Hey Dude

Saw your posts about the Concorde reheat spray bar and flame holder assembly in another thread, might it be worth reposting it in this thread to keep it all in the same place?

On a related note, what changed in the engine parameters if the Contingency mode was entered on take-off? And what would trigger that mode?

Oh yes, and once engaged, is there a time limit on how long it can be maintained? I'm assuming in an engine out case that at heavy weight the reheats have to remain engaged on the remaining engines until the speed has built up to get off the back of the drag curve.

Concorde Reheat
 

Consider it done Feathers. :ok:
As promised, here are a few diagrams of the Concorde reheat (afterburner, for our American friends) system. The ORIGINAL design was done by SNECMA, but due to them getting into all sorts of trouble with the fuel injection system and flame stabilisation, Rolls Royce baled them out, and it became a Rolls Royce/SNECMA design. (The core engine was a 100% Rolls design, with no French input whatsoever. However some engine sub-assembles were manufactured by SNECMA).
The basic way the afterburner worked was by spraying the fuel FORWARDS intially at high pressure, against the jet stram about one inch, until it hit the anvil. . As the fuel strikes the anvil it is blown back by the jet stram and atomises, passing over the of the spray ring and the over the flame holder. The ignition operated by passing 15KV across a dual cylindrical tube, the resulting arc was 'swirlied' into the fuel stream by blowing engine 5th stage HP compressor air into the tube (there were 7 stages in all).
The key to successful ignition was a healthy spark, a good supply of air to the ignitor and accurate scheduling of fuel flow. (This was scheduled against dry engine flow as a funtion of total temperature). The other important factor (as with any afterburner) was correct and rapid operation of the exhaust nozzle. Fortunately, Concorde used it's primary nozzle for control of engine N1 anyway, so adapting this to operate as an afterburning nozzle also was a relative walk in the park, and it operated superbly.
During the light up phase of 3.5 seconds, the fuel ratio is a fixed 0.45 (ie. reheat fuel is 45% of dry fuel). After the light up phase the full scheduling commenced. As far as the FLIGHT RATING figures go (not take-off) the ratios were 0.6 at a TAT of 54 deg's C, falling linearly to 0.3 at 107 deg's C and above. (Remember that Concorde used afterburning really sparingly, just for take-off and then transonic acceleration; cut off at Mach 1.7 altogether. :)

Dude :O
http://i1237.photobucket.com/albums/...ction22A-1.jpg

Feathers McGraw
Contingency mode could be either manually or automatically selected during take-off. It would automatically be selected if an engine dropped below 58% N2, PROVIDED that the take-off monitor button was set, and reheat was selected. (A small yellow CTY light on the centre dash panel would flash in this case also). OR it could be manually selected by moving the 4 reheat selector switches through a clever little gate, from RHT to CTY. In this case, the yellow CTY light would illuminate steadily.
Actually at entry into service, contingency had a real problem, in that when selected the reheat flame would burn very fiercely, become unstable and extinguish altogether. (So instead of getting more power, you ended up with less; with just the increase in dry thrust, and no reheat at all :ugh: ). It seems that the reheat flame holder was too small to support the bigger contingency flame, which effectively would just fall over. What we had to do in the early days of service was to isolate the wire that provided the contingency discreet to the reheat amplifier, ensuring that the reheat would hopefully still operate normally when contingency was invoked, so at least you got a small increase in power from the dry engine. The solution was the welding of 7 small 'fingers' to the outer part of the reheat flame holder, this made the flame holder 'appear' bigger than it really was to the flame. It worked perfectly, and we could therefore re-connect our wire again. :D (Just making the flame holder physically bigger would have had a detrimental impact on the operation of the dry engine).

