Attended a Powerplant Design Group reunion earlier, so I thought I would try to get an answer from somebody who really knows ....:D

The problem apparently was that flame stabilisation operating in "contingency" rating was sensitive to the point that every engine had to be checked, so there was a lot of engine plus reheat testing, most of which was done at Patchway. The solution was addition of some form of 'spike' at various points on the spray bar (my informant wasn't very specific). It sounded like a sort of vortex generator cum chine that gave the flame somewhere to latch onto. The development process was, as you suggested, a joint activity.

PJ2 reminds us of the way the airframes of other a/c queuing for take-off would resonate as Concorde departed. Whether it was the responsibility of SNECMA or Rolls Royce (or even Bristol Siddeley? ;)), the reheat was certain to set off a random sprinkling of car alarms on the airfield, which used to make my day when lucky enough to be returning to the car park around midday at LHR.

Even without reheat, however, the engine had a distinctly military sound - quite unlike other civil turbojets I can remember. The sound of it in the descent at about 4000ft over my house at 5 pm daily was unmistakeable. On the approach, if you weren't expecting it, it could be quite unnerving. One night in the late 1970s, during a long car journey, I stopped for a call of nature at a well-known public house near Hatton Cross (about a mile from touchdown on LHR 27L). It was pitch dark, and I decided that the hedge at the side of the car park would be a suitable venue. Never having heard Concorde on the approach before, I became increasingly nervous as the sound, initially unidentified, got progressively louder. And then the landing lights were switched on...

New Concorde book
 

Just out ..

CONCORDE - A Designer's Life by Ted Talbot

I've just found an earlier pprune post educating me on the author

QUOTE]If I may, I would now like to mention the 'some oil lamps and diesel oil' story. This is a true story told to me by Dr Ted Talbot, the father of the Concorde Intake, brilliant aerodynamicist and all round amazing gentleman.[/QUOTE]

Can't wait for it to arrive in my mail box.

Peter

I've just started reading it, and it's pure Ted (and Ann) :)

Do buy it - it is probably the most amusing (and human) book on Concorde you will ever read. Best seven quids worth I have spent for a long time.

Update: I have now finished it - I couldn't put it down. Definitely autobiographical, but worth buying for the Concorde bits alone. Maybe I'm biased as I share many of his memories. Perhaps UK readers will appreciate the non-Concorde bits more.

You can still get up close and personal with G-BOAA at the National Museum of Flight in East Fortune. I know it is a bit out of the way, but if you are ever in that region I can thoroughly recommend a visit. The old girl has her own exhibition hall and looks magnificent.

(The rest of the museum isn't bad either - a good day out).

I wondered if any Concorde flight crew had a favourite airframe and why? I understand Alpha Foxtrot was somewhat lighter than her sisters. Maybe that made for a sportier option?

From another thread:
 

BA 2 JFK-LHR 23.08.1992


Could I please ask if someone can tell me which aircraft flew this flight?

The Captain was Stack Butterley. Any other information concerning the other flight deck crew would be gratefully received.

Many thanks in advance.

Many years ago, I'd flown into Heathrow (after a horrible flight - a 6+ hour delay after pushback at JFK due to weather). I was in line to pick up my rental car when suddenly there was this horrendous noise - a "can't hear yourself think" noise. The strange part was no one else even seemed to notice :confused:. I turned and looked outside, and there was a Concord on it's takeoff run in full afterburner :sad:. It was the only time I was able to see a Concord moving under it's own power :*.

No idea what tail number it is, but there is a Concord at the Seattle Museum of Flight. First time I walked inside I was stunned at how small it was. The windows are tiny, and the seats would not appear out-of-place in economy on todays international flights. The cockpit is blocked off with clear Plexiglas, but looked decidedly primitive by todays (or even 1980's) standards. No doubt the cabin service was top notch, and there is definitely a luxury in making a six hour flight in two hours. But it's also not hard to understand why it wasn't a commercial success :rolleyes:.

