in many places, as against the -40°C and less in some subsonic aircraft.

The forward or the back one?
Neither look very fascinating.
For the back one just imagine a short stretch of cabin without any seats or fittings or windows. On Delta-Golf at Brooklands and Alpha-Echo at Barbados, they're now used as a sort of small "entry hall" for the visitors.

CJ

I have always been of the possibly not substantiated opinion that all was done to make sure she would never fly again. I fully understand the significant costs incurred by EADS to provide maintenance but it would have been possible to nicely package all remaining spares and technical documentation, not mentioning the reckless butchering of many airframes.

1/ What were the wind limits on Concorde?

2/ What was the minimum runway length they could use?

atakacs,

Opinions and remarks like yours really belong on forums like "SCG" or the comments columns of tabloids....

But I'll try to answer you.

The aircraft were "decommissioned".
That means that they were fully prepared as public museum exhibits, rather than being "mothballed", ready to be put back into service.
The purpose was not to make sure they would never fly again, it was to make sure they were safe for the public to visit.
That included draining all fuel, hydraulic liquid, etc.
That meant removing all pyrotechnics, like those in the RAT.
That implied venting and/or removing all high-pressure vessels, such as the emergency slides, fire bottles, oxygen systems, nitrogen tanks.
In the case of the BA aircraft, it also meant removing the electric ground power connections, to avoid incompetent amateurs trying to put ground power back on the aircraft, and start a fire.

Most of these things could have been rectified quite easily. But there was no intent to ever fly any of these aircraft again, so there was no effort made to "mothball" the aircraft, which would have been done quite differently, such as inerting some of the systems, dropping all of the engines, etc. and, far more importantly, keep a maintenance structure in place, not allow public access to any of the aircraft, etc.

Once Airbus relinquished the Type Certificate, that was the end.

Nice one...
You clearly have no idea what that would have been involved.
Just the spares alone... most of them are "lifed", and would regularly need to be either retested and requalified, or would have to be binned and replaced.

Quite what are you talking about here? No airframes were "recklessly butchered", unless you're talking about Fox-Delta, which was not really worth saving because of serious corrosion.

CJ

You are presumably talking about landing and take-off.
Head winds... I doubt there was much of a limit, they would have made for both a shorter landing and a shorter take-off.
Tail winds... more of an issue... at max take-off weight in particular they would increase your take-off roll.
Cross winds.... not funny... and there are very definite cross wind limits in the manual.. I can look them up, but the pilots here can probably tell you far more about them than I can.

Nice one.... With nearly half of the take-off weight being fuel and payload, the allowed runway length varied hugely, and it was carefully calculated for every flight.
Sorry, I have no figures.
But with only a few passengers and little fuel, Concorde did some pretty spectacular take-offs from some pretty short runways.
St Maarten in the Dutch Antilles comes to mind.

CJ

Sorry I you feel in any way offended - certainly not my intent. :=

Well the end result is somewhat similar to what I just proposed.

I accept that the actions undertaken where just the consequences of the decision not to fly one the finest piece of human engineering to date ever. Although - as you so eloquently put it - I certainly have no idea what I'm speaking of I still feel that this decision has been rather harsh and I'm to date not fully convinced that all alternative where fully explored.

Just my 2c anyway

I think he's referring to the airframes (Fox-Bravo and Delta-Golf off the top of my head, probably others) that required an angle-grinder be taken to them in order to transport to their final destinations via road or waterway that as a result will never be structurally airworthy again.

Sorry, no. I don't feel offended.... I suppose I've just seen too much of that particular "conspiracy theory"....

Think back a moment to the 2003 context.

Due to the economic and political situation at the time (to put it simply), Air France was already flying their Concordes nearly empty, and wanted out.
BA wasn't doing marvelously either.
Airbus (being a company, not a charity) explained that in that case BA would have to carry the full cost of the maintenance.... which WAS already going up as a consequence of maintaining a 35-year old antique flying.
So BA decided to end the service as well, even if in the end at least they went out with a bang, not a whimper.

In those last months, people like Rod Eddington and others DID have a very serious look at keeping one or two aircraft flying in a "heritage role", and there was even a look at a joint venture with the "Alliance" project.

So yes, all of the alternatives WERE explored, but, AT THE TIME, none of these were found to be viable.

