There is an interesting collection of Concorde related philatelic items (stamps, first day covers, etc.) at this blog site: myphilately.com - Concorde Blog.

Zimmerfly
I have to echo Landlady's comments. This has really been done to death in various forums (yawn!) , and people forget (or perhaps never knew in the first place) just how much vital work the captain in question did for the whole Concorde operation. (Including for example, personally negotianing with HMG regarding BA taking over the Concorde support costs etc, and forming and heading up the division that saw Concorde transformed from a loss making burden into a major profit centre for the airline). Also he was GM Concorde Division and not Chief Pilot.
To answer Steve's original TECHNICAL question; you must remember that using fuel for trimming was to offset long term changes in the centre of lift and not any short term stabilty shifts during landing. (The combination of pilots and elevons coped with that quite admirably :)). And around four tonnes WAS transfered into tank 9 after landing, in order to aid ground stability, particularly during disembarkation.
landlady
I hope you are having a great time sunning yourself ('aint jealous, honest :{) and have a rum punch or two for me.

V1...Oops
This site you mentioned is definately worth a visit; there are some great images there. :)

Dude :O

No disrespect was meant for Captain Brian Walpole.

A quick Google search will reveal many interesting articles about him and his involvement with Concorde. :ok:

Concorde was exactly the same as any other aircraft in that it would be loaded in such a manner that with zero fuel the aircraft's C of G would be within the landing limits.. If this was not possible then ballast fuel has to be loaded[ or any other form of ballast] so as to achieve this C of G. This ballast fuel however must not form part of the fuel burn or diversion fuel

With the above in mind all fuel on Concorde was useable fuel but during some part of the flight prior to being burnt it it would be used for varying inflight regime trimming.

Now prior to landing the F/E would pump a predetermined amount into tank 9 so as to achieve a C of G fwd of 53.5 % for landing. This was only required because there was still fuel on board. If the aircraft was held before landing and the fuel QTY dropped he would pump this fuel out of tank 9 and into the engine feed tanks as it was no longer required for C of G purposes

Therefore yes Concorde could safely land from a C of G point of view with no fuel.

There was nothing magical about 4 Tonnes in tank 9, and in fact it usually was too much for stability reasons, but for simplicity a single big figure was used. In fact if it was not possible to put 4000kgs in tank 9 [due to lack of fuel]then the flight deck crew were instructed to remain on the flight deck until the passengers had got off and the rear hold had been emptied. Now some of us flight deck crew helped more than others in this:rolleyes:

I'll have to be careful after my previous bludner...
But I seem to remember there were several occasions, where the rear cabin (about 3 tons when full, after all ...) was asked to disembark first, for the same reasons as mentioned above.

CJ

If only I'd known that flight deck ballast was necessary, I would have volunteered! :}

Brit312
Obviously not Brit; however nearly every time I saw the aeroplane after landing there was, you've guesed it, around 4 Tonnes in tank 9.:p
Feathers McGraw
Hahaha :) It was not as if our guys werer particularly portly either, in fact it was a combination of the portly, the not so portly and the 'I can't see him, where the hell is he?.'
But the aircraft was probably more prone to ground stability issues than any other that I have known in my lifetime.

PS. Would you believe that this brilliant thread has had more than 53,000 reads now? All thanks to Stilton for starting it up in the first place. Keep posting guys (and gal(s) :D).

Dude :O

Dear M2dude
 

Do you have any more Trivia Quiz's?

Bizdev
Sure, give me a day or two and I'll throw in (up?) some more trivia stuff.
Regards

Dude :O

Marvellous

I went searching for Brian Walpole to read about the out-of-fuel incident and found this video. I don't suppose anyone has any footage of a barrel roll do they? Anyway, some excellent footage on the clip:YouTube - Concorde Captain talks about Barrel Roll

Mike,
No, sadly there is no known footage of a real Concorde barrel roll.

But it's been done.... repeatedly.
Confirmed not only by Brian Wadpole, but even by André Turcat himself.

