You're halfway right....
There were 22 airframes built, even if only 20 of them flew.
There was one in Toulouse, used for static (structural) tests, and vibration tests, and suchlike, and the one at Farnborough, used for heat and stress cycling.
Neither of them survived. It seems a few sections of '0001' still exist somewhere at Toulouse, and a few sections of '0002' are still on display at the Brooklands (UK) museum.
I have no idea whether either actually had space models of the engines in place, or simply representative ballast weights.

CJ

(I made up the '0001' and '0002' designations.... maybe somebody here can still remember what those 'static' airframes were referred to formally at the time?).

London Science Museum
 

I was recently able - for the first time in about twenty-five years - to visit the London Science Museum. Not only which, I was able to spend the whole day, on my own, with no children dragging me along. :D As always, the Aviation Gallery occupied a lot of my time there, but I was quite surprised that there is very little about 'our lady', when I should have thought she was sufficiently 'white heat of the technological revolution' to qualify for a whole display to herself?

Going on from remarks about tracing the number of 593s still around, there is one there. Right at the back corner of the Aviation Gallery, on a yellow trolley and next to an RB211. Very little explanation to it and none whatsoever of the astonishing intake/engine/thrust bucket combination.

The only other Concorde exhibit, that I could find, was a beautiful 'cut away' model, standing on a mirror. The model was so detailed and interesting, I took a photograph of it, as I did of the 593, but I find my "PPRuNe Posting Rule" do not allow me to post attachments. :ugh:

Is it not slightly surprising that there is not more about Concorde there? After all, I was able to revisit an 'old friend' of mine - the original EMIScanner MkI CT scanner from Atkinson Morley's Hospital - that I used to look after back in the day. :rolleyes:

Roger.

Roger,
Slightly O/T, but one does wonder about the Science Museum.
I've been a few times, many years ago....

They had a fascinating exhibit about radar, including its early history (and after all a lot of radar technology was invented in the UK). Then, about the last time I went, I found the entire historical exhibit had simply disappeared.

So, I expect the measly Concorde exhibit you saw will soon disappear too.....

Re your photos, download them to a site such as "photobucket",then post the links. PM me if that doesn't work.

CJ

Tough crowd....

The Science Museum's primary Concorde display is at the FAA Museum, with 002 and the ogive winged Fairy Delta...

At South Ken the collection is thematically displayed, with Concorde items in a number of galleries; there is a nose cone in the materials gallery, wind tunnel development models in the milestone galleries, next to the Apollo capsule, and the Shorts SC1, plus computer units in the computer gallery and so forth.

Not ideal however quite well done in view of the way that collection is done.

As I said, haven't been to the museum for years.... So my judgment may be outdated.
Which had no real relation with Concorde. Unless you're confusing the SC-1 with the HP-115 (which is also at Yeovilton).

CJ

C,

No worries, plenty of very good museums between you and South Ken...

Agreed SC1 has no relevance.. nor does Apollo.. the idea was to illustrate that the Concorde display runs thro' several thematic areas in the museum, often next to seemingly unrelated artefacts.

mfaff,
Point taken.

In a way, Apollo is relevant.... At the time, there were two "prestige" programs to be on : Concorde and Apollo. I've been lucky, I was part of one of those !

CJ

Well if South Ken want to get rid of that 593, we'll give it a home in our building next to G-BOAC.

Shaggy,
I doubt South Ken would want to get rid of their 593 (BTW, I'm still curious where that one came from, and what model it is).

I thought Alpha Charlie arrived with all its four engines....
Without wanting to go into the current squabbles, couldn't the museum drop one of the engines for display? They're pretty well invisible from the outside, so taking one out (and replacing it with a couple of plywood panels inside the nacelle, to avoid the horrible hollow-tooth effect we saw on Alpha-Delta in NY), would not do any damage to the display, but it would add another attraction to the museum.

CJ

That brings a question to mind. Under service conditions, how long would it have taken to remove and replace an engine, and how often would it have been done? Also, would the same engines have stayed with each airframe, or would they have "circulated" around the fleet?

CJ - AC does indeed have all 4 engines in place and complete. I wouldn't want to drop an engine as that would make her an incomplete aeroplane, and actually you can clearly see the compressors deep inside the intakes during tours, which is nice. She'd look odd with one intake blanked off.

Ideally I'd like a sectioned 593 on display, as there's not a lot to see on the outside of a turbojet engine except the ancilliaries - and you can see those by opening the engine bay doors.

Bump......

Olympus, anyone?

eBay - The UK's Online Marketplace

I could afford the key ring, or salt and pepper shakers:(

I couldn't even afford those.... but my family paid for one of the last "Bay of Biscay" trips, and yes, I did keep the salt and pepper shakers.

