Concorde Comes Alive
 

The original 'Concorde G-BOAC at Manchester' thread has been closed, and would like to offer this new one, so that all the past nonsense can be left behind. Our new website at this link: BRINGING CONCORDE G-BOAC BACK TO LIFE - Welcome will finally show in great detail the work that has been carried out by our team on G-BOAC. I hope you will all now be able to see what we have been up to, and will let us know what you think. Please try and make your criticisms constructive (this is most welcome by all) and it would be really nice if there was no more side-swiping from other museums and others. := Let's all try and play nice :D

Great site Dude. Clear and concise. All power to you mate!

What's the latest from Manchester, is it a done deal that they don't want it powered again after pressure from BA?

As shaggy said..... x 2

:ok::ok:

Great!
 

Great site! Great pictures! And, good luck to you and your group!

It is probably best that the mods deleted the "other" unpleasant thread - despite my dislike of rewriting (or deleting) history. Totally un-American (but, oh so British). The best to you, sir!

Nice job ! :ok:

re the site
 

nice site dude .and gordon i suspect that you may be right although i've seen no proof that BA was involved with the shutdown but then a phone call is all that it takes ..

I honestly think that the best way forward is by dialogue, and we are still in contact with the museum. It is highly possible that some way forward can be found in the near future and that is what we will continue to strive for.
We are hoping to add some high quality video to the site very soon, looking at the splendour of Concorde returning to life as well as some of the 'waking' systems. (Althogh we had a few intitial system failures, I think I'd have been cranky if I was suddenly woken up after 8 years :rolleyes:).

I rather think this is misleading though.

In other words - flight. That can never happen surely!

But all the same it is nice to see some dedicated work going on.

The statement was not actually meant to be interpreted as such. Both the airframe and systems seeem to be in incredibly good condition and this bodes well for any Concorde stored under cover. As far as FLYING, well that's a whole new ball game that we are certainly not contemplating here, but the aircraft herself is capable of just about anything you wish to name and this is quite remarkable after being grounded for so long.
So basically we are all trying to keep our feet (not to mention G-BOAC) firmly on the ground for now and try and move forward. Concorde Project Flagship is NOT about returning the aircraft to flight.
I will lecturing (about Concorde of course) on a cruise ship for the next couple of weks, but will try and pop in here when I can, trusty laptop permitting

Great work M2Dude. You and your mates deserve congratulations for your dedication, work and successes so far..... :ok: :ok:

Please, let me ask, BBowfighter, why do you say, "That can never happen surely!"? You're the second person I've read who seems to hold that viewpoint.... But when I look at the wonderful world of aviation in it's entirety, I see literally hundreds of examples of very old aircraft being put back to an airworthy state and flown. Why on earth would such a thing be "never" possible with Concorde?

**Let me make clear that I DO understand that is not the goal with this team, and with this Concorde, at the present time.** .... but I don't think my question is too much of a thread drift...

I for one would pay whatever was required to fly on Concorde :ok:

Good luck all and I hope to see her in person one day.

@3holelover - While the technical barriers to getting an airframe airworthy could probably be overcome, the legal barriers cannot.

In fact, before this thread was rebooted, I said to M2dude that his biggest problem to even get the working ground repairs started again would be to get the contract that BA had the museums sign re-drafted, which would take lawyers, and lawyers need money - a lot of money.

Fine. Is there a website, donation place? Here's 100 quid. Use at your discretion, I want to see her someday, and not run down. All the best.

It's very simple. Anyone with an ounce of soul is desperate to see Concorde fly again, but it must not be allowed to happen because People Will Die and, more importantly, Others Will Be Blamed. So don't even think it. It is verboten.

However, certain steps might be taken in the preservation and restoration of this or that airframe, providing nobody involved is thinking forbidden thoughts. That would frighten the horses and the lawyers. Only the pure in heart may attempt these steps.

So be pure in heart, and feed the lawyers sugar lumps. You may need to ride them into battle one day.

Dead on. It is mainly the dear paperwork that keeps Concorde from flying. If one only considers the TU-144 that sat in storage for who knows how many years before the Russians got it flying again.

What would the world be without lawyers?

Paradise! ;)

Lawyers... bless 'em
 

I think it is incredible food for thought WHY certain little men (oh, and their LAWYERS, bless 'em) are so terrified of the prospect of one or more Concorde aircraft (we never say 'Concordes' you know) of actually taking to the air some day in the dark distant future. I disagree that this in itself is an insurmountable problem in the fullness of time; you just never know in the world of aviation. Although the aims of Concorde Project Flagship are NOT to get G-BOAC blasting down the runway and up into the blue yonder, we do believe in returning the aircraft and her systems to as high a standard as is physically possible.
Thank you so much guys for all your kind words, we do not need money or anything for now, just your support.
Oh well, back to a VERY rough Atlantic.

Who owns the aircraft? Does it still belong to BA or was it donated to Manchester Airport?

My understanding is that BA still own it.


Have to disagree there.