Who, by the way, stated that "what annoyed me the most about it all.... was that I never had an occasion to do it myself....".

CJ

Nice little quote.
 

I've just started reading Genesis of the Jet, by John Golley again - for the third time. :) I'm sure you know it's about Sir Frank Whittle and the birth of the jet engine. In the introduction there is an account of a Concorde flight to Washington, that carried Sir Frank at the age of about 76. It concludes;

'After they landed at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, Captain Monty Burton addressed his passengers;
"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Washington on this fine afternoon. We have covered the 3900 miles from London to Washington in 3 hours 37 minutes, giving us an average speed of well over 1000 miles per hour. The maximum speed we achieved was 1340 miles per hour and our maximum height was 60,000ft, eleven miles above the surface of the Earth.

Today we have the great hour of carrying Sir Frank Whittle who invented the jet engine which made all this possible." There was a great round of applause and a bit of cheering, which was most unusual from Concorde passengers. When Monty Burton left the aircraft, an American passenger came up to him and said; "You know Captain, you've really put the icing on the cake for me. To travel on Concorde as a fellow passenger with Sir Frank Whittle is something I can relate to my grandchildren!"

Great book by the way. :ok:

Roger.

Ze Concorde Quiz Mk 2 (Or is it Mach 2?).
 

As requested here is the second in the diabolical series of Concorde quizes. If you were never personally involved withe the aircraft you can leave out the really stinky questions if you want. Most answers can be found either in this thread, by looking at the many panel photos around or as usual by asking Mr Google :ok:

1) How many Concorde airframes were built?

2) As far as the British constructed aircraft went, name the destinations that were served?. Regular flight numbers only, excludes charters etc.

3) What was the departure time for the ORIGINAL morning LHR-JFK Concorde services? (Not called the BA001 then either).

4) Further to question 3 above, what WERE the original flight numbers for the BA001 and BA003? (The morning and evening LHR-JFK services?).

Nice one, M2dude

I've saved the questions, and again same deal... I'll try to answer as many as possible without cheating.

But I will have to look up a few things.... I have no idea which airport is SNN without looking it up!

CJ

SNN is Shannon my friend. :)
Oh, and you may want to copy questions again; there is an extra one I've added.
Best Regards

Dude :O

questions
 

Humble SLF here, hope it is ok to have a stab at the questions, mods please feel free to delete if necessary.

1) How many Concorde airframes were built?

22, 20 that flew and 2 test frames

2) As far as the British constructed aircraft went, name the destinations that were served?. Regular flight numbers only, excludes charters etc.

New York, Washington, Miami, Barbados, Toronto, Bahrain and Singapore, no British registered aircraft ever operated to or form Dallas, should not forget BAs most popular destination of all time-London


3) What was the departure time for the ORIGINAL morning LHR-JFK Concorde services? (Not called the BA001 then either).

0930-Local

4) Further to question 3 above, what WERE the original flight numbers for the BA001 and BA003? (The morning and evening LHR-JFK services?).

193 & 195 respectiveley

5) There were no less than FORTY SIX fuel pumps on Concorde. What was the breakdown for these? (Clue; don't forget the scavange pump ).

Pass


6) What was the only development airframe to have a TOTALLY unique shape?

101, G-AXDN


7) This one is particularly aimed at ChristiaanJ. What was the total number of gyros on the aircraft?

pass


8) How many wheel brakes?

8


9) What Mach number was automatic engine variable intake control enabled?

1.3


10) Above each bank of engine instruments were three lights, a blue, a green and an amber. What did they each signify?

Not sure here, best guess -green was part of the take-off moniter -red failure-blue reverse

11) At what airfied were the first BA crew base training details held?

Prestwick, shannon, and one in France


12) What LHR runways did Concorde use for landing and take-off? (Trick question, not as obvious as it might seem).

28L , 28R, 27L, 27R, 9L, 9R 10L 10R, 23

13) What operator had serious plans to operate Concorde from SNN to JFK in the early 1980's?

Fed-ex


14) What development aircraft did not exceed Mach 2 until fifteen months after her maiden flight?

