13th Sep 2010, 01:18
permalink Post: 336
spfoster
Hi again Steve. At FL600 your aircraft is going to be relatively light, and your autopilot is set to ALT HOLD mode. As the aircraft continues to burn fuel it will 'try' and climb, but the ALT HOLD mode will of course slightly reduce pitch attitude to keep prevent the aircraft from climbing. The autothrottle in MACH HOLD mode can keep us from straying from Mach 2, large positive temperature shears were to my knowledge almost unheard of, and so any speed reduction was exceedingly unlikely. We really need a pilot's input here to further clarify the realities of LHR-BGI supersonic cruise; that's the way the AFCS was designed to do things however.
Dude
Quote:
|
I never knew you couldn't prime ALT ACQ from MAX CLIMB / MAX CRUISE. I was thinking though that if you had ALT HOLD selected then the autopilot wouldn't be able to vary the pitch attitude and it would hold at the ALT HOLD level. Once there it wouldn't be able to use pitch to increase or decrease speed if necessary. I can see how the autothrottles could hold the speed back but if it were to get warmer then even at full power it may not be able to maintain speed at a fixed altitude.
I'm sure there is a simple answer which will leave us saying "oh yeah, how obvious, didn't think of that" 
Just strange it doesn't seem to be written anywhere.
|
Dude
16th Oct 2010, 22:27
permalink Post: 580
OK, I see others have already posted answers.
I've carefully avoided looking at them, but I'll might as well plug in mine now.
My personal problem is that I was involved in the very earliest days, before the aircraft went into service, and then in the last days and afterwards...
So the questions dealing with the in-service period are totally outside my field of experience... all I can do is guess, in case I saw the answers somewhere.
1) How many Concorde airframes were built?
Twenty-two.
Two static-test airframes.
- One at Toulouse, for purely static tests, and tests such as vibration and flutter.
- One at Farnborough, for the long-duration thermal fatigue tests.
(A few bits and pieces of the Farnborough test specimen have survived, and can still be seen at the Brooklands museum).
Two prototypes (001 and 002)
Two pre-production aircraft (01 and 02)
Two production aircraft used for certification, that never entered service (201 - F-WTSB and 202 - G-BBDG)
Fourteen production aircraft, seven that served with British Airways, seven that served with Air France.
2) As far as the British constructed aircraft went, name the destinations that were served?. Regular flight numbers only, excludes charters etc.
Not a clue as to the full list.
- Bahrain, obviously.
- JFK.
- IAD (not sure if that's rated as regular, or only incidental)
- Dallas (with Braniff)
- Barbados (of course, right until the end)
- Sngapore (with Singapore Airlines, and G-BOAD in Singapore Airlines colours on one side)
- Sydney (again no idea if that rated as a regular flight or only a few tries)
3) What was the departure time for the ORIGINAL morning LHR-JFK Concorde services? (Not called the BA001 then either).
Not a clue either. Vague memory of about 10:00 am which gave you a full working day in New York.
4) Further to question 3 above, what WERE the original flight numbers for the BA001 and BA003? (The morning and evening LHR-JFK services?)..
Never flew on them, never had to deal with them.
BA174 comes to mind from the depths of my memory, in that case BA003 would have been BA176?
5) There were no less than FORTY SIX fuel pumps on Concorde. What was the breakdown for these? (Clue; don't forget the scavenge pump )
M2dude, I did AFCS, not the fuel system. I believe you, but without pulling out some diagrams I honestly have NO idea.
I expect each tank had at least two pumps, which gets me up to 26.
Then there were a few emergency pumps for the trim tanks, and I suppose each engine had additional pumps associated with it.
Still nowhere near the 46 I need to find.....
6) What airframe had the only TOTALLY unique shape?
That would have been my old friend, 01 (G-AXDN), first pre-production aircraft, now at Duxford.
It was the first Concorde with the new transparent visor, but it still had the short tail that characterised the prototypes.
It was 02 (F-WTSA), the first French pre-production aircraft, that was close to the final shape of the production aircraft.
7) This one is particularly aimed at ChristiaanJ. What was the total number of gyros on the aircraft?
Good question.... never counted them all. But I'll try a guess.
First a nice one, the SFENA Emergency Standby Artificial Horizon (made by the firm I worked for).