Dude :O

Effect on range of single reheat failure to light on T/O
 

I understand that you could continue the takeoff if one reheat failed to light, but two questions. if you will:

TC

I'll leave it to M2dude to answer this fully and properly..
But... yes and no....
Whether you could actually continue the take-off, if one reheat didn't light, depended on several factors, such as t/o weight, runway length, ambient temperature, and suchlike. This was all calculated before take-off, and there was a little tab on the forward panel (I'll have to find a photo), which you would flip to either "3" or "4" as an instant reminder.
If the little tab said "4" and you got only three reheats coming on, you didn't have to think or go through a checklist... you rejected the takeoff.
M2dude probably can quote the speed.... but it was still well below V1, so such a RTO was not nearly as spectacular as a really nasty one around V1.

CJ

100kts

E/O calls "Power set" if you have a minimum of 4 engines and 3 reheats (for a "goer" - your flippy thing set to "3"!) else "Engine Fail" and therefore an RTO. 4-engines and 4-reheats (4 greens) needed at 100kts for a "power set" call for a "stopper" - flippy thing at "4". It was simply how far off TOW was from PLTOW and a concept introduced following a commercially unacceptable number of RTOs which weren't necessary from a perf-A POV...

(A single reheat failure, although rare, could be accepted after 100kts at any weight)

(Just noticed Brit312 covered this earlier - sorry!)

Thanks Dude, very interesting!

As for the 7 fingered reheat flame-holder, do you know of or have any photos? I'm quite fascinated by this, I'd like to see what it looks like. I have never heard of this modification anywhere else so once again this thread manages to surprise by turning up things that one couldn't find out any other way.

Here you go Feathers, it's in French but you can see what the modification did. (Before the modification was embodied there was an RTOW limit placed on the aircraft; perhaps Brit312 can remember the figures? OH, and as to the contingency time limit (which I forgot to answer your quesy, soorry :*) it was 2 1/2 minutes. (The only time that I can recall the limit being accidently exceeded we told Rolls Royce who after a few minutes of head scratching came back with a 'no problem man, don't worry about it :ok:).
Regards
Dude :O

http://i1237.photobucket.com/albums/...oldermod-1.jpg

Thanks Dude.

Not quite what I was expecting but very interesting all the same. I see that each finger appears to have an inlet at the base to allow gas flow to alleviate some of the turbulence behind it.

Now to find a picture of a Concorde reheat flame rosette to see how the flame matches up to the finger pattern.

Good game!

Better still, I found a picture of the reheat assembly with the fingers fitted:

Google Image Result for http://heritageconcorde.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/reheat-picture.jpg

Very good photo Feathers. The reheat really was just about the most fragile part of the powerplant, and gave us numerous headaches throughout the service life of the aircraft. The most unreliable part of all was the ignition side of things; the ignition transformer itself being the main culprit here. Also the swirl ignitor itself was rather fragile, as the smallest blockage in the air supply would render the ignitor useless. The failure of the reheat system resulted in the majority of rejected take-offs in the service life of the aircraft. (Failures during transonic acceleration would sometimes respond to a second selection of reheat, but this was often due to spontaneous llight up, due to the much higher total temperatures at Mach 0.95, rather than a recovery of the ignition system itself).

Dude :O

Sorry, no. Haven´t been there for more than a year and at that time it was just clear that they have to move due to the A350 FAL, but the details were not decided.
Found one more picture...
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...x/IMG_1160.jpg
Sad to see this masterpiece of engineering rotting away.
I always thought that the sloped area at the aft end of the floor was the rear airstair (just present on the pre-production aircraft), but I just read on heritageconcorde.com/ that this is for "system routing". Does somebody know more ? Seems to be a lot of space for systems that would end just in the middle of the cabin.

Only the two prototypes had the airstairs. Even preproduction aircraft 01 (G-AXDN) already had the same door arrangement as the production aircraft. Also the airstairs were in the tail section, without any wing structure at that location.
I had to pull out my copies of the "blueprints".....

The picture on 'heritageconcorde' is a good find!