214? G-BFKW

OAB11D
Not posting any answers here yet, but you've done very well, SLF or not. I am sure that I speak for all of 'us' when I say that your input is more than welcome here, as are you sir. From your screen name I assume you once flew in 11D on G-BOAB?
You might want to look again at my wording for the 'destinations' question #2, it said British CONSTRUCTED aircraft. (I apreciate that once the G was covered over in IAD the aircraft became American registered).

Dude :O

1) How many Concorde airframes were built?

22 total. 2 test, 9 BA, 9 AF, 2 spares (1 BA, 1 AF).

2) As far as the British constructed aircraft went, name the destinations that were served?. Regular flight numbers only, excludes charters etc.

JFK, Dulles Intl., Barbados, Miami, Bahrain, Singapore.

3) What was the departure time for the ORIGINAL morning LHR-JFK Concorde services? (Not called the BA001 then either).

No idea.

4) Further to question 3 above, what WERE the original flight numbers for the BA001 and BA003? (The morning and evening LHR-JFK services?).

No idea.


13 tanks, 2 main pumps each (except tank 11 which had 4 pumps) = 28
Main and aux engine feed pumps (3 per collector, 4 collectors for a total of 12)
Fuel pumps from aux tanks to mains = 4
Fuel dump = 2


BAC 221. Flying test bed for the wing design.






Filton.


27 L/R, 09 R.

OK, I see others have already posted answers.
I've carefully avoided looking at them, but I'll might as well plug in mine now.

My personal problem is that I was involved in the very earliest days, before the aircraft went into service, and then in the last days and afterwards...
So the questions dealing with the in-service period are totally outside my field of experience... all I can do is guess, in case I saw the answers somewhere.

1) How many Concorde airframes were built?
Twenty-two.
Two static-test airframes.
- One at Toulouse, for purely static tests, and tests such as vibration and flutter.
- One at Farnborough, for the long-duration thermal fatigue tests.
(A few bits and pieces of the Farnborough test specimen have survived, and can still be seen at the Brooklands museum).
Two prototypes (001 and 002)
Two pre-production aircraft (01 and 02)
Two production aircraft used for certification, that never entered service (201 - F-WTSB and 202 - G-BBDG)
Fourteen production aircraft, seven that served with British Airways, seven that served with Air France.

2) As far as the British constructed aircraft went, name the destinations that were served?. Regular flight numbers only, excludes charters etc.
Not a clue as to the full list.
- Bahrain, obviously.
- JFK.
- IAD (not sure if that's rated as regular, or only incidental)
- Dallas (with Braniff)
- Barbados (of course, right until the end)
- Sngapore (with Singapore Airlines, and G-BOAD in Singapore Airlines colours on one side)
- Sydney (again no idea if that rated as a regular flight or only a few tries)

3) What was the departure time for the ORIGINAL morning LHR-JFK Concorde services? (Not called the BA001 then either).
Not a clue either. Vague memory of about 10:00 am which gave you a full working day in New York.

4) Further to question 3 above, what WERE the original flight numbers for the BA001 and BA003? (The morning and evening LHR-JFK services?)..
Never flew on them, never had to deal with them.
BA174 comes to mind from the depths of my memory, in that case BA003 would have been BA176?

5) There were no less than FORTY SIX fuel pumps on Concorde. What was the breakdown for these? (Clue; don't forget the scavenge pump )
M2dude, I did AFCS, not the fuel system. I believe you, but without pulling out some diagrams I honestly have NO idea.
I expect each tank had at least two pumps, which gets me up to 26.
Then there were a few emergency pumps for the trim tanks, and I suppose each engine had additional pumps associated with it.
Still nowhere near the 46 I need to find.....

6) What airframe had the only TOTALLY unique shape?
That would have been my old friend, 01 (G-AXDN), first pre-production aircraft, now at Duxford.
It was the first Concorde with the new transparent visor, but it still had the short tail that characterised the prototypes.
It was 02 (F-WTSA), the first French pre-production aircraft, that was close to the final shape of the production aircraft.