So, British Airways, Air France and Airbus all drew their conclusions, which made sense AT THE TIME, and closed down the Concorde operation.
And, instead of scrapping the aircraft, every single one of them went to museums.

The two airframes that "had an angle grinder taken to them" were Alpha-Alpha and Delta-Golf.

For a start, neither would have flown ever again, anyway...

Alpha-Alpha was never modified to post-2000 standard and would have slowly rotted away at LHR. Taking her to East Fortune was a great initiative, IMHO.

Delta-Golf was an ancient certication airframe, and cannibalised for years and years for spares, and destined for scrapping.
Instead, she's now at Brooklands, and rebuilt as one of the most interesting Concorde exhibits.

As to the "angle grinder", you really have to know where to look to find the traces......
And yes, I've seen both of them.

CJ

Can we keep on the paths of righteousness please chaps .. lest those who might think the Concorde threads are taking up to much of Tech Log smite us all ...

I appreciate that some of the folks here are very one-eyed in their support of the Grand Lady but let's stay away from the arm waving and non-techo argumentative posts please.

nomorcatering: I for one would be very unhappy if any of my posts are cut and pasted into a book. This would be plagerism. I have a publisher intersted in a book which I have already started, and when I finally hang up my wings, I will spend some time completing.

To the moderators : I guess it's me you referring to with my non-techy posts. I won't be posting on here again, as I have said from the start, I am not technical but my recollections of events on Concorde have interested some.

What a shame, this was the best thread on pprune for years.

Maybe Jetblast is the place to be!

Warm regards,

Landlady. (Supersonic tea-bag squeezer to the stars.)

To the moderators : I guess it's me you referring to with my non-techy posts.

Absolutely NOT the case !! I should have been a bit clearer. What I was concerned about was several posts moving into denigration of organisations. The reference to non-techo probably would have better been expressed as, say, non-directly-Concorde relevant posts ?


I won't be posting on here again

Please stay with us - your comments balance the shop front views of life and are valued - really they are.

Landlady, rest assured, I'm not about to publish a book. Was merely thinking out aloud.

Indeed, put me down for the 1st order for when your book comes out.

This thread is the best in the 12 years I have been reading pprune. the only way is to make this thread better........ is for it to be read on a cold winters night, a log fire softly crackling in the background, seated in a comfy chesterfield lounge with a tumbler of the finest rum or scotch or maybe coniac.

Absolute Bliss!

Seconded. :ok:

Thank you!
 

Thanks for clearing that one up!

I wondered if perhaps I was posting in the wrong place. Maybe there should be another thread for anyone who has memories that they would like to share, or links with Concorde which aren’t spanner related…..however, I do have a little story for today.


This concerns the type of traveller that we have all met…the ones who like to practise a little ‘one up-manship’. ;)


It was a pea-souper of a day at LHR, and we were trying to get away on the early JFK, but our delay-due-fog was getting longer and longer. A businessman was getting himself into a right old state about the fog, and summoned me to his side. (This was taking place in the rear cabin, as a matter of interest.) He told me in no uncertain terms that this was Concorde, (full marks there for observation for a start), and not only could she fly in a bit of fog, but also in zero visibility. Furthermore, he would be having lunch with Lord King a week on Thursday, and have no doubt about it, he would be having words. (Lord King was our Life President for those who don’t know, and what a gentleman!) Now, would I please run along to the flight deck and tell the captain to stop b*ggering about and get the show on the road. I informed him that nothing would please me more, and went forward, but before I got to the flight deck I thought I would have a little chat with the passenger sitting at 1A. Lord King. :ok:

I told him that there was a passenger down the back who would be having lunch with him on Thursday of next week, and I felt it only fair to warn Lord King that his dining partner was not a happy chap. The lovely John King put his half-moon specs on the end of his nose and fished out his pocket diary, telling me that on Thursday week it would be his wife’s birthday, and there would be a family party. He stood up and asked me to take him to the gentleman in question, giving me a little wink.

We arrived at the seat of our disgruntled passenger, who was more than a little surprised to see Lord King standing in front of him. He began by saying how embarrassed he was that he had no mention in his diary of the impending lunch date, and slipped the gentleman his card, saying he should contact his P.A to re-arrange. As he began to walk back to his seat he paused, turned around and said,’ by the way, what is your name?’ at which several of the nearby passengers actually laughed out loud. Red-faced businessman troubled us no more.:\


Of course, not all SLF are problematic, but blimey, the ones that are cause us no end of grief!

