As far as the cabin was concerned on state visits etc, it would be the main party (HRH ,PP, any other royals. PMs would have secretaries, PAs etc) and the rest of the entourage in the rear.

Royal flights always left from the Spellthorne Suite, not the main terminal! (You can imagine..."did you pack your bag yourself, ma'am?.."!):=

Catering very different, with special meals/requests etc.

Security was very tight, dogs on board before boarding, (sniffer, not corgis!) armed police everywhere. Plain clothes chaps queing for cups of tea in the galley before the parties arrived... but everyone very professional and with a specific job to do. Just as you would expect, really.:ok:
LL x

Hi Nick,
Your questions were already partly answered by NW1.
The solution was indeed in those two narrow strakes on the nose that generated a vortex on either side, the higher the AoA, the stronger.
Those two vortices "folded upwards", well before the leading edge of the wing, and around to the top of the fuselage, where they "stuck down" the air flow right to the end.
Hence the vertical tail was not "blanketed" by disturbed/turbulent air from the fuselage, and remained effective even at quite high angles of attack.

It was certainly a clever solution... but not new.
As stilton said, it was already used on the MD80.
On Concorde they had already been tested in the windtunnel and found to be effective, so if you look at photos of prototype 001 on its very first flight you will see they're already in place.

Vortices are funny things... usually you don't see them, but they contain quite a lot of energy and persist for quite a long time before dissipating. That's why those two small planks on Concorde work so well.

CJ

For Mike_Bracknell
 

The rudder failures weren't really down to a fault with the original design, here's the story as I remember it:

The ctrl surfaces are made of a honeycomb-core bonded to the skins, essentially. They originally had a blunt trailing-edge, as was then de-rigeur with supersonic design. At some stage it was decided that a sharp trailing edge was actually beneficial so they had an extension fitted, which had the unfortunate effect of allowing a certain amount of water ingress to the core. Heating and expansion of this lead to disbonding and ultimately failure of the surfaces. (I suspect my engineering colleagues will have a much better and more accurate explanation).

Now - here's the important bit, and another example of this aeroplane's excellent failsafe engineering; Concorde had two rudders, one above the other (same as the 747). Each is driven by one dual-bodied PFCU. You ABSOLUTELY don't want a PFCU endangered by ctrl surface damage so each surface is divided in two, either side of the PFCU control horn.

Visualise the PFCU attached to the centre of two surfaces with an end rib on each, but skinned to look like one surface. Therefore, in the case of the surface suffering damage, it can only spread to a point short of the all-important PFCU. Look at the rudder-failure pictures and you'll see what I mean.

So - far from the 'rudder' breaking up, the reality is that half of one of the rudders had failed.

It was somewhat inevitable that Concorde's control sfcs would suffer, given the horrific loads they endured, and this was dealt with at the design stage. The elevons had the same sort of design.

It does of course look bad when you land with bits missing and this, plus the Regulators and company safety depts ensured that eventually some HUGELY expensive replacements were built.

Yet another question and again this concerns the AofA on landing. As she slowed down the drag must have increased so would more power be required to fly slower? If that was the case was a higher speed kept on approach to save fuel, engine wear and also to reduce noise? As SLF I apologise for asking what may be simple and obvious questions to all you Concorde experts.
Thanks again

Nick

Correct, Nick. More power was needed to fly the ILS at 160kts than at 190kts. So they kept 190kts and reduced to Vref+7 at 800 ft, IIRC (somebody wrote about it on the previous pages).

Had a chance to go on the BA Concorde, due to the fact that BA certainly realized the allure the Lady had on all pilots, but sadly, my friend who was suppose to join me got sick, so we rescheduled for another flight at a later date. Well, the tragic events of Air France never gave us the chance.

Having spent the last 11 years based JFK, it never got old to see this magnificient bird arrive and I think to a man, or woman, every one always took a moment to look.

Anyway, found this video on youtube, one amongst very many, however, she was most photogenic, so not much to argue about there. Imagine a few of the posters here had a hand in this:

YouTube - Concorde formation

You had to stop and look.
 

