After the Air France incident at Washington DC in 1979 where events similar to those that caused the Paris crash occurred, did BA install any extra protection to the fuel tanks. Ie skin doublers in the most vulnerable areas?

Thanks for the reply, Concorde expertise is always interesting. I should not have called the F-16 Emergency Power Unit a RAT, it is indeed not. The Concorde RAT was located aft between the engine pods, correct?

What I found interesting is that the AC generators would remain on-line at all; they drop instantaneously at subsonic speeds and the associated N2 rpm. I believe the hydraulics on the 747 will power flight controls down to a pretty low IAS.

Four engine flameout is a very unlikely event, unless one runs into a volcanic cloud.

What an amazing thread, thank you for all the contributors....I've been reading through it for the last week as I pass about the half way point!

I'm just SLF with a huge interest and passion for Concorde and was lucky to bag a LHR-JFK flight in 2002 as an 18th birthday present. One of the contributors here in the left seat as it happens...At that time it was before the retirement announcement and I just assumed for my next NYC trip I'd be able to get onboard...:(

I grew up in North Hampshire and went to school in West Berkshire. My school was on a hill just west of Reading and our morning break would coincide with the BA001. I could sit outside the library that faced eastwards and watch the familiar shape materialize as it came from the Woodley NDB and went right overhead enroute to the Compton VOR. It never got old and caused much amusement when the Heathrow chaplain came to do a sermon one Sunday and was interrupted by the aircraft :D

Home was under the path of the inbound BA002/BA004 and would always listen for the distinctive sound and head to the garden...and if I happened to be in the area of Heathrow within 30mins or so of a Concorde arrival or departure my father would always suggest stopping by for a look. One of my very earliest memories was sitting high on the white fence by Avis on the North Perimeter Road and watching one land, this would have been late 1980s....

We had a Concorde captain in the neighbouring village that my parents were friendly with. In 1996 he took my Christopher Orlebar book to NYC for a roundtrip getting it signed by the crew in both directions and then gave me all the Jeppesens, flight paperwork and a whole host of passenger "items" that I treasured, and still do. That really sowed the seed for 12yr old me to *really* find a way to get onboard...(and those 250 tier points and 14,000 BA miles were the first entry on my Executive Club account as I couldn't join until I was 18! All downhill from there!)

Anyways, this Concorde captain was by all accounts a bit of a legend so I'm sure those of you insiders knew him. I recall one Sunday afternoon, this would have been late 1990s, I looked out the living room window and saw a BA Concorde at low level, banked streaking across the sky maybe a mile away, a quite incredible sight. It turned out that this local Captain was doing one of the round the bay charters and got ATC permission to do a little tour of North Hampshire. A couple of acquaintances from the village played tennis every Sunday at this specific time and had complained about aircraft noise to him. Well, what better way to piss them off than to do a low buzz of their tennis club... :D A year or so later he moved a little further south and opened up the village fete in similar fashion. He retired from BA after the 2000 grounding and the last I heard he was flying a large maroon business jet...that business jet being one of the Qatar Amiri 747SPs...

A question, finally! I now live fairly close to JFK and the 31L Canarsie departure is obviously extremely well known and one I've taken countless times in the "blunties". Given the noise abatement situation what happened if the weather didn't play ball? Were there other departure options? I've seen photos of arrivals on 13L, the Canarsie arrival and my own BA001 arrived on 4L. I assume therefore that arrivals were a lot less liberally governed,,,

Thanks in advance for your replies and I look forward to reading the other 1000 posts I haven't got around to!

Speedbird223

…the 31L Canarsie departure is obviously extremely well known … Given the noise abatement situation what happened if the weather didn't play ball? … Were there other departure options? …

If the runway in use at JFK was not suitable for our departure, we would request a different runway, which JFK ATC were extremely helpful at providing, even though this caused some disruption to their landing/take-off pattern. For our part, we had to accept this request could entail a delay to our departure whilst waiting for a suitable gap in their traffic flow.

Remember that we had two take-off calculations to consider. Firstly, could Concorde get airborne from that runway under the prevailing conditions? Secondly - and this was usually the limiting factor at JFK - could the aircraft then stay with the noise limits at that take-off weight and under those ambient conditions of wind and temperature? If the answer to either question was no, then we needed another runway.

An example might be when JFK was using 04R for landing and 04L for departure. We might have been able to lift the weight off 04L, but would have been way over our noise limit, so we would request 22R for departure.


… I assume therefore that arrivals were a lot less liberally governed …

Did you mean a lot less strictly governed? If so, the answer is yes.

Concorde would use whatever landing runway was in use at JFK without problem, save requiring a bit more of a gap between herself and the preceding landing aircraft (due to her higher approach speeds maintained to much closer to touchdown) which ATC at JFK were well aware of and which they managed very professionally.

Even so, on the Canarsie approach, it was instructive to see just how quickly Concorde could close the spacing between herself and a preceding lightly loaded and therefore much slower B757.

31R was our preferred runway due to its proximity to the BA terminal, the Canarsie approach onto 13L was good fun and a frequent approach. 04R was also used and was an Autoland runway with Cat3A limits down to 15R / 700 ft RVR, useful in bad weather. Concorde had landing limits on all JFK runways, but, at least in my experience, the others were rarely, if ever, used.

I'm glad you enjoyed your flight on Concorde, it all seems so long ago now – probably because it was!

Best Regards

Bellerophon

Amazing, thank you for all the details!



Wow, a great show for those in line for the 04L departure if you guys were using 22R!