Warm regards,

Landlady. (Supersonic tea-bag squeezer to the stars.)

john_tullamarine,
My apologies... I shouldn't have 'bitten' in the first place.

landlady,
Yes, please stay!

A side note to your tale... the funny thing is that the businessman was right, strictly speaking....
Us techies did a lot of development work to make sure Concorde could take off and, above all, land in a pea soup fog, down to zero-zero visibility.
But of course, the rest of the airport would already have come to a complete standstill in those conditions, including the emergency services, hence the rules and regulations for minimum visibility.

Success with your book!
What's the title going to be? "Tea At Two" ?

CJ

Thanks, ChristaanJ, it wasn't so much that the businessman was right for all the reasons you say, it was just his attitude which made us all just a bit pleased that he was put in his place by the top man!

Book title a secret. If I told you I would have to kill you, and then where would we be then with no input from you and my posts being written from my prison cell!

Warm regards.
LL x

This reallt has to be the best thread I have ever read here.

I have a question also:

201 (I believe) was fitted with a sidestick control on the left, was the aircraft actually flown with this and if so what were the pilots reactions to it?

Was it possibly to have been incorporated on later production aircraft?

Also did it retain the artificial feel system?

Thanks again for the great thread

Tex

Interesting & nostalgic thread. Nice to see this monumental aviation achievement still generates such passion...

In case it's of interest (and suitable health warning as the memory fades)...

The heat did evaporate water vapour in the airframe - reducing corrosion. I remember when the 5 BA aircraft were returned to service, after the post-accident mods, their weight and balance certificates were prepared and found to be out by (IIRC) more than a tonne. This represented water in the airframe present after a year on the ground, and was gone again after a couple hours of supercruise on return to service. Back to the weighbridge for new W&B Certificates....

Vortex lift caused buffet which felt very similar to a conventional wing's stall/low speed buffet. At landing weights (I hate the trend of using the term "mass": weight is a force, mass is not!) you felt the buffet start as you reduced speed (CAS: Vc) to about 250kts. It was handy as a reminder that you should select visor down / nose to five below 250kts (the recommendation was as you slowed through 270kts, but latterly we were in the habit of holding at 250kts nose/visor up - I think TCAS was quoted as a backup to the more limited visibility in that config). At takeoff weights, the buffet went at more like 270kts accelerating. So I'm pretty sure there was no vortex lift at AoA > 7 degrees (250kts at LW).

Recommended subsonic cruise at MTOW was F260 / M0.95 which was equal to Vmo of 400kts (CAS). It was best cruise because Vc=400kts was also min drag at MTOW. F280 meant a slightly more draggy speed of 384kts, but some preferred it because when cleared to climb & accelerate supersonic (the official expression was "go for it") it gave you a bit of slack against Vmo when eng put the reheats in. But we tended to ignore the overspeed warning anyway: it was supposed to go really really fast...

We never flew with visor down and nose up unless it was bust - that config was only used during pushback (except one captain who always thought it looked better visor up....). Visor down max Vc was 325kts/M0.8 so it would limit subsonic cruise, and besides it made a racket like that.

It was a beaut in x-winds - a total lack of yaw-roll couple meant you just straightened the 'plane up with rudder and carried on into the flare as normal. No roll to counteract, and the sideways "lift" created by the rudder deflection on the fin pretty much equalled the x-wind drift. Nice.

Wind limits were Crosswind 30kts (15kts contaminated or autoland), Headwind for autoland 25kts (or manual "reduced noise" approach: that's a technical way we used to reduce the noise footprint down to 800' by flying at 190kts then reducing to a target speed of Vref+7kts at that point). Tailwind 10kts. All these limits were, of course, subject to "on the day" performance limits calculated at the time. I seem to remember there was an over-arching limit of 6000' on r/w length, subject again to "on the day" performance limits. OK, I cheated on this paragraph and dug out FM Vol 2a.

There were loads of other limitations which were, by and large, more "esoteric" than a conventional airliner and which had to be learned for the conversion course. It really made the head hurt, and would have been impossible without a big loverrly picture of the beast on the wall chucking out yellow smoke and making noise. Even a static picture of her seemed to make noise...

No one who flew it could really believe their luck, but one thing for sure is "they don't build them like that any more"...

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh..........