If you look at the perspective drawing bottom right, you're basically looking at the volume of fuel tank n° 6 (which is located under-floor just to the rear of the main landing gear bay) with the floor on top and the sloped area leading into the main landing gear bay in front ; the rear wall of the landing gear bay is in the plane of fuselage frame n° 60 (see the side view at the top of the picture).

The "system routing" would therefore simply refer to the various 'underfloor' services routed to the landing gear.
There was a lot of stuff passing right under your feet in Concorde!

One problem with your photo..... there is no door anywhere looking rearward from frame n° 60, neither on the prototypes, nor on any of the other aircraft.

However.... the forward wall of the landing gear bay is in the plane of fuselage frame n° 54. And the blueprints show the same type of 'sloped area' at that location, this time making an 'indentation' in tank n° 8, which is just forward of the landing gear bay.
And yes, on the prototypes, counting about 6 windows to the front, there is one of the two emergency exits (which were replaced by the mid-cabin passenger and service doors on all the later Concordes).

So the section on your photo was cut roughly at frame n° 54, and the photo looks forward into the cabin.

I hope this helps?

Unfortunately I do not have a flatbed scanner, and all the drawings I have are larger than A4. But I'll see what I can do... a picture always says more than a thousand words.

CJ

I have a question related to returning a Concorde to the air.

Obviously it's a theoretical one...

IF funding were secured to get 1 Concorde from each fleet into the air again, which one out of each fleet would be the easiest to return to service, given what has gone on since retirement?

Also, a subpoint, does anyone have any finger-in-the-air figures as to how much cost it would take and whether there's any fundamental issues that would need to be sorted aside from the airworthiness certificate etc.

(no, i'm not a secret billionaire, i'm just curious as to what it would cost etc)

Did you need all 4 reheats to go from 0.95 - 1.7 ?

If you got to 1.3 and then one or more failed could you continue (albeit with slower acceleration ?)

I presume if you were unable to get the things lit at 0.95 you just turned round and went home again ? The procedure would take around 90 mins so would you need to burn off fuel or already be at acceptable landing weight by that time ?


Also, once when aboard at about 50K-55K feet the aircraft rolled I would estimate 3 degrees to the left and then came back level again almost immediately. I knew this was a glitch but no one else noticed. An announcement was made of a minor problem about 2 mins later and that was that ?

What might have cause such an event (I would guess an airflow issue with intake or engine ?)

Mike, there are already a couple of sites on the internet dealing with this particular pipe-dream, such as SaveConcordeGroup in the UK.
So, please, could you address your questions there?

Or start a separate thread in the JetBlast forum... I'll be only too happy to answer you there, and yes, I have answers to your questions.

Just don't pollute this particular thread with this nonsense... please?