By the 31R approach was right by my first home in the NYC area....alas some 10yrs after a Concorde last ever flew it, sadly. My father took the subsonic BA001 shortly after I moved to NYC and I would leave my place when I saw it come over and he'd be through baggage claim by the time I got to T7 :O

20yrs ago on Monday...:sad:

Alan Radford
 

Greetings to all, I thought there might those in this thread who would be interested to know that my Grandfather, Alan Radford, who many will know from the Filton and Fairford Concorde design and development days, is still with us and continues to talk so fondly of both Concorde (His Miss Moses Lake) and of all who he worked alongside during that wonderful time. I'd be delighted to pass on contact details if anyone wished to get in touch - he recently loft his wife Peggy (another former BAC employee who was fiercely proud of Concorde and all who made her happen) so I thought it might be nice to see if there are any old faces who we might re-connect.
Thank you to you all for keeping this wonderful thread going for all these years, and for keeping the memory of such a proud time in both our nation's and my own family history alive.
Kindest regards, Tim Radford, grandson of Alan.

Gatwick Airport's History webpage states that in 1985 "Concorde starts flying commercial flights from Gatwick". Does anyone know any details on this please? Does it mean that the occasional charter left from LGW or was there ever a scheduled service from there? I know it was a diversion airport but presumably that was already the case from when Concorde started operating from LHR?

Many thanks
0918

I'd be surprised if you need more than one hand to count the number of visits to LGW by Concorde over the years (though that does include a visit by an Air France example).

Methinks Gatwick are being a tad disingenuous on their website.

My guess would be charter, they were made from a number of UK cities.

I'm curious how the shorter legs worked, such as the Washington to Miami (also Dallas at one point?) flight. Did it go supersonic on a 'shorter' flight? Was there a minimum leg distance needed for the Concorde to fly supersonic? And was there an 'optimum' altitude when it was only subsonic? Could it fly comfortably (fuel efficient) at Mach One point something as opposed to 2.0 where I thought it was probably designed to operate?

There are folks here who can correct me, but in the meantime, what I think I know is....

The DC-Dallas route, entirely over populated land, could not be flown at supersonic speeds (regulations, noise pollution, sonic booms), but Concorde could do it in high-subsonic cruise at around Mach 0.95, somewhat faster than the norm for regular subsonic transports.

I believe the DC-MIA route was flown mostly supersonically, by climbing subsonically at Mach 0.95 straight down the Potomac to the Atlantic at Norfolk, Va., and then, 20+ miles offshore, turning SW towards Miami and making the supersonic acceleration-climb out over the water. Remained offshore (dodging the coastal bulge of the Outer Banks) until about 250nm from Miami. where the descent/deceleration phase would slow it to subsonic speed before getting too close to the shoreline.

Once at ~28,000 feet at Mach .95 - and over the water - it only took a few moments, after turning on the reheat/afterburners, to punch through Mach 1, and maybe 20 minutes (depending on weight) to reach 51000 feet* and Mach 2.02 (air termperature permitting.) And maybe 20 minutes for the deceleration/descent to Mach 0.95 at ~34000 feet.

(*I believe the afterburners were switched off at Mach 1.7 - usually about 42000 feet? - at which point the dry thrust of the engines and fancy shockwave-pressurized nacelle design could maintain the IAS and (reduced rate) climb (and increase the Mach) all by themselves.)

Across the Pond, short "experience flights" from both Paris and London were made from time to time - get out over the Atlantic, light up the afterburners, and tool around at supersonic speeds for some part of an hour before returning to base.

I'm pretty sure subsonic flight was never really efficient at any speed. Concorde was dependent on Mach 1.7 or so (and high altitudes) to maintain the efficiency of nacelle thrust modulated by supersonic intake shockwaves, without very thirsty afterburners. I think that over the Atlantic, losing just one engine (25% of thrust) was enough to make it instantly a fuel emergency situation - you were going to come down into thicker air and fuel burn would skyrocket.

Bellerophon, Could you expand on the second point?

Was it an issue of not reaching a sufficient altitude at the noise monitoring locations?

I suspect that it was both a specific altitude and a specific, reduced, thrust level. Atmospheric conditions also influence engine performance and may have led to a higher needed thrust level for the same altitude, or a lower altitude at the reduced thrust level, or both.

Oh interesting stuff. Thank you so much.

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....303edc43bc.png

Whoa. Nice.
Optimum altitude subsonic at MTOW is FL250 in the Concorde. Who would've thought? :ooh:

PATTERN-IS-FULL...

A pretty accurate summary, I'd say; nice work!

One correction I'd make:

Is over-egging the pudding somewhat. There was a significant penalty on 3 engines, but it was hardly a 'fuel emergency'. In my experience it was more of a fuel irritation.

My current work aircraft also suffers a significant range penalty with an engine out, but that hardly matters because we will be landing at the nearest suitable airport. Concorde had an even bigger range penalty with two engines out (although we always had fuel to reach an airfield in this situation) but, again, with two engines out it still had far more range flexibility than the 777...:)

BIG BORE FOUR -

Remember we were never at MTOW for long in this machine! Initial subsonic cruise ex-LHR was 280-300. In the case of engine failure enroute, it usually ended up in the mid-30's (with its subsonic 4 engined contemporaries).

The process explained in the extract from the OM is worth thinking about...you fly Mach, but the IAS still plays a dominant role on drag as you climb. Most unlike conventional types.

Someone I used to know,(TO), was a F/O on a Concorde that had a double engine failure mid Atlantic. One engine surged and coughed an inlet door out of the front and it went down the adjacent engine, The vibration was very high and both engines were shut down. The Mayday call to Shanwick was that they may not make Shannon. The reply was that they would alert the coastguard.
IIRC they restarted the engine with the lowest vibration and made it to Shannon.
I saw some photos of the engine that ate the door and the compressor was a mess.

Makes perfect sense (not easy for my small brain)

Thank you. Appreciate it.

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.