I may stand corrected - was Fox-Bravo simply unbolted for the canal trip?

http://www.concordesst.com/pictures/fbvfb8.jpg

You're right, it was 201 (F-WTSB).
After certification the aircraft was retained for several flight test programmes, not all of them Concorde-related.
In this case it was an early trial of the sidestick for the A320.
Concorde was already a fly-by-wire aircraft, so it was "relatively" easy to hook a sidestick into the system.
Unfortunately, I remember only some of the details...
It was only fitted on the left.
The righthand side remained fully conventional, and the RH seat pilot acted as the safety pilot.

Yes, definitely.
The story doesn't tell, I'm afraid. At the time it would have 'confidential', of course.

Not really... as I said it was just an early test for the A320.
At the time the aircraft were already certified, so it would have meant a MAJOR modification of the flying controls, AND recertification.
Also there was no requirement for it... the Concorde flying controls were judged perfectly satisfactory by the pilots.

Yes, that remained connected to the conventional controls (I'm not even sure whether the LH control column was removed).
Of course the sidestick would have its own, totally different artificial feel, since the control laws were different.

CJ

That's right, they unbolted the outer wings and the fin and the tailcone. And I'm almost certain they also dropped the engines (because of the weight).

You may have to search a bit, but somewhere on the net there is a huge photoalbum of the journey, interesting from beginning to end.

Oh, and I hope for you that nobody German reads this... it was not a 'canal', but the Rhine!

CJ

On landing in Toronto after a very gusty approach, the skipper put her down a bit sharpish.

A senior royal gentleman to the skipper on leaving the aircraft,"Wonderful flight, thank you. And if the company want to know where the undercarriage is, it's up my a**e."

True to form. (Touches nose. No names. )

G-BOAB
 

I've been driving to Hatton Cross past TBA recently. AB has been released from the engine run pen and parked outside what was, in the past, the Conc maintenance hangar. I have to say that she's a credit to whoever is looking after her - considerably cleaner than the blunties I now fly for a day-job.

And it still looks like the future, not the past. :sad:

I must say it makes getting into Mr Boeing's (admittedly very nice) aeroplane seem deadly dull in comparison. Ah well........

D'oh! Though I could say I don't know, 'cos I've only ever seen the Weser close-up. ;)

I'd still say even in an ideal world where such a thing would be possible, having been stored in the open for several years would put Fox-Bravo pretty far down the list of repair candidates though...

<<A senior royal gentleman to the skipper on leaving the aircraft,"Wonderful flight, thank you. And if the company want to know where the undercarriage is, it's up my a**e.">>
Same thing happened on the 757 fleet. And the Trident. Possibly the Britannia too - probably :O

I've only seen photos... but judging from some recent ones they seem to maintain 'FB rather well, same as its companion, the Tu-144.

CJ

Hi
I know that there were stall problems with the Trident due to the main wing blocking the air flow to the elevators. I just wondered if there was any side slip problems etc due to the air flow being blocked to the vertical tail by the big delta wing especially at large AoA on landing? If so what was the undoubtably clever solution? Mind you I may be seeing problems where there are none!
Regards
Nick

Nick - good question. The elevons were not hidden at high AoA (no elevators, no T-tail issue) but high alpha longitudinal stability was an issue in early development, one of the fixes were the moustache strakes you see at the front - they help energise the wing vorteces and improve rudder authority at high AoA. Apparently. Well that's what they told us at ground school - the result was that right up to limiting AoA all flight controls were effective, including the potentially blanked-off rudder. IIRC the stick-shake was at about 16 degrees which left about 3 degrees slack above approach AoA and it all worked just fine in that environment.

Finally, after 3 nights reading this thread in my spare time i've come to the end of it (for now - it's an organic thing!) and i'd just like to echo the thanks from a wide-eyed SLF who always ran outside of my house every time she went overhead twice a day - and what a noise :)

Anyway, I have 2 questions to put to the assembled experts:

1) Earlier it was mentioned that the tailwheel was the only piece of bad design on the Concorde. Does this mean that the rudder failures were as a result of corrosion/fatigue of a sound original design and that it was just a bit of bad luck that nobody could have foreseen? also, how easy was it to remedy?

2) Were the rudder separation and the in-flight "hole in the wing" issue (reported on the Concorde TV programme) the most serious issues experienced during service? or were there any other issues which manifested themselves such that the passengers were oblivious but the crew were more than a little concerned?