CJ

Mike-Bracknell
It is not nonsense, and you are quite at liberty to post here. Wow, that's still quite a question though Mike. There are two TECHNICAL issues that overshadow all others, namely airframe corrosion and hydraulic system deterioration. Unfortunately none of the BA aircraft were stored inside from the outset, so we have a real issue here as far as corrosion goes, plus all the hydraulic systems were drained, resulting in seal drying out and probable moisture ingress into the 3 systems. But given sufficient funds (and assuming you find an organisation to take over design responsibility from Airbus; ironic when you consider that without Concorde there would almost certainly have been no such organisation) there is still no technical reason why the problems (and there are dozens of other problems to consider) could not be overcome, the money side of things is another matter
Looking first at the French fleet, the main candidate for restoration to flight status would be F-BTSD at Le Bourget. Not only has this aircraft been lovingly cared for and stored INSIDE, but the aircraft has had several systems (including the Green hydraulic system) powered and reservoirs not drained.
The British story is less clear; G-BOAA in East Fortune was effectively killed when the wings were cut off for transportation, so that one is out of the question. G-BOAB, the last and only Concorde at LHR has been left to rot outside, in fact holes were even drill in the fuselage to drain water, so this one is a no no too. G-BOAC at Manchester, now the oldest surviving production aircraft was initially stored outside, but now resides in a purpose built exhibition 'hangar'. Now she COULD be a potential candidate for consideration; when I last saw her just over a year ago she was absolutely pristine; a testament to the team that have been caring for her there. G-BOAD, stored next to the USS Intrepid in New York, we can probably forget, due to having been exposed to 7 years worth of salt water corrosion from the Hudson River. (Also, while she was temporarily stored in New Jersey a couple of years ago, some IDIOT in a truck bent the whole nose section when he hit her. The radome was smashed (replaced with a rather clever fibreglass fabrication) and the nose straightened with a blow-torch and hammer (I am not joking!!). G-BOAE at Grantley Adams airport in Barbados has been stored under cover for much of the time; provided she has not suffered too much from the wam damp atmosphere of Barbados, well she could be a potential candiitate too. G-BOAF in Filton, well PROVIDED she is still OK after her 'removal from public view' experience could also be a potential candidate also. And finally, G-BOAG in Seattle; well she had been left outside, right next to a highway (and close to a truck stop too). She did not look too good the last time I saw her; the undercarriage barrels werer all brown and discoloured and the paintwork was completely dull and matte. (She had a new paint job not too long before retirement too). So out of the 'BA Seven', I PERSONALLY would go for G-BOAF, G-BOAC or G-BOAG.
As I have said often here before, it is EXTREMELY unlikely that what you, Mike, suggest will ever happen, but in spite of what others might say, IT IS NOT IMPOSSIBLE. My own gut feeling is a resounding 'no', but I could be wrong, . (And NO ONE would be happier than I if I am wrong; I was with the BA aircraft through construction, flight testing and the entire service life with BA).
As for the cost? It really is a case of 'how long is a piece of string', but for 2 aircraft we could be looking in excess of $100 or more, who knows?
But as the Everly Brothers used to sing 'All I have to do is dream.'
Keep posting Mike.

Dude :O.

norodnik

...Did you need all 4 reheats to go from 0.95 - 1.7 ?...

No.

Two reheats were the minimum for transonic acceleration, however due regard would have to paid to the additional fuel usage with one or two reheats failed.


...If you got to 1.3 and then one or more failed could you continue (albeit with slower acceleration ?)...

Yes, as above, whilst remembering the 15 minute time limit on the use of reheat.


...I presume if you were unable to get the things lit at 0.95 you just turned round and went home again ?...

Yes, once you were convinced that at least three were not going to light up.


...The procedure would take around 90 mins so would you need to burn off fuel or already be at acceptable landing weight by that time ?...

Not something I ever had to do, fortunately, but even so, 90 minutes would seem somewhat excessive to me, given that the aircraft would still have been over the Bristol channel. On a transatlantic sector, fuel jettisoning would have been necessary to get down to 130,000 kgs (for a fuel saving landing) or 111,130 kgs (MLW) if the nature of the failure precluded a fuel saving landing.


...once when aboard at about 50K-55K feet the aircraft rolled I would estimate 3 degrees to the left and then came back level again almost immediately...what might have cause such an event (I would guess an airflow issue with intake or engine ?)...

Any number of things could have caused this, but probably the most likely one is the one you suspected, a (transient) intake problem.


Best Regards

Bellerophon

Thanks guys, and sorry for worrying you with such a potential thread divert Christiaan, that wasn't my intention and M2Dude answered my question with exactly what I needed to know (although I think it's closer to $100m than $100 :8)

hahaha Mike, sorry about that, yes I DID meen $100 MILLION.
norodnik
I can not personally recall a triple reheat fail ever happening, as Bellerophon explained in his answer to your post, but I can recall one occasion several years ago where the 15 minute time limit was inadvertantly exceeded for a couple of minutes. This was reported to both Rolls Royce and SNECMA, but no checks etc were instigated. The reheat ignition system, as I posted previously, was far too fragile; we did some investigations with Rolls Royce about 15 years ago into using 'hot streak' injection as a backup ignition source, but this was ruled out on cost grounds.