But I sure wish I'd had the opportunity to fly on one :E

G-BOAG lives in Seattle now. And so you know it's Concorde with an " e". Very important.

I flew on G-BOAG, BA 2 JFK- LHR, 6 months before the program was shut down in 2003. The experience is hard to describe and only a Concorde fan would appreciate it anyway.

Sorry, I blame spell check :O

If you see a prototype, you will note that the cabin windows are bigger; the windows shrank due to a certification requirement. In the course we were informed that, with all four a/c groups working, cabin pressure could be maintained with two windows missing at 60 000'.

Possibly so, on first glance. In reality it was considerably more sophisticated than its contemporaries (e.g. 747-200), and the systems behind those switches immeasurably more so.

There's not a lot of space for the necessary controls in the front of a pointy aeroplane, and this was done in era when the appearance of the flt deck was inconsequential compared to its efficiency, utility and safety. It's only from the beige cockpit Boeings and onwards that the trend has emerged to for all these swoopy trim panels to be fitted for cosmetic reasons.

As for commercial failure - that may be true for the constructors but I can assure you that there's no way BA would have been flying them if they didn't contribute to the bottom line, let alone invest in the return to service programme.

It always pays to remember the context of operation of this machine when making comparisons with conventional aircraft,as that's what drove much of the design.

Following on from what EXWOK was saying, you've got to remember that the spec was hammered out in the late '60s - so it's not surprising that the flight deck could *appear* antiquated by 1980's standards. But in this case, as alluded to, appearances are deceptive. While the gauges and switches are very definitely of that vintage, the systems behind them were very much bleeding-edge technology (by aviation standards) in a contemporary sense. Even when Concorde entered production, the most complex digital displays available to aviation were of the 7-segment LED type (as used in the Apollo Guidance Computer), and they were both wildly expensive and of limited use. The flight and engine controls were in fact a pioneering kind of analogue FBW - way in advance of any other type, even those making their debut at the start of the '80s (though FADEC was becoming more widespread by then - with the advent of the B757 and 767).

Ergonomically speaking, both engineers and pilots of the era write of Concorde's flight deck being the best possible balance of form and function available at the time - sure it looks cluttered to the modern eye, but everything was placed in a logical manner and the sheer number of systems used in the aircraft made the accessibility of all that information a basic requirement. It's worth bearing in mind that even those not particularly well-disposed to Airbus will grudgingly admit that the flight deck ergonomics on those types are extremely good - and a lot of the lessons learned were from cramming all that information into Concorde's limited space.

As for the cabin, again appearances are deceptive - I have sat in one of those seats and they are extremely comfortable for the size. Also one must bear in mind that unlike the subsonic Atlantic crossings, these were happening in about 3 hours - so no need to be particularly wide or convert into a bed like we see in Business and First today - not to mention less chance of a queue for the WC!

I have to thank EXWOK for explaining the windows - but I'll add the more prosaic reason that you don't need a particularly large window to see the curvature of the Earth in all its splendour - which is for the most part all you'd be seeing during the flight!

[EDIT : I should also confirm that EXWOK is also correct in stating that BA had Concorde turning a profit from the early-'80s onward, and it took a combination of a financial downturn and the fallout from the terrorist attacks of September 2001 to end the service.

While Concorde herself never recouped the development money granted by the governments of the UK and France, the infrastructure and R&D her development put in place paved the way for the Airbus project which, as we know, ended up becoming a leading player in airliner design and manufacture in the West. ]

Dozy

Yeah, well when we put a digital computer to generate the AICS laws that was NEW man!



Again, no digital multifunction displays on offer in those days

Errrr no, I don't think so. Concorde's flight deck was done at Filton and we had no involvement in the Airbus designs in that area.