It is money (lots of it) that is keeping it firmly grounded. Huge quantities would be required to a, get it airworthy and b, keep it that way.

The TU-144 had government (and NASA) backing, Not something that is likely to happen soon over here. :(

How much would it cost to convert one of these airframes into an ultimate full motion simulator experience? A full motion simulator that could be experienced from both the cockpit and the passenger cabin?

Imagine placing the entire airframe on a moving arm inside of some kind of projection 'bubble' - offering a nearly 360 degrees projection field in all axis. As passengers enter Concorde via an airbridge an image of the actual stand, terminal, airport buildings could be projected. The aircraft could virtually taxi to the runway - then the sound of engines, vibrations, acceleration, moving tarmac, rotation, climb rate - all that could be simulated. Landing gear would retract, ailerons would move. A transition to the flight at supersonic speed phase - perhaps in a 'premium' experience authentic Concorde meals could be served?

Concorde would 'live', BA would have the ultimate publicity 'toy'.

I doubt a project of this magnitude is possible to be financed based purely on voluntary donations, but if BA could partner up with some of the technology partners needed to make this happen (for example a software giant that also manufactures a known flight simulator, a chip giant that manufactures leading graphics chips, another chip giant that manufactures the bits used in projectors ...)- perhaps it could be viable?

reality check
 

where does everybody get this idea of return to flight .the main and only job was to get the screens replaced because another group were going to charge the museum some 18k to do it using equipment and lots of bodies .We as i understand it were asked if we could find a way of doing it for sod all .there are two ways of doing this ,one with the equipment and a crane or cradle and large hoist (not sure if the crane is really nessesary as there is a screw jack to us e in place of the actuators to lower the nose fully)and as far as the crane goes just have a look at the size of the hanger,to get the crane to the front of the aircraft it must go under the fuselage but there are always ways around these things . And the second way was to use the aircrafts own systems to power the nose down if possible and this was the only reason to power the aircraft up as the contact between BA (the owners) and the museum does not mention applying power ,the museum had checked this with their lawyers and were ok . All this stuff about all the other systems was just an add on but not really needed .........but all those that say this or that should not be done should not really looking at aviation projects at all and would perhaps be better off wrapping themselves in cotton wool and just waiting to die .....there are far too many projects get dropped because some loony says that it may be dangerous or it may hurt sombody ( far more people killed every year in cars than in any other thing so why not just ban cars), and this project is not going to kill or hurt anybody at all so all that is needed is support or just pay the other group 18k+ to get it done their way

so you either get a large bill and a few happy people ...or you get lots of media attention and maybe thousands of people happy ,but still at the end of it the screen will be replaced .

I suspect the amount of money would make the Vulcan look cheap.

It's reasonable to assume that if the right people decided that Concorde should fly again, it could be done. If in a parallel universe BA and Airbus decided between them that actually it would be a rather neat idea (yes, yes, I know, It's NEVER going to happen), would anyone care to put an approximate figure on the cost? Just so we know...

Judging by what I know on the subject and reading other websites, where there is a will, there can be a way found. You'd be looking at between £15m and £40m for it I reckon! Not insurmountable, as M2Dude says and quite achievable when you consider the billions that gets splashed out on being in the EU, Africa, Libya etc!!

re flight
 

but thats always been the case ,if you get the right people you can make things happen no matter what ...when the crash happened in 2000 lots of people were saying that it was the end and that the aircraft should be retired from service straight away and if the right people had listened to them things would have stopped in 2000.
But at the time we had people like jim o'sullivan in charge of things and he was the right man in the right place and was able to make things happen .
If you have enough people who say it cant be done every body will belive them after a while and so you find a situation like we have today where everybody thinks it cant be done without 100s of millions .......its like that with this screen thing ,somebody has said its bloody dangerous and sombody else has belived them without asking anybody else .

The difference is that money spent on the EU etc. is government money, whereas in the highly unlikely event that one was to retured to flight, it would be private money - donations - like the Vulcan is. And remember, even if one was returned to flight it would not (I think I am safe being definitive there) be passenger-carrying flight. You couldn't use the promise of a seat on it to wring money out of people.

When Manchester Airport asked "another group" for a way to do it and a cost, they asked for 2 things : worst case cost and realistic cost.

Worst case was everyone was being paid to do it and its taking 2 X 5 days visits.

Realistically the costs would have been sub 5K after all the lifting gear, transportation, accompodation and insurance etc... were all taken care of.

The "other group" were volunteers at a charity, so that charity could not be out of pocket in helping a massive company such as Manchester Airport, for who 10K would be loose change.

This was 2 years ago.

Slightly off topic (sorry) if BA were approached as to selling G-BOAC in it's enhanced condition to a private purchaser what figure would you assume financially as to it's value.

Daz

Scc1 was the main engineers who carried out the repairs, i now don't wish to get involved in this anymore.

Bye

The main reason they are loaned to the museums, if so BA protects its image rights and ensure that no hard can come to the a/c due to un authorised work.

If one went up in smoke it would reflect badly on the BA brand to the majority of the uneducated people who read a tabloid newspaper.