Dude :O

Forgive me if this has been covered before but did the Concorde have bleed air wing or fin Anti-Icing ?



What about the engines



Or was this deemed unecessary ?

The Concorde at Duxford is still painted and equiped for the "icing test camapign", so I assume at least the inner (or forward) wing had no anti ice.
I should have some pictures I can search for...

The engine intake guide vanes were heated [on selection] by a hot air bleed from the exit of the HP compressor. Other than that there was not hot air bleed for anti icing purposes

Now the leading edges of the intakes and the leading edges of various bits within the intake along with the underside of the wing in front of the the intakes were deiced by a combination of continuous and cyclic electrically heated mats.

All of this electrically heated deicing was infact extened engine deicing so as to ensure that when the ice came off it would be in small enough chunks for the engine to digest without damage. [Another system almost direct from the Bristol Britannia]

The fin nor the rest of the wing had any anti icing system

Volume,

Here are the drawings that should help with your last photo of Concorde "0001".
Not very good quality, since they're scans of xerox copies of xerox copies of microfilm ...

Prototype drawing dated July 1965, which in particular shows the location of the emergency exits.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...canfus001w.gif

Production drawing (two cut-outs from the same drawing at the same scale) which (schematically) does actually show the 'sloped areas' both at the front and the rear of the main landing gear bay.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...02partfusw.gif

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...2partwingw.gif


Note 1 : both frame 54 and frame 60 were 'production breaks'.
Note 2 : the tanks were numbered differently on the prototypes ; tank N° 9 on the prototype became tank n° 6 on the production aircraft.

CJ

Thanks
 

hydrazine powered as was the ME "162"
 

I haven't had time to read all of the posts so I doubt I'm the first person to point out the typo but the ME 163 was the rocket powered interceptor, the ME 262 was the first operation jet fighter...twin engine and powered by jet fuel. Also, the ME 163's were cool but they had a poor operational record of killing more of their pilots (due to the hydrazine instability) more often than they shot down allied bombers or their fighter escorts.

Nitpicking
 

A detail I know but wasnt the Olympus really a Bristol engine? (cf Hooker "not much of an engineer" )I know RR bought the company but it wasnt their original design
rodhttp://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/sr...ilies/nerd.gif