7) This one is particularly aimed at ChristiaanJ. What was the total number of gyros on the aircraft?
Good question.... never counted them all. But I'll try a guess.
First a nice one, the SFENA Emergency Standby Artificial Horizon (made by the firm I worked for).
Ran off the Emergency Battery Bus via a small independent inverter.
And if that failed too, it would still run reliably for several minutes on its own inertia.
Next, the rate gyros used by the autostabilisation system ; these measured the angular rate of the aircraft along the three main axes, pitch, roll and yaw.
There were six, three each for the two autostab systems.
Now the rest....
Each IMU (inertial measurement unit, part of the inertial naviagation system) had three gyros.
With three INS on board, that would make nine.
Much as I try, I can't remember other ones, so I'll look forward to the final answer.
I can imagine the weather radar using an additional gyro for stabilisation, but I never went there.

8) How many wheel brakes?
Unless this is a trick question, I would say eight, for each of the main gear wheels.
The nose gear did not have any brakes - unless there were some small ones to stop the wheels rotating after retraction of the gear, but not used during landing.

9) What Mach number was automatic engine variable intake control enabled?
No idea.
Mach 1.0 or thereabouts is my personal guess only.

10) Above each bank of engine instruments were three lights, a blue, a green and an amber. What did they each signify?
I know that they each monitored the status of one of the engines, because it was too complex for the pilots to fully monitor all the parameters of all four engines in the short time between start-of-roll and V1... they had too many other things to do.
But I don't remember what each light meant, would have to look it up in the manual.

11) At what airfied were the first BA crew base training details held?
No idea.
Was it Brize Norton, or Casablanca?

12) What LHR runways did Concorde use for landing and take-off? (Trick question, not as obvious as it might seem).
No idea.
Vague memory of it being systematically the North runway for noise issues.

13) What operator had serious plans to operate Concorde from SNN to JFK in the early 1980's?
No idea.

14) What development aircraft did not exceed Mach 2 until fifteen months after her maiden flight?
I would expect the obvious answer to be 002.
Working up from first flight to Mach 2 was a slow and laborious process, and in the end it was 001 that both flew first, and also went to Mach 2 first.
I don't think any of the other aircraft took that long.

A I said, I tried to answer all questions "off the top of my head", without looking at any other sources.

CJ

Wasn't there mention of a Ford Cortina disc brake for either the front wheels or the ones in the skid?

Keep the answers coming guys, and yes Mike; their WAS a single nose wheel brake based on an automotive design. This brake was not electronically controlled like the main wheel brakes, but hydraulics for the UP selection was automatically ported to the single brake unit during retraction. (hmmm.. kinda given away the answer for that one :p).

Dude :O

radiation descent
 

We were warned specifcally to anticipate this course of action during periods of increased sunspot activity but in all my years from Concord`s introduction, including pre-production runs, to her demise, I never once experienced it.

Dave :)

Dave,
From all the disparate reports I've seen over the years from "usually reliable sources", it does seem indeed nobody ever experienced it.
The suspicious "blips" on the indicator over "suspicious sites" were never long enough to initiate an emergency descent.
And that radiation always came from below, not from outer space....

CJ

Oh I certainly vividly remember as teenager witnessing AF doing all sorts of training approaches, including touch and go & 3 engine takeoffs in Casa !

The first two sets of BA crews did their circuit flying at Fairford, and the crews after that went to all sorts of different airfields in the UK , France and Portugal

Now as far as take-off is concerned

27 left and right
09 right

Landing 27 L & R----- 09 L & R---- 23 and 05 [ but not in the later years]

Now I cannot remember if you could take off on 23

Brit 312,

I guess you mean 23/05.
Also It would have been 10/28 L&R when Concorde went into service.

Cheers, Dixi.