Ran off the Emergency Battery Bus via a small independent inverter.
And if that failed too, it would still run reliably for several minutes on its own inertia.
Next, the rate gyros used by the autostabilisation system ; these measured the angular rate of the aircraft along the three main axes, pitch, roll and yaw.
There were six, three each for the two autostab systems.
Now the rest....
Each IMU (inertial measurement unit, part of the inertial naviagation system) had three gyros.
With three INS on board, that would make nine.
Much as I try, I can't remember other ones, so I'll look forward to the final answer.
I can imagine the weather radar using an additional gyro for stabilisation, but I never went there.
8) How many wheel brakes?
Unless this is a trick question, I would say eight, for each of the main gear wheels.
The nose gear did not have any brakes - unless there were some small ones to stop the wheels rotating after retraction of the gear, but not used during landing.
9) What Mach number was automatic engine variable intake control enabled?
No idea.
Mach 1.0 or thereabouts is my personal guess only.
10) Above each bank of engine instruments were three lights, a blue, a green and an amber. What did they each signify?
I know that they each monitored the status of one of the engines, because it was too complex for the pilots to fully monitor all the parameters of all four engines in the short time between start-of-roll and V1... they had too many other things to do.
But I don't remember what each light meant, would have to look it up in the manual.
11) At what airfied were the first BA crew base training details held?
No idea.
Was it Brize Norton, or Casablanca?
12) What LHR runways did Concorde use for landing and take-off? (Trick question, not as obvious as it might seem).
No idea.
Vague memory of it being systematically the North runway for noise issues.
13) What operator had serious plans to operate Concorde from SNN to JFK in the early 1980's?
No idea.
14) What development aircraft did not exceed Mach 2 until fifteen months after her maiden flight?
I would expect the obvious answer to be 002.
Working up from first flight to Mach 2 was a slow and laborious process, and in the end it was 001 that both flew first, and also went to Mach 2 first.
I don't think any of the other aircraft took that long.
A I said, I tried to answer all questions "off the top of my head", without looking at any other sources.
CJ
I've carefully avoided looking at them, but I'll might as well plug in mine now.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by
M2dude
If you were never personally involved withe the aircraft you can leave out the really stinky questions if you want.
|
So the questions dealing with the in-service period are totally outside my field of experience... all I can do is guess, in case I saw the answers somewhere.
1) How many Concorde airframes were built?
Twenty-two.
Two static-test airframes.
- One at Toulouse, for purely static tests, and tests such as vibration and flutter.
- One at Farnborough, for the long-duration thermal fatigue tests.
(A few bits and pieces of the Farnborough test specimen have survived, and can still be seen at the Brooklands museum).
Two prototypes (001 and 002)
Two pre-production aircraft (01 and 02)
Two production aircraft used for certification, that never entered service (201 - F-WTSB and 202 - G-BBDG)
Fourteen production aircraft, seven that served with British Airways, seven that served with Air France.
2) As far as the British constructed aircraft went, name the destinations that were served?. Regular flight numbers only, excludes charters etc.
Not a clue as to the full list.
- Bahrain, obviously.
- JFK.
- IAD (not sure if that's rated as regular, or only incidental)
- Dallas (with Braniff)
- Barbados (of course, right until the end)
- Sngapore (with Singapore Airlines, and G-BOAD in Singapore Airlines colours on one side)
- Sydney (again no idea if that rated as a regular flight or only a few tries)
3) What was the departure time for the ORIGINAL morning LHR-JFK Concorde services? (Not called the BA001 then either).
Not a clue either. Vague memory of about 10:00 am which gave you a full working day in New York.
4) Further to question 3 above, what WERE the original flight numbers for the BA001 and BA003? (The morning and evening LHR-JFK services?)..
Never flew on them, never had to deal with them.
BA174 comes to mind from the depths of my memory, in that case BA003 would have been BA176?
5) There were no less than FORTY SIX fuel pumps on Concorde. What was the breakdown for these? (Clue; don't forget the scavenge pump )
M2dude, I did AFCS, not the fuel system. I believe you, but without pulling out some diagrams I honestly have NO idea.
I expect each tank had at least two pumps, which gets me up to 26.
Then there were a few emergency pumps for the trim tanks, and I suppose each engine had additional pumps associated with it.
Still nowhere near the 46 I need to find.....