jodelistie
First of all Rod, welcome to our Concorde thread, and thank you very much for your kind words.
Now as far as the rumour goes, I'm afraid that it is nonsense, however the truth is an even more complex story of collusion, betrayal and intrigue. You may read that 'Concorde was retired by BA and Air France purely due to economic reasons', however that is not quite the case (and as far as THIS side of the English Puddle goes, is total poppycock!!). Now BA lost a huge amount of her regular traffic as a result of the 9/11 tragedy and also as a result of the 2003 Iraq war, but things were improving nicely. In her 27 years of operation, Concorde had survived countless dips in her traffic, only to return stronger as market conditions improved.
It is early 2003, and French Concorde traffic to the USA has almost vanished, down to single digit loads. This is due mainly to total French opposition the impending US/UK invasion of Iraq, and US businessmen using BA Concorde almost exclusively. (French business seems to be boycotting the US altogether, so their contribution to passenger loads virtually ceased). Due to the apalling loads, AF are losing absolutely MILLIONS of Euros, at a time when the carrier is trying to privatise itself ... but there is more:
In the same February, AF very nearly lost ANOTHER Concorde, yet again largely down to total incompetence and lack of adherence to established procedures. Aircraft F-BTSD was flying between CDG and JFK when there was a failure of the reheat delivery pipe that runs from the engine 1st stage fuel pump to the reheat shut-off valve. This failure, although not particularly serious, led to a chain of events that very nearly resulted in the loss of the aircraft, and all those onboard. (Air France engines were overhauled seperately to BA, who never experienced this particular failure). What was required in the case of this failure was a precautionary engine shut-down, closing off the fuel supply to the engine totally, and a descent/deceleration to subsonic speed, carefully monitoring fuel consumption all the time. Unfortunately the crew 'forgot' to shut down the fuel LP valve, and this resulted in the fuel continuing to gush out of the failed pipe at an alarming rate. (Oh, and also they forgot to monitor the fuel consumption). Only after the crew FINALLY noticed that they were still losing fuel did they remember to close the engine LP valve, but it was almost too late. The aircraft just managed to land in Halifax, with barely enough fuel left in the tanks to taxi!! So, herer we are, AF are horrified that they have come very close to yet another disaster, knowing full well that yet again human error was a major factor.
But there is more....
One week later another AF aircraft loses part of a rudder panel due to de-lamination of the honeycomb surface, not particularly serious in itself, but it put even more jitters up the trousers of AF. (Rudder failures had happened to BA aircraft many years previous to this, but BA had purchased brand new and improved rudders from Airbus UK in Filton, but Air France chose not too).
So it seems that the chairmen of both Air France and Airbus (who regards Concorde as a waste of its valuable resources) have a 'secret' meeting to plan what was effectively the murder of Concorde. There is no way that AF want BA to carry on flying Concorde while they have to cease operations, so the plan is for Airbus to make a huge hike in their product support costs; these costs would have to be borne by BA exclusively, which they both knew would not be possible. If these support costs were not met, there would be no manufacturers support, and without this there would be no type certificate, and without this, no more Concorde.
Their (AF & Airbus) hope was that BA would not challenge this move legally, and sadly for the world of aviation they did not. At a meeting, BA AND AIR FRANCE!!!! were told by Airbus about the hike in product support costs, and BA would also have to cease operations. BA were not even allowed to continue until March 2004 (the Barbados season was nearly fully booked already), and so would have to cease operations in October 2003.
But the British were far from blameless in all this; a now retired very senior British airline person had always obsessively HATED Concorde, so the French conspiracy was a very early Christmas present for him; he finally got what he had always wanted. The 'end of Concorde' anouncement by both airlines was made in April 2003; AF had got what their executives wanted and finished flying in May, reluctantly leaving BA to fly until late October. If you want a full (and extremely well informed) explanation of what happened in that whole debacle, the article by Don Pevsner is worth reading. It can be found at this website:
THE BETRAYAL OF CONCORDE
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that without the truly disgusting events in France in early 2003, Concorde would still be proudly flying for BA. (And with modifications and enhancements would fly safely for many more years).
quote** "in the hands of true professionals, Concorde was the safest aircraft that ever flew. and in the hands of BA crews at least, she was always just that..*

Oh and yes you were correct, the Olympus (the world's first ever 2 spool engine) was originally a 'Bristol-Siddeley' design, before BS were absorbed into Rolls-Royce. Stanley Hookers book is in my view totally superb, a true classic. :ok:

Dude :O

jobpatto,
You're right, it was the Me163 that was rocket-powered using a hydrazine-based fuel.
I think the "Me162" in the early post was a simple typo, or an unintentional confusion with either the Me262 or the He162.

jodeliste,
The original design was indeed by Bristol Aero Engines, which then became Bristol Siddeley. But the latter was taken over by Rolls Royce in 1966, so by the time Concorde first flew, it already had become a Rolls Royce engine.

CJ

ChristiaanJ,

I'm 31yrs old and my knowledge comes from reading as well as the Military and History channels. I totally forgot about the HE-162. My knowledge is trivial in comparison to the info in this blog....so much so that I was nervous to post it. I just couldn't shake the statistics about the speed of the 163 and the number of top German pilots that the hydrazine rockets killed.

Thanks for the info. I am sure it was a typo, and if not, my knowledge is academic as opposed to practical. I have 25hrs of flight training, 15 of which is recreational single-engine sea water landing in a Lake Amphibian. This training is now 14yrs old. As I said, academic/trivial-knowledge, not practical.