Great answers about the runways Brit312 but you missed one. In 2003 we started doing take offs from 9 Left (just Concorde). This was due to construction work on the southern runway. The aeroplane would come really low over the hangars too and made quite a spectacle.
Regards

Dude:O

Dixi, You are absolutely correct, so I have corrected my posting, and glad to see that someone actually reads my postings

My only excuse is age, phew what would I do without that excuse:O


My only excuse for not knowing that was it was after my time with the old girl, but now you mention it I seem to remember that previous to 2003 we might have been able to use 09L again due to work on 09R , but if I remember correctly we had to ask for special permission.

Mind you as I said above the memory is fading with age:{

The reason for 9L being used was because there was a blanket ban placed on the aircraft taking off from ANY runway undergoing construction, post Gonesse. (I seem to remember that the restricion was placed due to crown life issues). Oh, and Brit312; I knew that this all happened long after you put your last HP valve switch to SHUT, that is why I made the coment. :p
And Dixi188 has kinda answered the trick part of this question too, regarding 10/28 Left & Right. (As well as the 'correct' cross runway QDMs). Nice one Dixi :D
Answers in total in a couple of days guys, and keep 'PM'ing away about this, I'm happy to carry on answering.:)
Regards to all

Dude :O

That one is sadly rotting away in the Ailes Anciennes aircraft museum storage area exposed to the Toulouse weather...

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...x/IMG_1164.jpg
Left Upper Wing Skin

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...x/IMG_1169.jpg
Right hand passenger window, rear fuselage

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...x/IMG_1179.jpg
Seat tracks, forward cabin looking aft

At least it was in 2008, maybe it has been scrapped in favor of the A350 production line by now.

In a previous post it was mentioned there are three lights above each bank of engine instruments, one of these being green for 'go'



What engine parameters were monitored to provide this indication and how was this done ?

The green 'Go' configuration light depends on the following flowchart:

Ess 28v DC Busbar -> Fwd Thrust Selected -> Arming Switch 'On' -> Landing Gear Relay Operated -> Fuel Flow Attained -> Jet Pipe Pressure (P7) Attained -> Bucket Position Correct -> 'GO'.

How were these engine parameters monitored? (From the AMM)

- Arming Switch 'ON' : it's a manually operated four-pole solenoid-held switch, for the four engine circuits, operative only when a landing gear weight switch is energized.

- Fuel Flow and Jet Pipe Pressure (P7) Attained: Once the circuit to the 'Go' light is armed, the flow and pressure are monitored against the values set on the indicator bugs on the respective instruments. Once they pass those values, their respective change-over relays are energized, completing the circuit.

Here's a simplified schematic for this:

http://www.flightsimlabs.com/wp-cont...ds/GoSchem.png

At least I think that's how it works :).

Lefteris

Each engine had associated with it a set of lights , Blue, Amber, and Green

BLUE reverse light --- this reflected the correct operation of the
reverse thrust.

Flashing, rev selected but buckets in transit
On steady reverse selected and achieved

Amber Configuration
[CON] light----------- ON if reheat fails with no loss of engine RPM
On if reverse selected and primary nozzle greater
than 15%

Green Go light---------- This light monitored the engine for correct power
for take-off in that

Fuel flow and P7 had to match or exceed a pre
calculated figures, which were preset on their
individual gauges prior to take off.

The secondary nozzles had to within their
take-off limits

The CON light is off

In the case of No 4 engine the N1 limiter has
returned to normal position

Now normally there was a call of 100kts and at that point there had to be 4 green GO lights illuminated otherwise the t/off would be aborted. There was a concession to this in that if runway/ conditions /weight allowed the takeoff could continue with only 3 green lights illuminated at 100 kts as long as the
affected basic engine was OK[ this covered the loss of one reheat]

The green lights were considered necessary if the aircraft was using a rough runway and nose nodding could interfer with correct engine instruement monitoring and were also handy as the pilots could at a glance check whether they had at least minimum eng power for t/off.

To keep things simply their use was standard on all T/offs rough or otherwise

Thanks FS and Brit for your detailed replys.


I can see the value of the green lights, one might say the system was an early form of EICAS engine monitoring ? !