6) What airframe had the only TOTALLY unique shape?
That would have been my old friend, 01 (G-AXDN), first pre-production aircraft, now at Duxford.
It was the first Concorde with the new transparent visor, but it still had the short tail that characterised the prototypes.
It was 02 (F-WTSA), the first French pre-production aircraft, that was close to the final shape of the production aircraft.
7) This one is particularly aimed at ChristiaanJ. What was the total number of gyros on the aircraft?
Good question.... never counted them all. But I'll try a guess.
First a nice one, the SFENA Emergency Standby Artificial Horizon (made by the firm I worked for).
Ran off the Emergency Battery Bus via a small independent inverter.
And if that failed too, it would still run reliably for several minutes on its own inertia.
Next, the rate gyros used by the autostabilisation system ; these measured the angular rate of the aircraft along the three main axes, pitch, roll and yaw.
There were six, three each for the two autostab systems.
Now the rest....
Each IMU (inertial measurement unit, part of the inertial naviagation system) had three gyros.
With three INS on board, that would make nine.
Much as I try, I can't remember other ones, so I'll look forward to the final answer.
I can imagine the weather radar using an additional gyro for stabilisation, but I never went there.
8) How many wheel brakes?
Unless this is a trick question, I would say eight, for each of the main gear wheels.
The nose gear did not have any brakes - unless there were some small ones to stop the wheels rotating after retraction of the gear, but not used during landing.
9) What Mach number was automatic engine variable intake control enabled?
No idea.
Mach 1.0 or thereabouts is my personal guess only.
10) Above each bank of engine instruments were three lights, a blue, a green and an amber. What did they each signify?
I know that they each monitored the status of one of the engines, because it was too complex for the pilots to fully monitor all the parameters of all four engines in the short time between start-of-roll and V1... they had too many other things to do.
But I don't remember what each light meant, would have to look it up in the manual.
11) At what airfied were the first BA crew base training details held?
No idea.
Was it Brize Norton, or Casablanca?
12) What LHR runways did Concorde use for landing and take-off? (Trick question, not as obvious as it might seem).
No idea.
Vague memory of it being systematically the North runway for noise issues.
13) What operator had serious plans to operate Concorde from SNN to JFK in the early 1980's?
No idea.
14) What development aircraft did not exceed Mach 2 until fifteen months after her maiden flight?
I would expect the obvious answer to be 002.
Working up from first flight to Mach 2 was a slow and laborious process, and in the end it was 001 that both flew first, and also went to Mach 2 first.
I don't think any of the other aircraft took that long.
A I said, I tried to answer all questions "off the top of my head", without looking at any other sources.
CJ
18th Nov 2010, 17:15
permalink Post: 726
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by
Landroger
It is
still
difficult to grasp the fact that [nearly] all of the control electronics in Concorde were
analogue.
... How all these signals and rates were calibrated and stayed calibrated is a mystery. |
One thing to bear in mind is that a lot of the computing was closed-loop, usually with several loops within loops.
Such closed loops do not require a very high precision or very narrow tolerances inside the loop.
In the Concorde AFCS, most of such computing was based on the use of +/-1% components (resistors, capacitors...) which were stable enough over their lifetime, and the ubiquitous LM101A integrated operational amplifier, which had low enough offsets and drift for the application. Occasionally we had to use the LM108 op-amp (more precise) and +/-0.1% components.
And where the analogue electronic computing was totally inadequate, we used... electro-mechanical computing, using synchros, resolvers and servo loops.
As M2dude says "in ELECTRONICS terms she was 10 years too early".
He's right.
She dates from that precise era, where technology changed from discrete components through the very first integrated logic circuits to mass-produced 'airworthy' logic and analogue circuits, but where the micro-processor was still in the future.
She was really the culmination of the "classic" era, before "digital" took over.
I could waffle on for hours... but don't know where to start?
Ask your questions, to let me know what you want to know.
CJ
21st Dec 2010, 11:13
permalink Post: 911
PBL
As far as the Autothrottle side of things (you know, the throttles actually MOVING in response to autothrottle action, how novel
), that was designed by the Elliot part of the Anglo-French AFCS consortium. (This then became Marconi-Elliot, and then GEC-Marconi, and finally part of BAe Systems). I doubt very much if this is in anyway connected with Airbus at all. (I know,...Duh!!).