Diesel8 made this observation which, given he/she was in New York, was hardly surprising that people stopped to look. I live in south London under an area where aircraft are not far from acquiring the glide slope for 27L or departing from 10R, so aeroplanes are a part of everyday life. Having said that, they're not at the moment because of the runway work! But I digress. :=

I have loved aeroplanes since I was very young - I genuinely understood Bernouli's principle when I was about nine - and I always looked at aeroplanes, indeed I still do. But most of the time, when the engine note was obviously a 747 or 727 (noisey!) or some such, I would perhaps concentrate on what I was supposed to be doing. But in the early evening, the absolutely inimitable sound of 593s would draw the eyes of nearly everyone in our area. We saw her every day and yet we all looked. Always. Extraordinary. :)

Not being in the flying profession, I only have two Concorde stories of my own. Back before the M25 was completed and it stopped at Poyle, I would take the opportunity to use what became the Poyle northbound on ramp as a 'plane spotters' place. One evening I stopped in the gathering dusk and got out to watch a few planes. 737s and 757s abounded as the light faded, leaving a broad, light blue band across the horizon, tinged with peach and little colour anywhere else.

Then I heard her on her way and the old heart beat a bit quicker. Suddenly she was up and passing and my mind's eye took the photograph I always wanted and now will never get. :sad: Concorde, silhouetted against the horizon, the cabin lights just visible, but the four, electric blue reheat exhausts - including shock diamonds - the only other colour in the monochrome image. Unforgettable. :ok:

The second was day time. I was parking my car in the north car park - when it was basically all the way down one side of 27R. On my way, I think, to Stockholm Arlander, I was ignoring the succession of 'light iron' going by very close. Again, I heard her light up and just stood and waited. Fabulous sight of Concorde, just rotating as she passed me and climbing away to the west trailing thunder ..... and every car in the north car park sounding their tribute when the reheat set off their alarms. :D

You just had to look - every time. :)

Roger.

Another rather Cron mundane question I'm afraid.

Looking at the many available pictures of the Concorde cockpit, the question of access to the pilots' positions is of interest. It appears to a laymen, such as myself, that an orchestrated position take up would be required, perhaps pilot 1, then pilot 2, then engineer to avoid clambering over each other.

Upon reaching their position, the pilots must have executed some - can I say undignified - legovers and manoeuvering to seat themselves.

I'm imagining a scenario of highly qualified and (perhaps) highly paid skilled aviators with legs at strange angles grunting and twisting themselves into the most advanced aircraft in the World.

Whilst this is happening the Engineer, inwardly laughing to himself, occupies his spacious workplace.

I'm sure I am quite wrong in my visualisation but it would be interesting to hear how the Concorde cockpit layout compared to other types.

Cron.

Hi again
I think the management of fuel on Concorde is fascinating.One of the reasons that this thread has been so interesting to me has been the explanations on how the fuel not only provided a potential energy source but was also used as a cooling medium and especially it's use in moving the CofG.
Am not sure but I think that some baggage was stored aft of the cabin. If that was the case on landing was fuel pumped forward to balance this out? If that was so when deciding on the amount of fuel needed plus diversion fuel etc was there a minimum amount of fuel that had to still be in the tanks on landing?
Regards
Nick

That's why those two small planks on Concorde work so well.

Quite a common trick of the trade eg with fighters eg the leading edge extension (LEX - the narrow aspect delta at the front of the wing) on the F18 and others. There are plenty of pix around with the vortex made visual due humidity and it can be seen to be tight, curly and designed nicely to interact with the fins - which, for the F18 has caused much in the way of fatigue related grey hairs in the boffin fraternity.

and especially it's used in moving the CofG.

again, a common observation eg 747-400 tail tanks .. just a matter of how much the movement is required to be.

I agree that the 747-400 had tail tanks but the 747 upgrade was approx 20 years after Concorde first flew!