Exwok's remark is not quite right IIRC. Certainly the window size was dictated by pressurisation failure, but one couldn't maintain cabin pressure with two windows failed - the design case was to get to a breathable altitude before you killed too many passengers! Also, there is very little to see when you have a delta wing under you.

Ummm - most participants reckoned that the Concorde infrastructure showed the way not to do it, and besides the early Airbuses were developed in parallel with the later stages of Concorde development. You have a point where R&D is concerned though - several technologies developed for Concorde found their way onto the subsonic fleet, not the least being the probability approach to system certification.

Hey Clive - nice to see you!

I was thinking more "indirectly" - in general UK/Euro flight deck layouts were more in line with improving ergonomics than those on the other side of the pond for a long time. Later work may not have been done at Filton as Concorde's was, but the Airbus folk would have been foolish in the extreme not to use the fundamental principles as a basis for that work!

Hence the catch-all term "paved the way" - whereby lessons in how not to do it are as useful as those which were a positive example!

BA was able to make money on Concorde as in positive cash flow. But they were basically given the airplanes. The commercial failure aspect comes from the simple fact that no one wanted them to build any more (what I've heard is that at least one production Concorde was built but never put into service - basically becoming a donor for spares - not sure if that's true). I also suspect it was too much of a point design - it didn't have the range to be useful in the Pacific.

If BA (and Air France) honestly thought Concorde was a profit center (rather than brand prestige), they would have wanted more :ouch:.

BTW, my comments about the flight deck were not intended as criticism - no doubt it was state of the art when it was designed. I was just commenting on how much things have changed since then.

I don't mean to dispute that the Concorde was an incredible airplane and engineering achievement. Just saying that it never really had a chance to be successful. The same thing would have applied to the Boeing SST if it hadn't been cancelled (I knew a guy that worked on the Boeing SST inlet control system - talk about complex :mad:). Cancelling the SST is probably the best thing that ever happened to Boeing - it likely would have bankrupted the company. :ugh:

Not as far as I know - the first UK "production" Concorde intended for testing rather than line flying (G-BBDG) did end up as a donor for spares, but it wasn't a case of an aircraft without a home - it was just the way things turned out - they never intended to sell it to an airline. In fact that very airframe is the one now living at Brooklands. Several things kiboshed Concorde as a going concern in the '70s - not least of which was the protest movement in the US making US airlines shy away. Above all it was not an issue with the project itself, but the early '70s oil crisis which had the most drastic effect. In fact, while the UK government effectively wrote off the cost in the '70s, the profits BA ended up making could have made a sizeable dent in the development costs.

There was a B model on the drawing board which could very well have been capable in that arena.

CONCORDE SST : CONCORDE B

In fact, BA significantly underestimated what customers would be willing to pay for Concorde service at first - it was this realisation that enabled them to turn a profit!

Well, that was kind of the crux of the issue. Boeing had already effectively bet the company on the 747 project, and the 2707 still had technical issues on paper that the Concorde project had already solved. As far as my reading suggests, the runaway success of the 747 in fact owed a lot to the issues that ended up swamping the DC-10 and L-1011 - essentially gifting Boeing a market leading position and rescuing the company from the abyss - the 2707 was cancelled long before that became a reality though. In effect, before the success of the 747 was a done deal, Boeing couldn't stretch to doing both.

The Concorde and Boeing SST business cases were built on a couple flawed assumptions.

First, jet fuel would remain dirt cheap and the higher fuel burn of supersonic travel not contribute significantly to cost of operation - which was blown out of the water by the first Arab oil embargo.

Second, that the majority of demand for air travel would remain for the 'premium' product - basically that the majority of people would happily pay a premium to get there faster. This assumption applied to most people who flew on jets in the 1960's - either business travelers or well to do people that weren't that worried about what it cost.
Reality was it went the opposite direction - a shift that started with the 747 and other widebodies. The economies of the wide body aircraft lowered the cost of air travel to the 'everybody' level. Suddenly there was a whole new class of air traveler - people for whom an extra $100 airfare meant they just wouldn't go, never mind that they'd get there in half the time. In short, they didn't foresee air travel becoming just another commodity - the low cost trend that continues today.