As far as the Concorde engine power control philosophy, well this was Rolls-Royce, through and through, with some BAe input, so again I think you can rule that out too.
Basically PBL, I would say that in answer to your question, we can say that they were definately not, thank goodness
... (Naughty boy, Dude
). Bearing in mind of course that the current Airbus philosophy can be traced back to the early A320s.... not a Roller in sight there.
Best Regards
Dude
Quote:
| And how do we know they weren't designed by the very same people? |
), that was designed by the Elliot part of the Anglo-French AFCS consortium. (This then became Marconi-Elliot, and then GEC-Marconi, and finally part of BAe Systems). I doubt very much if this is in anyway connected with Airbus at all. (I know,...Duh!!).
As far as the Concorde engine power control philosophy, well this was Rolls-Royce, through and through, with some BAe input, so again I think you can rule that out too.
Basically PBL, I would say that in answer to your question, we can say that they were definately not, thank goodness
... (Naughty boy, Dude
). Bearing in mind of course that the current Airbus philosophy can be traced back to the early A320s.... not a Roller in sight there.
Best Regards
Dude
Last edited by M2dude; 21st Dec 2010 at 11:36 . Reason: My crap spelling
21st Dec 2010, 13:04
permalink Post: 922
quote:Rolls Royce did some analysis on the flight, and were amazed at how well the propulsion systems coped with some of the temperature sheers that we encountered, sometimes 4 to 5 deg's/second. They said that the prototype AFCS had been defeated by rises of only 0.25 deg's/second ).unquote
Just for the record, the intake control system was designed to cope with a temperature shear of 21 deg C in one mile (about 3 seconds)
quote:Not meaning to go off onto a (yet another) tangent; Negative temperature shears, very common at lower lattidudes, always plagued the development aircraft; you would suddenly accelerate, and in the case of a severe shear, would accelerate and accelerate!! (Your Mach number, quite naturaly, suddenly increased with the falling temperature of course, but because of the powerplant suddenly hitting an area of hyper-efficiencey, the A/C would physically accelerate rapidly, way beyond Mmo). Many modifications were tried to mitigate the effects of severe shears, in the end a clever change to the intake control unit software fixed it. (Thanks to this change the production series A/C would not be capable of level flight Mach numbers of any more than Mach 2.13, remembering that Mmo was set at 2.04).unquote
Not temperature shears, and not AICU modifications (which I see has been discussed in a later posting). But back to the 'shears':
Most of Concorde's flight testing was, naturally, done out of Toulouse and Fairford, i.e. into moderate latitude atmospheres where the tropopause is normally around 36,000 ft so that the supersonic flight testing was done in atmosphers where the temperature doesn't vary with altitude. The autopilot working in Mach hold would see an increase in Mach and apply up elevator to reduce IAS and recover the macg setting. But at the lower latitudes around the equator the atmosphere is different in its large scale characteristics. In particular the tropopause is much, much higher and can get as high as 55,000 ft. Nobody had been up there to see what it was like! Now when the A/P applied up elevator to reduce IAS it went into a region of colder air. But the speed of sound is proportional to air temperature, so as the aircraft ascended the IAS dropped alright but since the ballistic (true) velocity of the aircraft takes a while to change and since the speed of sound had dropped the Mach number was increased, so the A/P seeing this applied more up elevator and the aircraft went up and the speed of sound dropped and ........
Like solving crossword clues, the answer is obvious once you have spent some time finding it!
This phenomenon rather than temperature shears (encountered mainly over the tops of Cb clouds) was the reason for the autopilot modifications which included that clever use of autothrottle (I can use that adjective since it was my French colleagues that devised it)
And before anyone asks; yes, the same problem would relate to subsonic aircraft operating in Mach hold driven by the elevators and flying below the tropopause, but:
a) Subsonic aircraft are old ladies by comparison with Concorde in that they fly at only half the speed. At Concorde velocities even modest changes in pitch attitude can generate some pretty impressive rates of climb or dive!
b) Subsonic aircraft are normally constrained by ATC to fly at fixed flight levels - the use of elevator to control Mach number is not really an option - you have to use an autothrottle.
There was that other problem, also described in later postings, where the aircraft regularly 'rang the bell' when passing through the Vmo/Mmo corner in the lower latitudes, but this was simply due to the additional performance one got in these ISA minus conditions in comparison to the temperatures encountered around the same corner in higher temperatures.