Regards
Nick

Cron -

One of the downsides to flying a pointy aeroplane is that the front is somewhat narrow, as you have identified. It wasn't too bad getting in and out, but it was easier for the pilots to get in before the FE was in situ.

Once in, it was fine. The roof and especially the side window was much closer than one finds in other types, but there was adequate space. It helped to be less than 6' tall (I'm not.....)

As for the engineer's space being 'spacious', well that's relative. It was a bigger space than the pilots'; however a few of the FEs were quite.....spacious.......themselves so they had the same problems as us.

Nick Thomas -

There were, as you say, baggage holds under the cabin at the front, and one aft of the cabin (the bigger one).

One would try to distribute the load to minimise any pre-take off fuel txfr, and especially to minimise any burn reqd (we're getting into a new subject here....).

Having done this one knew the empty CG and then managed the fuel accordingly. Min reserve fuel was 6500kgs and that was more than enough to manage landing and taxying CG. After landing a chunk of fuel was pumped forward for taxying purposes and there would always be ample for this unless one was seriously low on fuel (low enough for a 'Mayday' to be mandatory rather than just a bit tight).

EXWOK

Was all initial training accomplished in the sim or did new "to type" pilots do touch-and - goes before flying the line? How long was the conversion course? I imagine it was quite thorough.

GF

It was a loooong course!

In essence -

6 weeks groundschool, then type technical exam :uhoh:
Long sim course (lots to learn!) :ouch:
Base flying :E
The usual SEP days :zzz:
20 sectors of line training :)

In total - a shade under 6 months beginning to end. :eek:

You had to do a couple of months online before being released to charter flying and lightweight take-offs.

The sim was great, but couldn't quite replicate the unusual handling in the flare so, yes, we did circuits.

More fun it is almost impossible to have in a commercial jet!

It was, of course, eye-wateringly expensive in fuel, tyres and engineering time which was why one had to commit to a large number of years on type if one got a course.

And it was worth every second. :ok:

FSLabs - Concorde-X simulation for FSX
 

Update: This reply was not intended to be posted publicly, as it was directed to select few individuals. We will, however, honor all requests sent to Flight Sim Labs, Ltd. until 30 September, 2010. Apologies for the inconvenience!
---

Gents (and Landlady!),

I am ashamed to admit that I only now discovered this wonderful thread regarding the best aircraft that ever was.

I've chatted with some of the great minds behind the development of the actual aircraft and I've felt very proud that a select few (ChristiaanJ and others) have helped my team with invaluable insight as we developed the Concorde-X addon product for Flight Simulator X. (We only hope we did "her/him" a bit of justice with our final result).

In recognition of all your efforts, I'd like to offer everyone who has been involved in the development and/or flying of the real aircraft a free download copy of our product, if only as a token gift which might bring back some memories of what it felt to be inside its Flight Deck and cabin. Just write our support team (support (at) flightsimlabs (dot) com) a small note (please give us some info on the nature of your relationship with the bird) and we'll provide you with the information required for the download.

Please keep those memories coming - they are the best way to keep the legacy going!

Regards,
Lefteris Kalamaras
Flight Sim Labs, Ltd.

Just because I am so curious, what speed and profile would be used when flying the circuit? I came across a figure somewhere saying minimum V2+50 (with 250 kts suggested); was that maintained all the way to final, and did that not make for some very large circuits?

Rather amazing that the circuit speed of the Concorde would be more than twice the cruise speed of what I fly... :8

And also, could the Concorde handle something like, say, a destination where the only instrument approach would be a full procedure non-precision approach with a 185 kt max base turn? Or a SID where the initial turn would be made 10 miles out at maximum 210 kt?

Trivia questions, I know, but this plane and everything about it is just so fascinating! :)

Really interesting thread - thanks to all those who flew/worked on/maintained her. One thing that has bemused me for about 15 years - I took a picture of AC parked at JFK about sunset and its adjacent to an airbridge but parked nose out and not 'plugged in' for people to access - was this a one off or the normal way to leave her for overnight parking?

Circuits: for bjornhall
 

You're about right with the downwind speed - 250kts was standard.