The reality was, both the Concorde and the SST needed to sell hundreds of copies to even begin to justify the development costs. The evolution of air travel into a low cost commodity, combined with the rising costs of jet fuel, insured that would never happen.

Well, the 2707 project never advanced to the point where such practicalities were considered - but it's certainly the case that part of the Concorde "B" spec was intended to do away with reheat (afterburner) entirely, and be much more fuel-efficient as a result.

Not necessarily - supersonic travel as a "premium" product was always intended to co-exist with subsonic offerings, much as it ended up doing. There's a revisionist narrative that has the USA betting on mass transit with the 747 versus Europe betting on supersonic transit with Concorde - but all the contemporary material I've read indicates no such thing. Even setting aside the protests within the US against the Concorde, the simple fact is that SST was never going to be a viable domestic solution, so that limited the market for the 2707. Whereas a transatlantic SST was very much a viable proposition due to the transoceanic nature of the journey. It could be argued that even with the oil crisis and the subsequent drop in orders, the UK and French governments gave up on the Concorde project too soon.

If that were genuinely the case, then there would have been no Airbus project or consortium. As Clive correctly points out, the A300 project started taking shape while Concorde was undergoing her proving flights. While there's no doubt that the Concorde project was completed for political reasons most of all, the idea that she was a forlorn hope before she went into service is grossly unfair.

Yet, as alluded to before, the R&D gains and technological knowledge coming from the project helped to lay the foundations of a pan-European aircraft maker which would eventually go toe-to-toe with the best the USA had to offer. The sidestick technology which led to an unprecedented level of commonality between short-haul and long-haul types was first tested on a Concorde airframe (Google "concorde minimanche"). Added to which is the fact that in Concorde, for all the project's problems, an airliner was produced which - on a technological level at least - left every competitor in the world in the dust. That is something that can never be taken away.

It seems to me that if Concorde "failed," it's only because it did not usher in an era of supersonic flight. The significance of airplanes like the DC-3 and the 707 isn't so much that they were great airplanes (though they may have been), but that they were copied and improved upon. That didn't happen with Concorde, and I think the only reason can be that the time just hadn't come for supersonic passenger flight. I guess we'll see if it ever does.

I've never seen it fly or even static. Hopefully one day. Would be a huge thrill. Thank goodness for youtube. And I'd pay more to halve the time to travel by aircraft if I could!



Maybe, just maybe, the Concorde was so far ahead of its time nobody has caught up to it yet?


One awesome aircfraft. :D

"There's magic in the web of it..." - Othello
 

Chu Chu;
I would like to ponder the words, "usher in". . .

"Success" arrives, and sustains itself in many, many forms as does the more practical notion, "copied and improved upon" have many, many expressions.

Our age is one in which the yardsticks that popularly measure and make account of human endeavour are today exclusively material, and less broadly-speaking, financial.

That something must be a "commercial" success for it not to be a "failure" is a "local", temporal measure of our times.

By such "local" measures the U.S. Space Shuttle was a failure as was the Apollo program.

Yet we have Burt Ratan, Elon Musk.

Concorde was different than the "notion" of the "DC3", the "B707", etc. It seems to me that the success of Concorde is measured in knowledge and spirit, a demonstration of technical success and always a singular mark in our history of aviation. I know that the skill, imagination and "slugging in the trenches" over millions of difficult decisions on Concorde has materially contributed to aviation and specifically certain airplanes. The notion of "variations on a theme" is not the only measure of success!