CJ

Was going to bid, but I'm a fiver short....

:(

Why are the log book and other records being sold separately?

When you buy an aircraft or component, the records form an integrated part or the item is effectively worthless.

I think the price is somewhat over inflated as there is no operational use for this. If the seller takes some zeros off the end there might be some interest.

Maybe someone looking for an engine for a land speed record attempt might be interested but no museum would stump up this much.

Just my thoughts.

I was curious as well, and hoping somebody with practical experience would post an answer.
The engines were interchangeable among the airframes. Just as well, really, otherwise it would have meant keeping a stock of spare engines for each aircraft !

A more practical issue was that the engines were "handed", so that if a "left-handed" engine failed and you had only "right-handed" engines in stock, you had a problem.....
There is a nice interesting chapter in the Olympus 593 manual on how to convert a "left-handed" engine into a "right-handed" one (it mostly involved moving auxiliaries and other connections from one side to the other), but it was work, and took time. More time than a 'simple' engine change .....

CJ

Someone's dreaming! It cannot be used as an engine according to the text (BA restriction) so it has value either as a museum exhibit or as scrap.

So either no monetary value (museum exhibit) or a few hundred pounds (scrap). Minus a few hundred pounds to transport it to the scrapyard!

Does anybody still have notes about how much the Olympuses at Dovebid went for at the time?

Shaggy, I doubt anybody would buy it to "use" it. I would bet that surplus military engines of the same kind of thrust rating could be had much cheaper. Not to mention that parts, ancillaries, etc., would be far easier to procure....

CJ

There used to be one of those hanging from the Foyer roof of the Engineering Department of Leeds University. AFAIR is was motorised and the HP & LP Spools used to rotate at a fraction of an RPM. I think there were internal lights too and/or the spools were painted as well. I think it was also in a Concorde type nacelle. This must have been in the 70's as I used to go to the annual Open Days with my Grandad who worked there.

I can't seem to find any reference to it as to whether it is still there, disposed of or in storeage ??? Perhaps someone has contacts ???

regards
Howie

Now that raises an interesting question - "why?". Why would turbojet engines need to be handed? Was it to eliminate the need for slightly offset trims required to cancel the gyroscopic forces of symmetrical rotation of the engines in cruise??

Storage space for pipes/gearboxes/ancillaries in the nacelle??

See, Concorde Engineers CAN make it happen and fit a round peg in a square hole!!!

:ok:

handed? really?
 

If the quote in message #1504 is correct, why would there be a vibration problem on take off in engine #4 only?
Ref: p80 Haynes 'Owners Workshop Manual'

I make no claim to technical knowledge but this seems unlikely. Is there a source for this?

Smug
 

ref #1496
I have still got my key ring from my 1980 flight. Thank you Birmingham Evening Mail competitions department.

Still cost me an arm and a leg. I arrived in Paris by Concorde and tried to live up to the image. Trip to the Lido, dinner on the Champs Elysee. Never did admit to the wife what I spent. :)

Sorry to have caused some confusion....

BN2A is right : some of the pipes, pumps, generators, ancillariy gearboxes, connectors and suchlike on the outside of the 'round peg' are installed either on the left or the right side of the engine, so that they fit inside the 'square hole' while remaining accessible for inspection/maintenance.

911slf, all engines rotate in the same direction. However, the vortices rolling off the leading edges of the wings into the air intakes rotate in opposite directions.
Now if you look at a photo or a model, you'll see that the intakes of the outboard engines (#1 and #4) are quite close to the leading edges.
No problem for engine #1, because the rotation of the air entering the intake is the same as that of the engine itself, but for engine #4 there is a conflict between the senses of rotoation, leading to vibration at low speed.
Engine #3 is further back from the wing leading edge, so the airflow into the intake has already been 'straightened out' more, hence the problem doesn't occur there.
Maybe M2dude has some more details?

CJ

I've said it before to Dude, but it will bear repeating I think: it was the vortex coming off the intake sidewall that caused the problem, not anything coming off the wing. The highly swept, sharp leading edge was perfect for generating vortices at high engine demand and low aircraft forward speed.

CliveL

CliveL,
Many thanks for chipping in.... I gave the explanation to the best of my knowledge, but as you know I'm not an aerodynamicist, nor an engine expert, so I was actually hoping either M2dude or you would add the corrections.

What caused the actual vibration? Incipient stall of the first compressor stages, or some separate phenomenon?

CJ

Christiaan,

To be honest, it was all a long time ago http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/sr...lies/smile.gif

#4 intake was marginally worse than #1 in several ways. Obviously this particular problem was linked to the engine face distortion pattern and may have been associated with the combination of the 'handedness' of the incoming vortex with the non-radial inlet guide vanes which together could have given some subtle variations in distortions between sides. But it was all pretty fine drawn stuff, and the problem disappeared by 60 kts or thereabouts.