Speed would be reduced to 190kts at the end of the leg, and then back to final speed on final approach.

Final speed would be one of the following:

Vref (not that often used, and not the nicest speed)
Vref+5 (one engine out)
Vref+7 (at the end of a fuel-saving ILS approach. Nicer to land off than Vref and the most common speed)
Vref+10 (as above in winds above 25kts?? Minimal flare off this one)

Round about the 155-165kt mark in normal ops.

Health warning - all the above from memory, NW1 will correct me if I'm wrong. (My manuals are stashed in the loft).

The pattern was flown at 250kts and 1500ft. The trouble is, you lift off at 210ish kts, not climbing that fast as you're way down the drag curve. Over the next thousand feet you steadily accelerate, and at the same time the RoC goes waaaay up as the drag reduces. This is fine - so long as you spot it and deal with it pronto.

It was quite easy to find oneself at 1000' flying at, say, 260kts. So you raise the nose a bit, to find you're still just creeping above 260kts passing 1300' (drag still reducing)....... and climbing at 5000fpm. And accelerating.

I'm told the record was 300kts and 3000' and I believe it!

Luckily we arrived on the scene armed with this story. I have to say the first thing I did passing 800' was roll on 30 degs of bank which calmed things down nicely.

Awesome fun.

Sorry - missed the second half of your question.

We didn't have any trouble flying procedures drawn at 185kts. If necessary you could fly and manoeuvre at 190kts IAS, it was just very thirsty and noisy like that. We wouldn't manage 10miles out at 210kts on a SID, but I didn't ever encounter a SID like that. In the case of terrain-constrained ops (which may cause the above) we would have to come up with some usable aternative.

The 'tightest' destination I recall was Sondrestrom (as it was still called then). Although noone in their right mind would land a heavy on RW28 (as it was) we had to demonstrate it in the sim. It really wasn't an issue in terms of turn radius, the trouble was the radalt ramping caused by terrain combined with our higher speed. It was just possible to avoid the dreaded GPWS.

Of course when you took the real thing there we just landed staright in on 10.

bsmasher
 

Yep,that sounds about right - no reason to leave easy access to an aeroplane you don't want anybody on board.

My Own Personal Love Afair
 

My long (eternal?) love affair with Concorde probably started, like with so many other people (at least those ancient enough to remember) on March 2nd 1969. I was at home at my mum's house on leave from the RAF, (I really was a funny hairy little 'erk') when the live TV coverage, in glorious black and white, showed the first prototype 001 taking to the air in Toulouse. Raymond Baxter's classic commentary understatement of 'she flies, Concorde flies', combined with the sight of this sleek white aircraft, trailing a cloud of thick black exhaust smoke, taking to the air for the first time. (The prototype aircraft in my view looked a little ungainly compared to the pre-production and production babies, and the -22R engines fitted to the original aircraft was a real coal burner). And as far as TV went, it was quite a year; While on night shift at RAF Lyneham I got to watch the live feed of the first Apollo moon landing too.
The next stage in my love affair was in 1970, when this same hairy little 'erk' heard this roar in the sky over Swindon while shopping :} and saw the British prototype 002 with its accompanying Canberra chase plane flying very low, straight over the top of Debenhams; my jaw dropped as I stared at this amazing (but rather loud) spectacle unfolding right in front of my eyes.
The die was cast I guess for me in 1972. I was on the ramp at RAF Lyneham, chatting to a visiting USAF C-141 crew. "do ya ever get 'the Concorde' flyin' anywhere near hear ?" asked one of the pilots. I was about to tell him that sometimes on occasion we get a brief glimpse, when the pre-production aircraft 101 flew straight over the top of us. Now these USAF guys just stood there in awe, their eyes popping out like organ stops, and I just figured that this amazingly on cue spectacle just had to be a sign. When I left the RAF two years later I joined BAC at Filton and Fairford engaged on the production and flight testing side of Concorde, leaving there for BA at the end of July 1977. (The story goes that I was delivered to BA a week after G-BOAE as part of a surplus, auxiliary spares package :p).
So that's my personal Concorde love affair, it started in 1969 and continues to this day, forty one years later. GOD I AM OLD!! :ugh:

Dude :O

One of my other first flight memories was looking out of one of the windows in the rear cabin as we approached LHR on the return sector, and seeing nothing but low cloud. Being a supernumerary I was occupying a passenger seat.