Anyway, the flight test campaign got me my first sight of sunrise over the Arabian desert and my first trip to Asia, so it goes into my Concorde memory bank.
Just for the record, the intake control system was designed to cope with a temperature shear of 21 deg C in one mile (about 3 seconds)
quote:Not meaning to go off onto a (yet another) tangent; Negative temperature shears, very common at lower lattidudes, always plagued the development aircraft; you would suddenly accelerate, and in the case of a severe shear, would accelerate and accelerate!! (Your Mach number, quite naturaly, suddenly increased with the falling temperature of course, but because of the powerplant suddenly hitting an area of hyper-efficiencey, the A/C would physically accelerate rapidly, way beyond Mmo). Many modifications were tried to mitigate the effects of severe shears, in the end a clever change to the intake control unit software fixed it. (Thanks to this change the production series A/C would not be capable of level flight Mach numbers of any more than Mach 2.13, remembering that Mmo was set at 2.04).unquote
Not temperature shears, and not AICU modifications (which I see has been discussed in a later posting). But back to the 'shears':
Most of Concorde's flight testing was, naturally, done out of Toulouse and Fairford, i.e. into moderate latitude atmospheres where the tropopause is normally around 36,000 ft so that the supersonic flight testing was done in atmosphers where the temperature doesn't vary with altitude. The autopilot working in Mach hold would see an increase in Mach and apply up elevator to reduce IAS and recover the macg setting. But at the lower latitudes around the equator the atmosphere is different in its large scale characteristics. In particular the tropopause is much, much higher and can get as high as 55,000 ft. Nobody had been up there to see what it was like! Now when the A/P applied up elevator to reduce IAS it went into a region of colder air. But the speed of sound is proportional to air temperature, so as the aircraft ascended the IAS dropped alright but since the ballistic (true) velocity of the aircraft takes a while to change and since the speed of sound had dropped the Mach number was increased, so the A/P seeing this applied more up elevator and the aircraft went up and the speed of sound dropped and ........
Like solving crossword clues, the answer is obvious once you have spent some time finding it!
This phenomenon rather than temperature shears (encountered mainly over the tops of Cb clouds) was the reason for the autopilot modifications which included that clever use of autothrottle (I can use that adjective since it was my French colleagues that devised it)
And before anyone asks; yes, the same problem would relate to subsonic aircraft operating in Mach hold driven by the elevators and flying below the tropopause, but:
a) Subsonic aircraft are old ladies by comparison with Concorde in that they fly at only half the speed. At Concorde velocities even modest changes in pitch attitude can generate some pretty impressive rates of climb or dive!
b) Subsonic aircraft are normally constrained by ATC to fly at fixed flight levels - the use of elevator to control Mach number is not really an option - you have to use an autothrottle.
There was that other problem, also described in later postings, where the aircraft regularly 'rang the bell' when passing through the Vmo/Mmo corner in the lower latitudes, but this was simply due to the additional performance one got in these ISA minus conditions in comparison to the temperatures encountered around the same corner in higher temperatures.
Anyway, the flight test campaign got me my first sight of sunrise over the Arabian desert and my first trip to Asia, so it goes into my Concorde memory bank.
22nd Dec 2010, 07:52
permalink Post: 936
ChristiaanJ
But this was the beauty of Concorde, there was so much in the way of automatic protections and enhancements 'built in' that one could quite quite reasonably take it all for granted. That was definately true for most of the AFCS computation. (It's all your fault ChristiaanJ for helping to design such a great system
).
And now we have CliveL joining this thread, one of the true 'fathers of Concorde', it can only become even more fascinating with his inputs here.
(BTW, this thread has now passed 100,000 viewings in just four short months
).
Best regards
Dude
Quote:
| Since there was no separate 'auto-rudder engage' control switch (the function was permanently active), and it was only mentioned very much in passing during training, some pilots were not even aware it existed....... |
).
And now we have CliveL joining this thread, one of the true 'fathers of Concorde', it can only become even more fascinating with his inputs here.
(BTW, this thread has now passed 100,000 viewings in just four short months
).