CliveL

Anyone got £1.25m under the sofa?

Concorde Rolls-Royce Olympus 593-610 Turbojet Engine with Reheat | eBay

Hi

I had a look on the eBay link and I question the engine model - the Forward Bearing supports are 5 struts but not the same configuration as the Series 200. I thought the 593 was derived from the 300 Series.

see below a picture of a 593 from Wiki:
http://www.pprune.org/%3Ca%20href=ht...Olympus593.jpg
File:Olympus593.JPG - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

regards
Howie

ambidextrous
 

Thanks ChristiaanJ#1508 and CliveL#1509. That's what I thought. It was the quote in #1504 that implied left and right handed engines with all the stock problems that would cause.

At risk of thread drift I think that anything with propellers would be likely to suffer much more from asymmetry, but I think folk just put up with it - except in the few cases where there are contrarotating propellers.

Am I right in thinking that once the necessary minimum rpm was achieved, reheat was selected on all four engines, but that some (automatic?) control restricted the power to engine#4 until 60kt was achieved?

M2dude Not surprisingly, the first edition of this excellent book sold out very quickly.

It's now available again.


Reviews here

H.

I must say a very interesting and worthwhile read, it is so excellent that the general oiks like I have the opportunity to pose some questions - for the participation of those in the know I applaud you :D. My first memory of her is when I was 8 from the top of the Queens building (IIRC) watching her taxy and take off, I have visited her many times at RNAS Yeovilton but alas did not have the funds in 2003 to make one of the final flights.

I have some questions if I may, they are very general and aimed at getting some more fascinating discussion going - I am only a student ppl so cant go into the nitty gritty so hope to prompt some memories.

1) I adore the lady in many ways but I would imagine she was far from perfect with the challenges that had to be overcome. I would imagine the positives way out weighed any negatives. So what were the downsides for the Capt/FO/FE that were most discussed - was anything done to alleviate these is design/Pre-Production and what if any gripes made it through to production.

2) For each of you (I would imagine they would be different based upon your skill set) what were the biggest challenges you personally had to overcome when switching to/designing our iconic aircraft.

Finally some more anecdote's from LandLady and Concorde Trivia from M2 would be good.

Many thx

DVD copies are also available direct from ITVV where I got mine from. Well worth the money, it's fascinating!

She was pretty well 'state-of-the-art', really.
And through the long proto-preprod-prod developent cycle, I would say she was as near 'perfect' as we could make her at the time she went into service.

Maybe I should mention that in 'my field' (automatic flight control systems) the 'state-of-the-art' was changing significantly almost from year to year.

I'd be interested too.

LOL.....
Being Dutch, I had to convert my school French to engineering French on the one hand, and 'argot' on the other hand, while at the same time getting familiar with the way 'my' firm was implementing the latest developments in electronics.

Has anybody here read "The Soul of a New Machine", by Tracy Kidder?
It's a pity no book quite like that has ever been written about Concorde... and I can't imagine it could be written today. Too many of the 'actors' have retired, or are not there anymore....

Maybe somebody ambitious could use this thread as a base, and do some interviews, and write "Concorde, From Then to Now" ?

CJ

I'd vote for M2 for writing that book.

Cockpit Color
 

Hi folks. Christian,M2 etal.

On numerous cockpit photos I have seen,; sometimes the cockpit panels seem to have a bluish tint to them. Other times they look like the standard gray, I see in the 737NG I fly.

Can you shed a little light on the actual color of the cockpit panels.

I realize that different panels installed maybe slightly different colored, but overall, what was the general color of the panels.

Thank You, for ALL your Wonderful insight and Stories of the Beautiful Aircraft; I missed out on.

Best,
David

Concorde Cockpit
 

Hi folks. Christian,M2 etal.

On numerous cockpit photos I have seen,; sometimes the cockpit panels seem to have a bluish tint to them. Other times they look like the standard gray, I see in the 737NG I fly.

Can you shed a little light on the actual color of the cockpit panels.

I realize that different panels installed maybe slightly different colored, but overall, what was the general color of the panels.

Thank You, for ALL your Wonderful insight and Stories of the Beautiful Aircraft; I missed out on.

Best,
David

I just looked at the one cockpit item I possess, and indeed I would call it dark gray, without a bluish tint. Unfortunately I don't have the color/paint reference....
I suspect the bluish tint is the result of lighting and camera settings.
If you're really interested, I can ask my wife to dig out her "Munseill Book of Color" (standard color chips) and try to match it up.

CJ