I remarked to one of the passengers how low the cloud was, considering by now we were all strapped in and fairly close to the ground.


The passenger, obviously a regular, looked at me and said,
"That’s the wing." :ugh:


What a fool I felt!! :\ I was so used to looking out of the window at the rear on a normal jet and seeing the ground, I had completely forgotten that these were delta wings and so nothing to be seen but an expanse of white as you looked directly below. Doh!


I am happy to report that quite a few passengers have made this mistake, (it wasn’t just me, and no, I’m not blonde!). It sounds stupid but the mind plays strange tricks when it sees something it doesn’t expect to see!


I loved M2dude’s recollection of when he fell in love with Concorde. It happened to me around 1972 when I saw her in the sky, (believe it or not, over Blackpool!), for the first time. She looked beautiful, elegant, and serene and I knew then that not only did I want to fly for a living, but I wanted fly on Concorde. Later that year I was flying for Freddie Laker. So I suppose you could say that seeing her in the sky that day changed my life. :ok:


And no M2dude, you are not old. We have lived through, and had hands on experience of something that no other generation will have in the foreseeable future, so I’m pleased to be the age I am for it was being in the right place at the right time which gave me my chance. :)


Warm regards,

LL x

Being from the far side of the pond, my opportunities to see Concorde have been few. But I was privileged to be at Oshkosh in 1985 when Concorde made the first of many appearances at the EAA airshow. After the 1000 mile trip in the back of a 172RG, my world view of aviation was not the most positive. However, Concorde, with the late Captain John Cook at the controls changed all that in an instant.

I remember his approach to Rwy 36 and how quiet the 100,000 or so crowd became. He landed then surprised the crowd will a full reheat touch and go, followed by the always spectacular and precise low level display.

The Concorde stayed parked there for the week with a several hour queue to get a look inside. As I recall they did at least one charter.

I happened to be near the end of the runway during a takeoff and Concorde flew right over me. I have an up-close and personal photo of nothing but the underside of the wing with the undercarriage retracting.

It would be nice if she was still in the air, but at least I get to regularly visit the Air France Concorde on display at IAD.

-Old Ag

i have managed to borrow the dvd`s for the BA concorde by ITVV (300 minutes worth) - and can totally recommend them if you want to see how the workforce `up front` do ther job within concorde - Captain Dave Rowlands , First Officer Les Brodey and FLight EngineerRoger Bricknell.

guided tour of concorde , and i did like the segments on just how much temperature effected performance - and the section (i think 20 minutes worth) explaining just how important the fuel system played in the flight `56.5 going aft` i do understand now :D

My "Concorde Story" really started around April 1968.

I'd only just finished my aeronautical enginering studies and had already been sending CVs all over the place... when I received a letter from the French firm (SFENA) that was building the French half of the Concorde automatic flight control system, to meet them for an interview : they needed a "flight test support engineer" to take care of their equipment in the UK (Fairford and Filton).

"No experience needed".... since everything in Concorde was new anyway....
My engineering degree, which included a fair amount of electronics, was considered enough... I could learn the rest "on the job".
What clinched the deal at the time was that I was aleady pretty well bilingual Dutch/English, and spoke enough French to get by, whereas in those days most of the French engineers in the firm had very little if any English.

So Dec. 1st, 1968, I moved to Paris, after delivering wife and new-born daughter to mother-in-law in London.
Some nine months of intensive study followed, before my move to Fairford and my first encounter with Concorde 002.