Thank you M2Dude for all this priceless info
I agree about Stan Hookers book and before he died he also recorded remeniscences on I think, a BBC program, I have it somewhere on a tape, must find it and transfer to a dvd
Ps the rumour was tongue in cheek:D
rod

I have to admit I had to look up my old manuals to ensure I was correct , and I can now confirm that in Concorde's Precautionary Engine Shut Down Checklist there is no item requiring the crew to shut the LP fuel cock, so they did not forget they stuck to the checklist

Now I do not know what event happened to require the engine to be shut down, and if it was for fuel loss then yes the crew should have been moitoring the difference between fuel on board and fuel used figures and I am sure they were. However if they were also slowing and descending then the fuel system would be quite active and the difference between fuel on board and intergrated fuel left could vary very much during this phase of flight as the fuel cooled and you found that the gauges were still showing a few hundred Kgs each, even though the pump low pressure lights were on

It would not have been until they had settled down at Mach 0.95 with fuel transfer still that a proper appraisal could be made of the difference between the two fuel remaining indication and now the loss of fuel in the appropriate collector tank.

Not sure where they were when they started their subsonic diversion but believe me even with everything going for you there would not have been huge amounts of fuel left, by the time the aircraft got to Halifax

Perhaps if there is any blame it should lie with the people who wrote the checklist, by not putting an item in to cover such a case as this

It seems to me thet poor old Air France are blamed when

1] They deviate from the checklist as was suggested in the crash

OR

2] Stick to the checklist as in this case

Now you might say what about airmanship, well they did use it, perhaps a bit earlier would have been better, but easy to say without knowing all the facts.

If it wasn't for people like you, asking the questions, this thread would long since have petered out.
I know the story well... and I've seen some of the photos where all that was left of the aircraft was a huge black smear on the ground....

As mentioned earlier, hydrazine was "tamed" enough in the postwar years to make its use for EPUs in the military feasible (such as the F-16), where the weight gain is more important than the difficulties of handling the stuff.

Even so, just as well it was never used on the in-service Concordes... it's not the kind of product you want around on a civilian airport....
Just imagine a Concorde at the gate.. everybody being cleared away in a wide radius... a few people driving up with goggles, helmets and asbestos suits...
"What IS going on ??" "Oh, nothing, just topping up the APU"....

jodeliste,
I have Stanley Hooker's book too. If you ever find that tape, put me on the distribution list for the DVD (all costs reimbursed, of course!).

CJ

This thread is lovely! I sure do hope it is compiled by someone and put on a website so it will last forever.

Classic
 

[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']ChristiaanJ,[/FONT]
Classic, I love it. You speak with a tone of classic British understatement. I seem to recall that hydrazine in the early-to-mid 40's would burn through any type of protective clothing w/o even a spark....although I wouldn't swear to it. Regardless, I can only imagine Concorde passengers, sipping champagne and watching ground-crew members in hazmat suits pumping 'something' into their plane. My great aunt and uncle flew on the Concorde dozens of times and never described such a scene. I could only imagine that it would be unnerving to the passengers, at best!

Thank you for the comments and kind words.