So for this reason BA would not sell them.

I the longer term 20+years, its likely that BA will give them to museum that have seen to have down a good job and can be trusted, not to take money off some PR company for marketing stunt and paint them in orange or red!

However BA turned down many tens of millions for a long term loan deal to take G-BOAB out to Dubai, so that sort of says a Concorde can't be bought

(a) I don't know any of the posters and don't have any agenda

(b) some of the folk have short fuses - no problem with that

(c) keep the aggro out of forum threads, please

(d) we'll keep an eye on things and delete anything vaguely nasty

(e) if it gets too hard, the thread will be closed and the subject will be off-limits

(f) that would be a real pity as we are all interested in the magic bird - me, I can recall the initial proving flights to Oz back in the early 70s and still remember feeling the low frequency visceral excitation as she launched off SYD 16 while a few of us were standing about where the international taxiway now is.

(g) however, we just don't have the luxury of the time to nursemaid participants in these threads - either be nice or the sandpit will be closed.


.

re the other group
 

weli i think the "other group" were brooklands volunteers and i only heard of the price ranging fron 18k to 30k but then you know how things change and as you say short change for the airport and i wonder why they didnt use the guys in the first place especially if it looked as though it may have been as low as less than 10k ,but then they run a business and i guess they saw a way of getting it done for nothing by another group of volunteers/mugs ,i say mugs as it can cost quite a bit to get to manchester and back in your own car .
But now it looks like BA have taken over the repair .wonder what they are going to do for a screen as the only spare was a damaged one that was sent for repair under the guidence guidence of heritage concorde as they as a team had a contact with the main company which had i thought stopped the repair as it was for free at the start .

And what a waste of money ,BA could have sold OAB and made some money out of it instead of it just standing there and rotting (have you ever been up close to it),

SLF Flying again isn't the plan but, even if it was, it wouldn't frighten this lawyer.

Forbidden thoughts?
The chances of Concorde ever flying again are probably somewhere between highly unlikely and zero but that's no reason to give up hope.

Good luck to M2dude and the team. :ok:

FL

One could sell the ship to Burt Rutan, and give Branson a route......

In some, risk and challenge are in the DNA. Thank the Good Lord.

"The main reason they are loaned to the museums, if so BA protects its image rights and ensure that no hard can come to the a/c due to un authorised work."

What was BA's response when AD had her nose 'accidentally' ripped off ??

Obviously, not enough was done to 'ensure' she was well looked after when removed from the Intrepid.....

Quite agree Speedbird. In spite of what you may have read there IS still dialogue going on and we are really hopefull that we can continue. Although as we said before, power was not the main objective, having returned this incredible aircraft to life it is a crying shame if she is allowed to die again. I must stress to all, that all work done on the aircraft was carried out by licensed engineers with too many years experience than I care to remember.

Best regards
Dude :O (On the high seas)

Im glad to see the thread back and it's good to see the mods working to keep things on track.
M2dude great website by the way! Informative and directed to AC. If the team only had this website when all became public. i like the fact that anyone can leave a message and I think everyone visiting the website should.
all the best to everyone in the team

As we have seen, even a static airframe under the 'protection' of a museum can suffer....there is only so much they can do without the help of those who really know Concorde... but now, AC has correctly inflated tyres, a shattered window replaced and no more screws holding down the reheat switches....!! amongst many other items....

Lets all fully support the team in every way we can in moving forward and giving our iconic aircraft the respect she really deserves. :ok:

"If a man dwells on the past, then he robs the present. But if a man ignores the past, he may rob the future. The seeds of our destiny are nurtured by the roots of our past."

Steve,
Been there, done that.... about 40 years ago.

I've blown up a Bendix Lateral AP supply on 002, at about 2 a.m...... through a mistake (they had no current limiting).
Outside the aircraft (luckily), because we had the computer on a "break-out" (call it a long extension cord...).
Impressive little mushroom cloud (I kid you not).
I still remember taking it back to the lab, and a college asking why.
I quipped... "Smoking in the hangar is prohibited. This one smoked"...

Once we opened the box the next morning : nice mess.... silicone grease from the rectifier diodes and 'muck' from the electrolytic capacitors 'smeared' all over the power supply unit. Had to be seen to be believed....

At that time, of course, we had all the manuals (circuit diagrams, circuit layouts, test specification), a test set, and enough spare parts on site to do the repair.

To answer your question... could it still be done ?
Maybe.....
IF the manuals and test specifications for the equipment in question can still be found somewhere.
IF enough odds and ends can be found to wire up a new test set, or at least a "break-out" box.
IF replacements can be found for the 30+ years old components, or equivalents.

Interesting "challenge".... but I doubt "BA Wales" would be willing to take it on, and I doubt the manufacturer would, either, unlike the OEMs for the Vulcan....

CJ

What absolute rot - I hope this was meant to be tongue in cheek, as has been said by a few already, extremely unlikely to happen - but only made more unlikely by folk with this attitude.:rolleyes: