They weren't flying, the last data point showing 136kt airspeed they had a fraction over 108° left bank and had turned from the take off heading of 267° to 193°, the aircraft then impacted the ground practically flat with little forward speed on a heading of 120°.They would have needed something in excess of 300kt to maintain level flight.

Rolls Royce will hold a copy of the CMM for the ECU. Airbus probably do as well.

Whether either of them would release it to you, even now, I am doubtful.

Rolls Royce will hold a copy of the CMM for the ECU. Airbus probably do as well.

Whether either of them would release it to you, even now, I am doubtful.

Trying to find a picture but didnt the black boxes have the Lucas Aerospace green flash logo on them ? I remember seeing that on the Tornado / RB199 MECU & DECU Black Boxes and being amazed that Lucas made both. Shouldn't have been so surprised though

Stumbled on an interesting program on the TV last night - "Concorde - The Untold Story"
Two-part program (one hour each - closer to 45 minutes after commercials) but shown back-to-back. A good history of the three country 'race' to build a commercial SST, with what ultimately happened with the Boeing 2707 and Tupolev 144 (including how fitting the "Concordski" nickname was given the level of Soviet espionage that went on to steal Concorde technology so they could make the thing work).
A bit simplistic in some of the explanations of the technology and such, but understandable given that most people who watch won't have Aerospace Engineering degrees :p
Produced by MTV, at least on this side of the pond it's being shown on The Smithsonian Channel.
Hopefully it'll be made available on other sources for those who don't get Smithsonian.

In regards the Concorde crash, assuming the pilots knew what the dire situation with the aircraft and fire was, would they have been able to have put the aircraft down?
Was there any clear ground in front of them?
I've often wondered if the aircraft was bellied along the ground whether it would have had a chance? All speculation based on hindsight of course.

Being shown on Channel 4 in the UK at the moment. Episode 2 is this Saturday.

(Well I assume it's the same programme - it certainly sounds the same.)

A problem with Concorde was that its stall speed was quite high - well above 200 knots. An emergency landing in a field (gear down) is not apt to end well going that fast with a full load of fuel and an aircraft already on fire (granted, perhaps better than what ultimately happened, but a 'damned if you do - damned if you don't' choice at best). They reportedly tried to raise the gear (which would have helped reduce drag greatly) but the damage already done prevented that.
In 20-20 hindsight, I suspect they would have been better off to not shutdown the engine with the fire warning (#2?) and use whatever thrust they could still get from it to try to make another airfield, but something that would be next to impossible to realize real-time. The rapidly spready fire damage may well have made it a moot point anyway.

Not sure if this question has been answered in this thread yet, was Concorde approved for three engine ferry flights ?

IIRC, it was...but I can't remember it being done while I was on the fleet.

Back when the Concorde was in development, a guy I used to work with was in West Africa with G-AXDN doing hot weather trials. The aircraft had an engine issue and an engine had to be changed.
This aircraft had production standard engines. No spare was available so an earlier variant was installed and some of the accessories were left off and the air bleeds blanked, as they would not fit this installation.
The aircraft was ferried back to Fairford with 4 engines but only 3 sets of systems.

Fascinating, a quite unique solution and 3 engine ferry protocol

Concorde engine sells on ebay:
Concorde Engine Finally Sells On eBay, Afterburner Included (msn.com)

​​​​​​​

Bugger! I missed it.

Air Brake
 

A question has come up regarding air brakes on Concorde. It started off with this image...
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....ff6a7f1ff5.jpg
Is that an air brake on one of the prototype aircraft?

Probably a braking chute housing/door. Looks a bit like the one around 2:50 into this video. (Turn down the volume.)

https://assets.isu.pub/document-stru...f41d5c017.jpeg

That's what I thought but the chute door seems to open upwards not sideways.

This may be a dumb question (!) but why have the parachute at the back slowing the aircraft down. I mean I know why, but "why"? Is it something to do with test flights and not knowing how well the brakes may perform, or does it somehow contribute to other testing data received.

luoto, don't know specifically re Concorde but aircraft under test often have a parachute in case testing in the low speed regime turns to worms, given the nature of delta platforms in low speed flight my guess is the chute was to give the aircraft a nose down moment, a delta wing doesn't stall in the traditional sense.

https://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=Awrj...MKpFtn_fcB77o-

A paper on a subject I doubt many would think a problem and its resolution, vibration in the cockpit.

https://www.aerosociety.com/media/69...a-concorde.pdf

Not recently having read the thread - apologies if already mentioned but I used to stall a Delta model aircraft which would pitch up at the stall and roll on its back which I believe happened to the french aircraft.
Model recovery was simple as it then pitched down and accelerated. Whilst in the high Reynolds number regime probably similar for Concorde.
Once the centre of lift had walked far enough forward I doubt if a tail chute would have made much of a difference to the radical pitch up that followed.

No detail on tail cone internal structure (for parachute housing) on these 1967 Frank Munger tech diagrams for 'production' version of Concorde, perhaps not surprising. The diagrams also show the mechanical back-up flight control systems. The tail bumper is shown without wheels. Was this the config for the prototypes?

Concorde tech diagrams

I can't help but think that a) who would spend the time to really draw such a diagram today (and be paid) for a magazine and b) that type of thing would look great mounted and printed for a wall! Or for the latter case I need medical intervention :)

Without going through this entire wonderful thread can anyone refresh my memory as to whether Concorde ever incorporated GPS updating to its triple inertial units ?

stilton, I was never qualified on Concorde but, to the best of my knowledge, No.

Looks like it.

GPS
 

Stilton, see post 1631

I have just found this publication on a Facebook page dedicated to Concorde.
RIP one of our own.

Mach 2 Magazine pdf.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NUJ...Q_qz0A8X96p-sw

Hi, for some strange reason I have only just come across this thread, I have looked at some of the early posts and can answer a few questions.
I was a development engineer on the AICU in 1972 and put the first AICU together and got it working.
I am now a volunteer at Aerospace Bristol and we have this box in the archives, it was used on the intake rig by Roger Taplin, half way down the hill at Filton,
There are no secret components used in the AICU, TTL 54 series was used, and these are the milspec version of the 74 series TTL. they are better quality, reliability and better tolerance, and more expesive. They were not available to all countries.
I worked with Ted Talbot at the time and in 1990 he recruited me to be the design manager for aircraft conversions and my first job was to manage the design of the VC10 tankers. There was mention of the leggy girl at Tangiers, that was Liz Pedley, a Cambridge maths graduate systems engineer, she married a GW systems engineer. I worked with her on many a long night sorting out program problems. I was the one who went to Casablanca to do the program program change to the AICUs that someone mentioned being removed from the aircraft and lined up on a desk in the Air France office. While I was there Turcat came in and sat at the table to watch.
I used a prom blower to blow the fusible links not a 9 volt battery, just as Liz would have done at Tangiers (the same prom blower)
Regarding the 1990s modifications to the AICU pcbs for obsolete components, I was requested by John Churchill, who designed the replacement boards, to give him some help. I was amazed that the test specs were still approved by my signature, which meant they had not changed since I moved on around 1978 when I moved to Stevenage. In about 1974ish we bought all the remaining proms as they were stopping being manufactured.
I will try and read the rest of the threads to see if anything else has been asked.

Concorde Thread Re-Mixed
 

I have just rebuilt my website that re-organises this long Concorde thread by subject.
You can find it here: https://paulross.github.io/pprune-th...rde/index.html

Over 2000 posts are organised into 160 subjects.
Around 40% of the posts on the thread are excluded because I can't pick up a subject from that post so please contact me if you feel that you contribution has been excluded.

The project is here: https://github.com/paulross/pprune-threads.
Issues can be raised here: https://github.com/paulross/pprune-threads/issues or PM me with ideas.

Paul
I was just coming here to ask that someone preserve the invaluable information in this thread, and here you have done so.
Amazing coincidence!
Thank you. A monumental effort and a piece of history preserved, hopefully forever.
Again, thank you.

Thanks. It's posts like this that make all the work that I have put in feel worthwhile.

Why was there no possibility to add any APU on the concord ?

I would think weight was the main reason for not fitting an APU.
Around the time of development, long haul aircraft like the VC-10, B707 and DC-8 didn't have APUs and major airports had suitable ground equipment to support these, ie. GPU, Air Start, Air conditioning.

If you go back to the first post of this thread you’ll find the answer

I assumed that Aviator28pm 's post was a (rather weak) joke.

Yes, I am sure this is so. If Concorde was a "waste" of taxpayer`s money, well, it provided the foundation for Airbus both in engineering solutions as paving the way fore European crossborder cooperation. Hydraulic systems architecture on A-320 (which I know) is a bit similar, also brake fans look wery much the same on A-320. I like to point that out to young engineers whan providing training/intro.

I'd just like to thank Stilton for asking this question to create one of the greatest reads, for me anyway, on the internet. Just finished my annual re-read.

Thank you, it was just sheer good luck such a simple question would inspire such an incredible response and from such experts on this magnificent aircraft

Came across this non-attributed but interesting photo of Concord in an unexpected environment..
I can only imagine the thrust available at -40 and the noise must have been heard for a hundred miles across the frozen tundra.

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....c4c455649.jpeg