During my "indoctrination", the firm thought it would be a good idea to at least have a personal look at what I was going to work on, and also meet my 'counterparts' at Toulouse I was to be in continuous contact with.
So, sometime end January 1969, only a few weeks before the first flight of 001, I first set eyes on a real Concorde, still buzzing with final preparations.
With all our stuff being in the "pointy end", that's where we went, of course, and I spent half an hour or so in the left hand seat getting familiar with the cockpit lay-out and "our" systems..... the same seat where André Turcat would be sitting a few weeks later during the first flight.

After that came five years of Concorde at Fairford and Filton, until the development flight test support largely came to an end, and was taken over by our 'product support' department, and I returned to France.

In my case, I wouldn't yet have called it a "love affair" in those days, more an intensively satisfying job.
It was really not until afterwards, that I started to regard those "Concorde days" as the best time of my professional career, and that I started to realise she'd gotten "under my skin".

And I can call myself lucky.... I've "met" 002 again 35 years after last seeing her in the Fairford hangar.
And I've also sat again in that self-same left-hand seat on 001, more than 40 years after that first time.
And I've had the chance of flying once on Concorde, even if in the end she retired just before I did.

landlady is right. We were there, at the right time, and the right place.
I think that says it all.

CJ

That's not a very nice way to talk about BA and AF's finest!

(Sorry, couldn't resist a feed like that) :E

LOL !

True though... they're little more than two small flat surfaces... clearly marked "NO STEP", so they're not even any use for standing on to clean the windows.

They look pretty insignificant, compared to the 'canards' of the Tu-144 or the big foreplanes on some other deltas, or the long forward wing extensions on aircraft like the F-16 and F-18, none of which have the same function.

And to be perfectly honest, I myself didn't know about their real function until after 2003, when I started delving into a lot of other technical aspects of 'our Lady'.

CJ

Questions already answered earlier, but I just found this photo on another forum.

http://img116.imageshack.us/img116/8...imanchebr4.jpg

The sidestick was located where the LH weather radar display normally is.

CJ

I just finished reading the captivating thread, and I hope you don't mind me dredging up a couple of technical points that were touched on earlier. (Very simple technical points, or they would have gone over my head entirely.)

Early on there was a discussion of sliding hydraulic seals (necessary to allow for thermal expansion of the airplane). It occurred to me that sliding hydraulic seals are nearly as rare as hydraulic cylinders. But that raises an obvious question: what kept the seals from acting like cylinders, and fully extending under pressure?

And then a very picky observation on the discussion about excess moisture evaporating vs. boiling off during flight at temperatures up to 100C. Wouldn't water boil well below 100C at FL 600?

I'll have to find you a picture, I suppose!
But I would say the basic answers are
- the hydraulic lines at either end of the seal would be clamped down at some point,
- a hydraulic cylinder normally consists of a cylinder and a piston, with the latter of course missing in the seal arrangement.
You're quite right of course, but that would only be in the unpressurized part of the airframe.

The end result was of course that most if not all of the accumulated humidity either evaporated or indeed in some places literally 'boiled off', unlike subsonic aircraft.

CJ

Let me just explain a little more so you can tell me where I'm going wrong. I've got the seal pictured as two concentric tubes with O-rings between. If the outer tube is the "cylinder," the only difference between the inner tube and a piston is that it's hollow. But assuming no flow, how would the fluid in the "cylinder" "know" it's pressing against pressurized hydraulic fluid in the inner tube and not a solid steel piston?

Of course it would be a pretty small cylinder, little bigger in diameter than they hydraulic line itself. So maybe the answer is just that the restraints on either side are enough to deal with the force generated.

Chu Chu,

You're quite right, actually, especially assuming no flow.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...aulicjoint.gif

"how would the fluid in the "cylinder" "know" it's pressing against pressurized hydraulic fluid in the inner tube and not a solid steel piston?"

The fluid wouldn't "know".. It would be pressing against pressurized hydraulic fluid further down the line.... but at the end, it would finally be pressing against the piston of a hydraulic cylinder of some kind at the end, like the 'cap' in my first scribble.
If nothing was restrained "downstream", indeed everything would be "blown apart".
Of course, that hydraulic cylinder (my 'cap') would be affixed to the structure, so it wouldn't move.