Brit312
mm I guess they were not to blame for flying for over one hour with a red throttle light on (the engine is under no electronic control), resulting in the severe engine overspeed (N1 overspeed protection amplifier already disabled) and the subsequent scrapping (on the orders of Rolls Royce) of the entire rotating assembly of the engine. Or for omitting TWO intake trunnion blocks during a ramp actuator replacement, and then the E/O continually and cyclically operating the intake lane selector switch, following a spill door runaway, until he manages a double engine surge and near destruction of the 'forgotton parts' intake and engine also. I suppose they are not to blame for the experimental tripping of the LPOG circuit breaker by the E/O, during an engine power mismatch, resulting in serious damage to the engine and intake due to the resulting massive over-fueling surge. I suppose again, that they were not to blame for ignoring for over 6 months a simple electrical load defect, eventually resulting in a not too minor fire in the electronics racks that had to be extinguished by the crew with extinguishers. And yet again, I suppose they are not to blame for putting skydrol into Concorde hydraulics systems, almost resulting in the loss of the aircraft, as well as a 9 month grounding while all of the hydraulic components were replaced. And it was not Air France that hammered Fox Delta twice into the runway at Dacca, resulting in so much airframe distortion that the aircraft performance was seriously compromised (and eventually broken up). And of course they were not responsible for the technical and operational failures, including the (forgotton AGAIN) missing spacer and overweight take-off etc.) on 25th July 2000. Silly me.
And although I might have said 'precautionary engine shut-down', we are talking about a quite an eventful episode here indeed, you can NOT excuse the further mistakes made on that day, 'just because they are poor old Air France. With the greatest of respect Brit, there are 3 crew members on that flight deck, do you not think that the loss of over over 5 tonnes of fuel over a period of time might just be noticed????? The subsonic 3 engined leg was carried out for quite a time before it computed to them that they were still losing fuel. There is no excuse for flying with your eyes closed, I'm sorry.
For goodness sake, this is probably the biggest single episode that was behind the demise of Concorde, poor Air France my eye!!!:mad:

Dude :O

ChristiaanJ
I could not agree more my friend. There has been a total wealth of queries and information from people from all over, not necessarily involved with aviation, let alone Concorde. Keep asking away everybody:D
I'm sure that ChristiaanJ, Brit312, Bellerophon, EXWOK and myself and others (ooh, lets not forget Landlady) will be only too glad to churn away at our poor worn out old brains and try and come up with some semi-intelligible (at least) answers.

Dude :O

M2dude is right.... we all have to rely a lot on our memories (and, when we can, on ancient documentation...) so not all our 'facts' are always 100% 'factual' (I've already made a few bludners..).

But yes, "we were there", and, as far as I'm concerned, it's a true pleasure to have this thread where we all can share our bits of the story.

Glad you're enjoying it too !!

CJ

Fuel Saving Landings
 

Hi,

The mention of fuel saving landings came up awhile back and it would be good to have some additional information on how, when's and why's this procedure was used.

As I understand it a fuel saving landing was one over the normal maximum landing weight, as such did additional inspections or anything have to take place on the airframe?

Any information on his procedure would be very much appreciated as I have only ever seen the term mentioned never the reasons behind it.

Many thanks for such a rivetting thread.

Regards,

Steve.

Fuel-saving landings
 

I can't give you much of the background but can remember the bare bones - here they are, without the benefit of manuals so subject to the usual caveats:

A large proportion of the take-off mass consisted of fuel on this machine, hence an early return would require a lot of fuel to be jettisonned to get down to Max Landing Weight.

Obviously it would be nice not have to lose all this fuel, partly to save fuel and partly to save time.

A higher Max Landing Weight (130T) was made permissable for airborne returns given certain caveats - I can't remember all of them, but obviously a decent length of runway (to avoid caning the brakes), no braking unserviceabilities, and the brakes had to be cool and the gear lowered early amongst other considerations. Go-around performance had to be considered if hot-and-high. That's a fuel-saving landing, and it was worth about 20T of gas.

I only did a couple and it was a non-event.

It has to be remembered that certificated MLW is predicated on many factors, and some fairly high Rates of Descent at touchdown, and on any aircraft one may be faced with a siruation that requires an immdeiate landing, possibly at Max TOW. MLW is a conservative figure.

I don't recall any specific required inspections, the whole point of justifying this procedure would be to obviate that requirement, but it's fair to say that the type of issues that would precipitate a fuel-saving landing would ensure the airframe wouldn't be flying again that day anyway. Both of mine earned themselves a bit of time off.

Now, one of the gentlemen with manuals to hand (or better memories) will, I hope, fill in the inevitable gaps.......

Hey Dude,

If you quote a drill and then blame the crew for not doing something which is not in the drill you have to realize some one will correct you.

Anyway enough said