Best regards
Dude
22nd Dec 2010, 08:28
permalink Post: 937
MrVortex
Concorde had triple-axis auto stabilisation, where pilot demands were routed via an AUTOSTAB COMPUTER and summed with any stabilisation demands. There was automatc roll/yaw crossfeed, where for a given roll demand there was a coresponding amount of rudder applied, the amount of which was a function of Mach number. As far as 'dutch roll' etc the autostab system employed rate gyros in the same way as a conventional 'yaw damper' would operate in an inferior
(oops, my bad.. I mean SLOWER) aircraft.
The AUTOSTAB operated full time, irrespective of AFCS mode. (Perhaps EXWOK, NW1 or one of the other boys will confirm that TURB mode was seldom EVER used in airline service. It was a (if I remember correctly) a Pitch/HDG hold autopilot mode with reduced gain).
Best regards
Dude
Quote:
| I'm wondering that does the auto-stab function in yaw axis does apply some rudder when pilot fly the aircraft by his hand to prevent the sideslip or dutchroll or not? |
(oops, my bad.. I mean SLOWER) aircraft.
Quote:
| Also, does the auto stab does "modify" some pilot input to minimize the effect of the turbulence all the time when airplane encounter the turbulence or only when the AP are in the "TURB" mode? Does it help to reduce the stress on the aircraft like the "load alleviation" on the moder aircraft like A380? |
Best regards
Dude
22nd Dec 2010, 20:13
permalink Post: 950
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by
exwok
Hazy recollection - effectively an additional autostabilisation input in the nosedown sense active at high alpha/low EAS.
Ultimately applied a further nose down elevon input (4 degrees????) if EAS was less than (140kts???? That's a VERY low speed). (Colloquially known as 'super-duper stab' on my course) |
To cover this case the 'superautostabiliser'was developed. It effectively restricts the rate of variation of incidence so that, if the pilot entered into an avoidance manoeuvre of sufficient magnitude to trigger the stick wobbler, i.e. about 1.5g, he would be able to recover easily without exceeding the maximum incidence demonstrated in flight (which was in fact slightly greater than the maximum steady incidence limit). This superautostab had gain scheduled against AoA and also included phase advanced pitch rate and speed terms. Finally, there was a 'yaw superautostabiliser which applied rudder as a function of lateral acceleration to restrict sideslip which (see below) could affect the maximum lift attainable. [Note that because of the dynamics of slender aircraft operating at high AoA it was readily possible to develop sideslip in a turn]
Hope that is clear.
Whilst talking about maximum lift etc. can I confirm the numbers quoted in an earlier posting for the start of vortex lift - about 6 or 7 deg AoA at low speed, and for the AoA at maximum lift - about 23 deg. This is where the pitching momemt curve vs AoA 'breaks'. It is not a stall in the conventional sense because of course the flow over the leading edge has been separated long ago. Instead it is the AoA at which the LE vortices become 'too big for their boots' and go unstable and 'burst'. This AoA is sensitive to sideslip and the leading wing half will go first.
CliveL
3rd Jan 2011, 22:15
permalink Post: 1074
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by
DozyWannabe
Was there a reason - other than it was the second example built - that the French pre-production model had the longer tail assembly fitted, whereas 101 did not?
|
01 first flew in December 1971, 02 in January 1973, more than a year later.
So I suppose a lot of the planned improvements "came to fruition" just about then.
Apart from the new visor, 01 still looked a lot like another prototype, while 02 was externally almost indistinguishable from the production aircraft (long tail, new nozzles/thrust reversers, tail wheel, etc.).
However, from my own limited experience, as far as the cockpit layout, and systems like the AFCS, were concerned, 01 was already far closer to the production version than to the prototypes, which were still very much mid/late '60s designs.
The two prototypes were very much experimental and proof-of-concept aircraft, and it's interesting to see in how many aspects they differ from the final production aircraft.
CJ
6th Jan 2011, 21:06
permalink Post: 1077
CliveL
, You wrote:
"We (BAC) were going to do the AICU development so it made sense for 101 to get the early hybrid units. [If you were cynical you might equally say that there was no way we were going to let AS have them first!]."
Is that a typo and did you mean "it made sense for 102 to get the early hybrid units."?
I think M2dude had more fun with the air intakes at the time than I had with the AFCS, although getting MAX CLIMB and MAX CRUISE to work was, to say the least, "interesting".