The problem is more like my second scribble.... with a bend in the pipe, and only the final 'cap' fixed, the pipe would continuously flex under pressure.... not a good idea at all, especially when the pressure in the pipe varies, because the 'cap' is not a real 'cap' but something like a PFCU (power flight control unit), with continously varying demand.

So yes, the hydraulic lines are restrained in all the right places, for the hydraulic expansion seals to work correctly without setting up stresses in the lines themselves (except for the pressure acting outwards, of course).

Hope this makes sense to you?

CJ

Very clear, Christiaan. Thank you.

Nice sketches CJ. However the majority of the EXPANSION JOINTS (That's what they were called) were on long linear runs of hydraulic pipes, where the problems of thermal expansion were of course greatest. The expansion joints were one of the biggest leakage problems we ever had; once a seal went things got VERY wet, and the joint had to be replaced. (4000 PSIG can move a lot of fluid).

Dude :O

Autopilot
 

I was wondering if it was possible to hand fly Concorde when she was supersonic? Therefore would the failure of one or both autopilots mean that you would have to divert to the nearest airport? Also how long after takeoff would it normally be before engaging the autopilot?
Thanks again
Nick

Concorde Trivia
 

I thought it might be nice to throw in a few trivia questions here to lighten things up. Most readers of this thread should be able to answer fairly easily; if necessary by checking back on some of the previous posts in the thread. (All questions relate to the BA fleet). Or there is always Uncle Google :
1) How many fuel tanks werer there on Concorde?
2) How many seats were there?
3) At what approximate altitude and KNOTS EAS was Mach 2 achieved?
4) Only one BA Concorde had three different registrations, what was it?
5) What was the maximum permitted altitude in passenger service?
6) How many wheels on the aircraft
7) How many flying control modes were there?
8) How many positions of nose droop were there?
9) What was the first microprocessor application on the aircraft?
10) How many main electrical sources were there?

Answers tomorrow

Dude :O

Hi M2dude
In the spirit that you asked them; does the answer to Q2 include crew seats, jump seats and even loo seats?
Nick

NICK THOMAS
It was perfectly safe to hand fly the aircraft even at Mach 2. There was at least one legendary captain who always believed in hand flying. The controls were not overly sensitive as the outer and middle elevons were partly stalled out due to shockwave formation at Mach 2. (The load law of the Artificial Feel Computers actually decreased above transonic speeds).
And Nick.... No clues :=
Dude :O

I should let the pilots on this thread answer, really,
But I would say yes, just tedious, and needing the PF to pay far more attention minute-to-minute to all the various basic flight parameters, and fly them, rather than just monitor the autopilot doing the job.

Basically, no.
The autopilots were quite reliable, and what's more, they were essentially independent, so the probability of both failing during the same flight was pretty remote.
If one dropped out in flight for whatever reason, you'd engage no. 2 and continue.

The only situation where losing both autopilots within a minute or so of each other would be critical, would be during a Cat.III autoland, and just before that you'd run an autotest of both computers. The probablity of then losing both almost at the same time during those last few minutes was in the order of 10E-09 or less, and indeed never happened.

Can one of our pilot friends oblige?

CJ

PS I should add, that normally only one of the two autopilots was engaged, with the other powered but inactive, and IIRC, with AP1 active, AP2 would refuse to engage until you disengaged AP1.

Only in LAND mode could both APs be engaged at the same time, with normally no.1 flying and no.2 as a "hot" standby.
The system was referred to as "fail active", in that no.2 would already be synchronised to what no.1 was doing, and would take over totally automatically, without a hiccup (except an "oh merde" from the pilots, probably).

Quoting from memory.

The Captain I believe you are thinking of, not only hand flew the aircraft for the entire sector, but also ate his meal, and talked to the passenger who visited the flightdeck whilst he was flying it :D

He was not unique,and many would hand fly it during climb/accel and for the descent but most pilots would engage the Autopliot especially for supersonic cruise