Thanks! :ok:
Mike.
(p.s. - my wife's still chuckling at the Prince Philip story)

The MD80 has similar looking strakes on the forward fuselage for similar reasons.


At least that was what we were told.


It Certainly was not an Aircraft you would want to stall !

Thanks NW1 for your clear and concise answer and for also answering my next question before I had a chance to post it! which was going to be what were the two ledges at the front for? I had always assumed that they were vesitigal canards but in fact they were to help longtiudinal stabilty.
I have another question and that is whenever I see pictures of Concorde's cabin the seat pitch whist not being as tight as economy does seem not to be that generous. So what was the pitch? and if the pitch used in economy on other craft had been used throught the plane could more people have been carried without affecting takoff and landing weights and compromising evacuation etc?
I guess with the length of the flights seat pitch was not an important issue.
Nick

Nick - the only thing I can remember about cabin seats is that the a/c was certified to carry (I think) 125 passengers. But with JFK departures often load-limited as they were, I think 100 was a sensible decision. Some clever arrangements meant it looked bigger and airier than it was. Most passenger feedback seemed to indicate the cabin layout was good enough - not First Class, but then you only had to sit there for 3.5 hours...

I remember that the Concorde was extensively used both by the French and UK government for state travel. Where those "just" another charter flight or was it more involved (cabin layout, routing, security, etc) ?

First Flight
 

Remembering back to the day I operated my first flight on Concorde, (it was know as a supernumery.... anyone on their first trip was in fact an extra crew member.) I had been flying for over 10 years by the time I was selected for this amazing fleet, and of course as we ladies like to think, I knew everything there was to know. (Including men and the universe, but I digress.)

Two memorable things happened on this flight. (Apart from the obvious first take off, sitting in the back row pinned to the seat and whoosh! Blimey, nothing like it and I never tired of experiencing that feeling of really going somewhere. Fast. Made the Trident 1 look a little slow in comparison. Not the Trident 2 though, as that was a little quick over the ground, too.)

The lovely John Cleese was to be mine to take care of during the crossing, and I asked him (before departure) what drink he would like after take off. Poised with my pad and pencil, back came the reply, "I'll have my usual cocktail, please."
I scurried back to the galley to ask the hairy a**ed old galley steward (she wasn't too good looking , either,) what Mr. Cleese' usual drink was."How the bl@@dy h@ll do I know? I've never carried him before. Go and ask him."
Undaunted, I asked a couple of the other, nicer crew, (or so I thought), if they knew what John Cleese' usual drink was.
"Nope." "Go and ask him. It's the only way you'll find out".
How unprofessional would that be? We were supposed to second-guess what everyone wanted before they even knew themselves. So, cap in hand, I went back to Mr. Cleese, who by now had his head buried in a script, and asked him what his usual cocktail actually was.
The reaction was classic Basil Fawlty. He stood up, a huge 6ft 8 or something, stooping as the ceiling hit his head, and began an almighty rant.
"I've been travelling on this aircraft for God only knows how long, and every time I ask for my usual cocktail, no-one knows what it is. Bl@@dy typical! Can't you get anything right....." on and on...all the passengers around him staring in amazement. I was fronting it up, red-faced and shaking in my shoes and wishing I was anywhere else.

Eventually, he sat down and beckoned me to come close to him as he whispered in my ear, "I'm tee-total, which your collegues know very well, having asked me to participate in this little practical joke when I got on board. There is no usual," he winked at me and added, "now get on with your first flight and take the 'L' plate of your back." (I did indeed have an 'L' plate stuck to the back of my jacket, and had it there since checking in.....)

On my arrival in the rear galley, I was greeted by three crew who were literally crying with laughter, who turned out to be the nicest people I could have worked with on my first trip. It was a stroke of luck that John cleese was travelling that day, as it isn't every passenger who would have participated in such a thing. (I did it myself a few years later with a new stewardess with the help of Sir David frost, who was just as brilliant.) ( I carried my 'L' plate in my crew bag in case of emegencies. A couple of pilots and F/Es have had the pleasure of wearing it, too.)

I looked after John Cleese many times after that, and he always gave me a wry smile when I never asked him what he wanted, just delivered his sparkling water.

Part two of this later...the dog has his legs crossed....

Warm regards,
LL x