I flew off 9L on BA001 in September 2003, just before it stopped. If you sat on the right hand side of the aircraft you got a great view of the BA engineering base whizzing past as you eased into a nice right turn towards the west...

Ze Concorde Quiz Mk 2 (Or is it Mach 2?).... Ze Answers
 

OK guys, here are the answers. If you disagree about any of them then fire away, the old memory certainly 'aint perfect. :{
As many of you have guessed, there were 22: The 14 production airframes, the 2 production series development aircraft (201 & 202), the 2 pre-production airframes (101 & 102) and the 2 prototypes 001 & 002. PLUS, the major fatigue test specimen at the RAE Farnborough and the static test specimen at CEAT in Toulouse. The CEAT tests actually tested the wing to destruction; I seem to remember it was something like a 200% overload before the wing failed at the root. And great but rather sad pictures VOLUME, never seen these before.
OK, from MY memory :confused:, we have: London LHR (duhhh!!), Bahrein BAH, Singapore SIN, New York JFK, Washington IAD, Dallas DFW, Miami MIA, Toronto YYZ, Barbados BGI, and Riyadh RUH. As well as charters being ommited, so are some of the special 'surprise' shuttle appearances that Concorde would make, substituting a subsonic to and from destinations such as Manchester and Edinburgh.
11:15
The BA193 and BA 195.
OK, there were 12 engine feed pumps (3 per engine) 8 main transfer tank pumps (2 each for the transfer tanks 5, 6, 7 & 8), 4 'A' tank pumps (2 each for 5A & 7A), 8 trim-transfer tank pumps (2 electric pumps each for tanks 9, 10 & 11 PLUS 2 hydraulically driven pumps for tank 9), 4 electric engine start pumps (there was a single electric start pump per engine that delivered fuel to it's own dedicated start atomiser in the combustion chamber. The pump automatically ran when the engine HP valve was set to OPEN and would continue running for 30 seconds after the DEBOW switch was returned to the 'normal' position), 4 engine first stage pumps (a single mechanically driven pump per engine), 4 second stage pumps (a single pneumatically driven pump, sometimes termed 'the turbopump, per engine. This would cut out at around 20,000'), our scavenge tank pump (triggered automatically when there was 7 US gallons in the tank; pumping it back into tank 2. This pump was identical to an 'A' tank transfer pump), and FINALLY, a single de-air pump for tank 10. The pump would drive the fuel through a mesh, removing air bubbles from the fuel. Tank 11 used the L/H trim pump for de-air (similar principle)and would be switched on during take-off. This is why the tank 5 trim inlet valve being set to over-ride OPEN would result in the tank being highly pressurised in the case of the Gonesse disaster; the pump would obviously pressurise the L/H trim gallery and any tank on that side with an open inlet valve!!!
G-AXDN, aircraft 101. (A production wing, fuselage, droop nose and intakes, but with the short tail section and secondary nozzles of the prototypes.
Ready ChristiaanJ? There were 18....Yes, the single SFENA standby horizon, 9 INS gyros (one per X,Y and Z platform in each of the 3 INUs), 8 autostab' rate gyros (one per axis for each of the 2 autostab' computers PLUS a monitor gyro for the pitch axis). The radar by the way used attitude signals from the INS.
9. One per main wheel plus the single 'in flight braking' nose wheel brake.
Mach 0.7!!! Between this and Mach 1.26 the intake surfaces were positioned as a function of engine N1 if the engine was shut down for any reason. (Otherwise of course the intake surfaces were fully up). You needed a sub idle N1 of 57% and below for all this to happen, and it was to assist relight performance and reduce buffet. Between Mach 1.26 and 1.32 the ramps were driven down slightly to about 5%, full supersonic scheduling itself commencing at Mach 1.32.
Already brilliantly answered by Brit312 (as well as the FSLabs diagram). Yep, Geen GO, T/O monitor armed, fuel flow and P7 at or above datum, A/C on ground, reverse not selected and CON light not on. Amber CON (Reheat selected and not detected, N1 OK or reverse selected and primary nozzle (Aj) not at minimum. Blue REV; steady buckets at reverse, flashing buckets in transit.
Fairford, followed by Brize Norton, and then a host of airfields from Prestwick and Shannon to Chateauroux.
OK, probably no surprises now:
Landing - 27L & R, 9L & R (prior to LHR mag' deviation update were 28L & R & 10L & R) together with 23/05.
Take off - 27L (28L), 9R (10R) and 9L. (10L never happened as take offs on this runway only occurred in 2003). :p
It was FedEx, they planned to operate two stripped out aircraft, leased from BA, between Shannon and JFK as high value parcel carriers. The idea was that parcels would be flown in from all over Europe by small FedEx feeder aircraft and the parcels transferred to Concorde which would then speed on to JFK in around 2 1/2 hours. It never happened because of a combination of economics appraisal by FedEx and BA deciding that it could would not release the aircraft anyway.
A/C 101, G-AXDN first flew on 17th December 1971 with FIXED INTAKES!! (101 was going to be the launch vehicle for the new digital intake control system, but the 'boxes' were still being designed). This placed an operating limit of Mach 1.5 on the aircraft, limiting her ability with such a restricted flight envelope. She returned to Filton in late 1972 for installation of the system, as well as the new Olympus 593-602 engine. (The engine, very similar to the production Mk 610 version, used a quite revolutionary annular combustion chamber, and eliminated at a stroke the thick smoke exhaust that had up to then been Concorde's unwanted visual signiture). The aircraft flew more or less smokeless on 15 March 1973, achieving Mach 2 soon afterwards. As ChristiaanJ pointed out, the British prototype 002 had a similar gap, actually significantly higher, of 19 months. (The French aircraft 001 had an even longer gap of some 20 months).