Christian
"We (BAC) were going to do the AICU development so it made sense for 101 to get the early hybrid units. [If you were cynical you might equally say that there was no way we were going to let AS have them first!]."
Is that a typo and did you mean "it made sense for 102 to get the early hybrid units."?
I think M2dude had more fun with the air intakes at the time than I had with the AFCS, although getting MAX CLIMB and MAX CRUISE to work was, to say the least, "interesting".
Christian
15th Jan 2011, 10:59
permalink Post: 1100
A Journey Back In Time !!
OK, here is a photo that I took at Fairford in November 1976. I'd just had my very first Concorde flight on a brand new G-BOAD, and took this flight deck photo in the hangar later that afternoon (the doors are open hence the late afternoon Cotswold sky. The point of this rather poor (sorry guys, I was young for goodness sake) photo is to look at just how subtly different the 1976 flight deck WAS.
The first thing I know EXWOK and BELLEROPHON will (maybe) notice is that originally OAD had a 'normal colour' electroluminescent light plate on the visor indication panel. (If I remember rightly (it was a million years ago chaps) when this one 'stopped lighting' we could not get a replacement and had to rob 202 (G-BBDG) at Filton; this one being the same black development aircraft colour that OAD has to this day.
The OTHER first thing that you may notice is the Triple Temperature Indicator on the captains dash panel. (The first officer had his in in similar position). These got moved around (twice in the end) when TCAS was installed in the mid-90's. It was amazing just how much equipment got moved around over the years, in order to 'shoe-horn in' various bits of extra equimpent.
The cabin altimeter here fitted just above the #1 INS CDU also got moved (to the centre consul) when the FAA 'Branniff' modifications were embodied later in the 70's. It's spot got occupied by a standy altimeter mandated by the FAA but this was removed after Branniff ceased flying Concorde; the cabin altimeter returning to it's former home. The REALLY observant will notice that there is neither an Autoland Ca3/Cat2 identifier on the AFCS panel (glued on by BA at LHR) or the famous and precision built 'Reheat Capabilty Indicator' flip down plate fitted to the centre dash panel a few years later by BA.
Also not shown here, as they were buyer furnished equipment also fitted at on delivery LHR, are the two ADEUs (Automatic Data Entry Units, or INS Card readers). These were located immediatel aft of the CDU's and were used for bulk waypoint loading ('bulk' being 9, the most that the poor old Delco INU memory could handle). These were removed in the mid 90's when the Navigation Database was fitted to Concorde INUs, and bulk loading then was achieved by simply tapping in a 2 digit code. (Hardly the elegence of FMS, but still very elegent in comparison with the ADEU's, and worked superbly). A little note about these ADEU things; You inserted this rather large optically read paper data card into the thing and the motor would suck the unsuspecting card in. As often as not the ADEU would chew the card up and spit the remnants out, without reading any data, or not even bother spitting out the remnants at all. Removing these things FINALLY when the INUs were modified was absolute joy!!
ps. When G-BOAG (then G-BFKW) was delivered in 1980 it had neither any of the Branniff mods or ADEUs fitted. (Also the INS was not wired for DME updating). This meant that obviously she could not fly IAD-DFW with Branniff but also she could not do LHR-BAH either, because of the lack ADEUs. (You could not manually insert waypoints quick enough over the 'Med', or so the guys told me. So for the first few years good old FKW/OAG just used to plod between LHR and JFK. And plod she did, superbly. She never did get the ADEUs (not necessary thank goodness when the INUs got modified) but we wired in DME updating and so she could navigate around with the best of them.
My gosh I do prattle on, sorry guys.
Best regards
Dude
PS Welcome back Landlady, hope you've recovered from your fall XXXX
The first thing I know EXWOK and BELLEROPHON will (maybe) notice is that originally OAD had a 'normal colour' electroluminescent light plate on the visor indication panel. (If I remember rightly (it was a million years ago chaps) when this one 'stopped lighting' we could not get a replacement and had to rob 202 (G-BBDG) at Filton; this one being the same black development aircraft colour that OAD has to this day.
The OTHER first thing that you may notice is the Triple Temperature Indicator on the captains dash panel. (The first officer had his in in similar position). These got moved around (twice in the end) when TCAS was installed in the mid-90's. It was amazing just how much equipment got moved around over the years, in order to 'shoe-horn in' various bits of extra equimpent.