Concorde might have taken off too early...not withstanding it paved the way for improved airliner design speeds, advanced flight controls and instrumentation,class of comfort and premium service itenerary of all airliners flying today.Where would Fly By Wire technology of today's airliners and bizjets as well as combat planes be..without the pioneering Concorde?It had its design flaws...and the design of adjacent engines must have been seen as a potential hazard during engine failures and fires or tyre blow ups.Comet and VC10 as well as their russian counterparts had similar flaws in their designs.Had the Boeing Supersonic Airliner taken off with its different engine design who knows if supersonic airliner transport might have taken a different track?

Not really. For one thing, the 2707 design was only at the mock-up stage when cancelled, so the practicalities of its engine arrangement hadn't been touched on. If you go back and read the Ted Talbot 'oil and lamp black' story, you can see for yourself that Concorde had solved problems that even US military designs were struggling with half a decade later.

As for the Concorde nacelle/engine arrangement - it didn't really have that large an impact on the F-BTSC accident - because even if the nacelles weren't grouped, the hot gases from the burning fuel would still have had a negative impact on the airflow to the adjacent engine. If I recall correctly, the investigators calculated the way the damage spread through the structure and control connections and proved that even if all four engines were still producing the correct thrust, the fire would still have caused sufficient structural damage to prevent the aircraft making Le Bourget. The nacelle structure itself was proven to be strong enough to withstand an uncontained failure of the engine when it actually happened on the line.

Apropos of nothing, the separate "podded" design was proven to be no protection against damage to adjacent engines when the inboard starboard engine of El Al 1862 took out the outboard as it fell away.

Concorde training flights.
 

How was the aircraft operated for base training? I imagine it was a 'rocket-ship' with no payload and little fuel.
Sorry if this has been covered. I didn't want to start a new thread, nor do I have time to read all 88 pages.

DW thanks for the expanded insights on Concorde's engine design integrity.

I believe there is a study looking into deriving Concorde design features for the development of supersonic biz jets now...hopefully with more cost efficient engines!

Again, as I referred to earlier, the Concorde "B" on the drawing board when the project was cancelled was intended to do away with reheat/afterburner entirely!

The problems a modern project will run into include the fact that a lot of the research will be in the wind - and sadly a lot of the people involved are no longer with us.

cocncorde thrust levers
 

I know Concorde engines were FADEC. Were the Thrust levers gated like on Airbus? I noticesd cocncorde pilots shovved the levers forward for take off thrust..not the gentle easing forward like most other turbojets..why was there this need?Did they take too much time to spool up?

No, IIRC the "slaming" was needed to ensure the correct activation of the T/O specific mode, or something like that. Perhaps something to do with the reheat, too.

Go Around & reheat
 

Thanks for this wonderful thread. Apologies from a non-aviator, but was reheat used in the event of a go around? Did its use depend on conditions, or was it a straightforward yes/no answer?

The engine was electrically signalled, but it wasn't FADEC; the control system(s) were analogue.
I suspect the zero bypass Ol 593 would take less time to spool up than todays high bypass engines.

CliveL;
Re, "I suspect the zero bypass Ol 593 would take less time to spool up than todays high bypass engines. "
Yes, I think so. The A333 (RB211s) had a specific technique at high-altitude airports to ensure the engines were stabilized at about 1.1EPR before taking the thrust levers into the FLEX/MCT or TOGA detent. The thrust levers were taken to their detents 'gently', even as FADEC did control the acceleration. Even then, some surging was experienced, again at high-altitude airports, (CYYC for example).

Or FAAnEC, if you will...

(My god, that makes an awful acronym! :rolleyes:)

'Dry' thrust was used for a go-around, except in the case of wind shear when 'contingency' was used. (A bit more than full thrust and reheat).

Hi all, slowly working my way through this thread, 3 days and up to page 15! Should be finished by Christmas. Hehe Absolutely fascinating reading, so good to have memories of the people who made, flew and maintained this incredible aircraft. My only reminiscence is trying to persuade my parents that they could not hear Concorde go supersonic when living in Bournemouth, OK they could and once being held at Filton, whilst she landed. Has anyone seen the BBC items reflecting 10 years since last flights. Which includes something from page 5 or 6 of this thread. The SR71 asked to wait for Concorde to proceed! I am sure these pages are far more interesting than the books, as one can ask questions, I just hope it is being saved somewhere for reference or for sale to help maintain this very informative site. Thanks to all the professionals who give their time and all the questioners for such interesting questions. http://www.pprune.org/forums/images/.../eusa_clap.gif

Concorde hymn...
 