I hope you guys had fun with this one, regards to all

Dude :O

In 1987 we also used Machrihanish because they were digging up the end of Prestwicks runway which made it too short for touch and go

In1998 we also used Porto as I think Chateauroux asked us to leave after too many noise complaints

Before we started base flying at Brize Norton there was a lot of negative opinion about it due to possible noise. The first day of training the airport was saturated with noise complaints, however what the local population did not know was that the Concorde had gone U/S and did not fly on that day. They could not see due to cloud cover but what they were complaining about were the RAF VC-10 in the circuit , and these aircraft had been training there for months with no complaints.

Shannon was always considered too risky for Concorde to base it self at for Base training, however in 1998 when things in N.Ireland had settled down a bit we did base a Concorde for a few days in Shannon for base training.

If I remember correctly during all the flight testing program at Fairford, BAC built a lay-by on the main road so that the public could watch the aircraft come and go free of charge. Apparently some bright spark bought himself a white coat and a roll of parking tickets and started charging people for parking. Now that is what you call free enterprise

I'd never seen those either.... I was convinced the static test speciment had been scrapped a very long time ago.
The entire collection of "Ailes Anciennes Toulouse" has been moved to a different location only very recently... one can merely hope that at least some of the bits and pieces of "0001" have survived...
Maybe VOLUME can tell us more?

CJ

Brit312
I was up at Prestwick in 1988. and I remember that several details were carried out doing touch and goes at Machrihanish also, when the late GREAT John Cook was running things flight training wise.
Concorde noisy? What WERE they talking about :=
Oh this was typical; so many of, shall we say, the less sensible members of our species, would blame Concorde for absolutely ANYTHING, whether sh was flying or not:mad:
Actually a few training sesions were carried out there in the mid to late 1990's, before the norm, became Chateuroux. I remember 'Dirty Nellies' fondly, as anyone who is familiar with SNN will understand.
It was not so much as a lay by as a real car park, right on the edge of the runway. Whenever the aeoroplane was going to fly, word got around and the car park filled up quickly. Right up to when the Fairford Flight Test Centre was closed in early 1977, the car park was always filled to overflowing.

Thanks for coming up with the additional flight training airfields Brit312, my poor old memory is fading... FAST...... :{

Dude :O