The cabin altimeter here fitted just above the #1 INS CDU also got moved (to the centre consul) when the FAA 'Branniff' modifications were embodied later in the 70's. It's spot got occupied by a standy altimeter mandated by the FAA but this was removed after Branniff ceased flying Concorde; the cabin altimeter returning to it's former home. The REALLY observant will notice that there is neither an Autoland Ca3/Cat2 identifier on the AFCS panel (glued on by BA at LHR) or the famous and precision built 'Reheat Capabilty Indicator' flip down plate fitted to the centre dash panel a few years later by BA.
Also not shown here, as they were buyer furnished equipment also fitted at on delivery LHR, are the two ADEUs (Automatic Data Entry Units, or INS Card readers). These were located immediatel aft of the CDU's and were used for bulk waypoint loading ('bulk' being 9, the most that the poor old Delco INU memory could handle). These were removed in the mid 90's when the Navigation Database was fitted to Concorde INUs, and bulk loading then was achieved by simply tapping in a 2 digit code. (Hardly the elegence of FMS, but still very elegent in comparison with the ADEU's, and worked superbly). A little note about these ADEU things; You inserted this rather large optically read paper data card into the thing and the motor would suck the unsuspecting card in. As often as not the ADEU would chew the card up and spit the remnants out, without reading any data, or not even bother spitting out the remnants at all. Removing these things FINALLY when the INUs were modified was absolute joy!!
ps. When G-BOAG (then G-BFKW) was delivered in 1980 it had neither any of the Branniff mods or ADEUs fitted. (Also the INS was not wired for DME updating). This meant that obviously she could not fly IAD-DFW with Branniff but also she could not do LHR-BAH either, because of the lack ADEUs. (You could not manually insert waypoints quick enough over the 'Med', or so the guys told me. So for the first few years good old FKW/OAG just used to plod between LHR and JFK. And plod she did, superbly. She never did get the ADEUs (not necessary thank goodness when the INUs got modified) but we wired in DME updating and so she could navigate around with the best of them.
My gosh I do prattle on, sorry guys.
Best regards
Dude
PS Welcome back Landlady, hope you've recovered from your fall XXXX
Last edited by M2dude; 15th Jan 2011 at 11:29 .
3rd Apr 2011, 18:39
permalink Post: 1251
Quote:
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Originally Posted by
spannersatKL
....the use of M2V would also be required as the pipes were Titanium and Skydrol (ester) based fluids will cause hydrogen embrittlement in Titanium and cracking.
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Quote:
| ...I was always reminded that the design was in the best British military design tradition |
My own field was the AFCS, and one of my experiences was discovering, (quite recently) that the prototype Concorde AFCS controller had obvious family relations with the one on the VC-10 (so not military).
Logical, both were designed by Elliott.
Quote:
| .... and training as a gynacologist would have been handy when replacing any component! Good times. |
Quote:
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Originally Posted by
M2dude
M2V really was great stuff though, although now it is as rare as rocking horse excrement. (Got any spare)???
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Concorde always leaked as a sieve... (escept at Mach 2) and still does to this day. We collect the M2V in the drip pans, filter it, and re-use it, but a few uncontaminated drums or boxes would be very gratefully received.... never mind the "Best By" date.
CJ
23rd Apr 2011, 22:19
permalink Post: 1322
Quote:
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Originally Posted by
ITman
May I ask you guys another question relating to the book I mentioned earlier, in the same book it shows a Concorde with a Airbus sidestick control. I wondered if anymore information is known on this modification I suspect t must have been quite an systems integration exercise.
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I haven't seen any of the detailed (block) diagrams, so I'm not sure at all how the sidestick was "hooked into" the AFCS.
Don't forget Concorde already used "electrical flying control signalling" (aka "Fly-By-Wire")., so system integration would have been easier than on some other aircraft.
For those unfamiliar with the story... F-WTSB, very late in its career, was used for some flight trials with a sidestick controller fitted to the left-hand position (the right-hand seat controls still being the normal ones,and with the right-hand seat occupied by a 'safety' pilot).
The flight test data were later "fed" into the A-320 programme.
How much of the "rate" control and other A-320 control logic was already implemented in the test system is unknown, AFAIK ....
Would be interesting to know some more about it, I agree!
CJ