Thankyou.

Thankyou all, EXWOK, Bellerophon, CliveL, ChristiaanJ, M2Dude, Brit312 and landlady for providing these wonderful stories directly from "the horse's mouth". I love it. Please, since landlady is already publishing her piece of history, maybe you others could at least join forces and use this excellent, brilliant and awesome thread as inspiration?

I have read this thread for breakfast every day the past week and finally catched up and never got this sorted out.... HOW is it possible that Airbus now "operates" (weeeell, you know what I mean...) Concorde?

I have tried to follow all clues, looking up companies on Wikipedia and who was subcontractor to whom, but it's just a big mess and I need help to sort it out. Is there anyone who might help shed some light onto this?

Sorry if my post is long, but this is such an amazing aircraft and since I come from Sweden where all we have is a tiny (but hugely effective!!) SAAB Gripen I am in awe to you who have created a milestone in aviation.

It was indeed! I have spoken to many Concorde pilots and most confirm the unexpected phenomenal climb rate at light weight in base training. They were briefed to level off at 1,500 feet but on their very first flights on the real aeroplane (it'd been all sim prior to that) some went way beyond. I'm told the record was 4,000 feet! One told me "I used to get it turning - that cooled things down!".

My one and only Concorde flight (G-BOAD) was Manchester to Paris via the Bay for 60,000 feet and M2. I was lucky enough to be in the jump seat for the entire flight so didn't suffer 'small window' limitations! My most memorable view was about 50,000' over South Wales looking through the windscreens. The whole of SW UK was visible on that glorious August day in 1999, with the scattered occasional cu looking as if they were on the ground! The bright yellow of the beaches around the coasts of Wales and England stand out in my memory, as well. As do other aeroplanes flying west-east very far below us!

At 60,000' the sky was amazing - dark blue fading to very dark overhead. And of course the curvature of the Earth clearly visible.

Despite flying interesting aeroplanes for well over 30 years myself, that flight in AD is a magnificent highlight I will never forget!

For those who want to sit in the P1 seat and try out those lovely cabin seats, come and see our G-BOAC at Manchester!

My only reminiscence is trying to persuade my parents that they could not hear Concorde go supersonic when living in Bournemouth,


Dowot.
Well the following may be of interest to you.


When working with the guys at Alderney the boom from Concorde rattled the windows. On enquiring I was told that the AF Concorde usually ignored the noise restrictions and opened the throttles early so it was a regular event and to hell with the complaints.


I was at Heathrow and a guy I worked with said he heard the boom in the Bracknel area. This was confirmed as the AF Concorde and the boom was bouncing off the clouds hence him hearing it at Bracknell.

Considering there is a thread going regarding an aircraft flying some distance with an engine shut down, what was possible with the Concorde?

If it lost one at cruising altitude? If it lost another could it fly on only two?

This post mentions that on three engines, dropping to subsonic, Concorde would lose 30 - 35% range. Much more of a reduction than subsonic planes, but still enough to get to a safe airfield.

On two engines it'll still fly, although with a further reduction in range and possible loss of some hydraulic systems (depends which engines failed).

If I remember correctly, there was some mention of a possible single-engine (plus reheat) go-around, which suggests that at landing weight it might have been able to maintain flight on only one engine.

Incident - Christchurch NZ
 

I was speaking today to an aircraft engineer who had been working at Christchurch airport in NZ when Concorde visited.

He recalls Concorde suffering damage on the ground and a repair having to be made to a wing skin.

Anybody have any details about this incident?