Posts about: "Boeing" [Posts: 31 Pages: 2]

MEMORIES
Like so many in the Concorde family, I have millions, I'd like to share a couple here. I remember at Fairford in mid 1974, a CAA test pilot (I honestly forget the gentleman's name) was taking the British pre-production A/C 101 (G-AXDN) for a special test flight. The reason that this flight was so special was that for the first time, the CAA were going to do an acceptance flight trial of the brand new digital air intake system. This revolutionary system had been retro fitted to 101 barely a year earlier, and being a brand new (and totally unique, in electronics terms) system had been plagued with teething troubles. It was quite reasonable for any airworthiness authority to have serious misgivings about any system that was going to wave great big metal lumps around in front of the engine compressor face, and that if only a few degrees out from the commanded position out could cause the engine to 'backfire' etc.
So anyway, 101 took off and disappeared into the very blue sky and we waited, and waited, AND WAITED. (I'd only left the RAF and joined the project a few months previously, and did not want my new association with this amazing aircraft to end). I was biting my nails, drinking coffee, losing my hair... (without the help of M2V ). Anyway after about 2 1/2 hours the aircraft returned to Fairford, and everybody crowds around the crew for the debrief. A very stern faced CAA pilot looked at us all, broke into a grin and said "as far as I'm concerned gentlemen, you've got yourselves an airliner". At that point the room was a study of total happiness, blessed relief, and a need to go to the loo..... But from my point of view, I will remember those words forever.
101, which now resides at the Imperial War Museum Duxford was the fastest Concorde ever. She achieved Mach 2.23, which was an incredible irony, as Concorde can trace a large part of it's developement history back to the BAC 223, proposed SST.
As far as flying memories go, I just don't know where to start; My first ever Concorde flight was in November 1976, out of Fairford on a pre-delivery test flight on G-BOAD. (Now sadly bobbing up and down on the Hudson, next to the USS Intrepid). I was staggered how fast and high we flew (Mach 2.08, FL580). Most of my flying up to that date had been in C-130's in the RAF, at around 340 KTS and FL300; Concorde also being infinately quiter in flight than the good old Herc'. I remember a BA QA guy showing me how I could touch the skin of the aircraft at Mach 2 (You reached behind a door busstle flap, moved your hand through some insulation until you felt bare metal). OUCH!! it was hot, very hot.
But I think one of my most memorable flight memories was aboard G-BOAG, (now residing in the Boeing Museum of Flight in Seattle) returning from BKK, having stopped off to refuel in BAH. We were forced to fly subsonic over Saudi, and got caught in this amazing electrical storm, There was St Elmo's fire cracking and bubbling all over the visor panels, but just as incredible was the long blue electrical discharge coming off of the nose probe; it seemed to extend about 50' in front of the aircraft. The crime was, none of us on the F/D had a camera. Every time I bump into the captain on that day (are you reading this Ian?), we go back to remonissing about that incredible flight. Also, later on the same sector, after we had decelerated to subsonic cruise again, this time flying up the Adriatic, we had another fascinating sight: It was getting quite dark now, and here we were, travelling at Mach 0.95 at FL290, when above us was all this Mach 0.8 ish traffic at around FL330-350. All we could see were all these navigation and ant-coll' lights above us, seemingly travelling backwards. It was quite a sight. On the original BAH-BKK sector a week earlier, we flew through some of the coldest air I'd ever seen; The air was at ISA -25, and at Mach 2 our TAT was only about 85 deg's C. (You could feel the difference too; the cabin windows felt only warm-ish to the touch). The upside also of all this was that your fuel burn was much lower than usual. (The only downside of course is that your TAS is a little lower). 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 ).
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).
There was one lovely story, involving the Shah of Iran, having one of MANY flights in a developmment aircraft. The aircraft encounterd quite a hefty series of temperature shears that plagued havoc with some Iranian F4's that were attempting to close on the Concorde, to act as an escort for the Shah. (or so the strory goes). I'm still trying to picture these F4's, on full afterburner trying to get close to a Concorde cruising away on dry power). It is said that the F4's were having such difficulties, due to their relatively crude powerplant, coping with the temperature changes, that the Concorde was ordered to slow down, 'so the escorting F4's could catch up'!! True or not, it is part of Concorde folklore.

Dude

Landroger
Wow, that's a very interesting question, do you mind if I give it a tiny slant of my own, namely system distribution?
Concorde had an ENORMOUS number of electronic control boxes, for example the powerplant alone used TWENTY SIX rather heavy computers and control units, all of which used conventional 1970's manufacturing technology. (Although the intake box was a work of art; rows and rows of double sided PCBs completely crammed with TTL chips). This whole entourage literally weighed a ton, and could be easily replaced by four modern relatively light units with multiple redundancy built in). Even the AFCS used a total of sixteen heavy boxes, again these could be reduced to three, for a modern triple channel system. The three INUs and two ADCs (Very heavy units all) could be replaced with a single ADIRU and SAARU. To complete the package two FMCs (which would also furnish autothrottle functions) could be added. A massive weight saving could be made on the FBW system, by removing the bulky mechanical components (the feel and relay jacks as well as all the mechanical control runs and the massive mixing unit under the rear floor). Careful design could easily provide a full authority triplex or quadraplex FBW system. The current controls could be replaced with either an Airbus or Boeing type system, using either a sidestick (Airbus) or retain a conventional control column system (B777/787) using electric backdrive. The pilots can decide this one. A modern databus system would also be required for providing communication and redundancy; ARINC 629 would be MY preferred choice). The wholesale replacement of the various control units and computers, not to forget miles of wiring, as well as some bulky mechanical hardware would in my view save around 3 tonnes or more in weight alone. A now far more accurate control of aircraft systems would also bring major efficiency savings. As far as saving space, that possibly free up a couple of seat rows, if it were all done properly.
We can all dream I suppose

Dude

Lurking SLF
An interesting post Darragh, but with the greatest respect I think that you may have missed the whole point of this thread. As wonderful as the Boeing 747 is (personally I think that the 744 is one of the finest commercial aircraft ever built), I think anyone would agree that there is no comparison at all, as far as technical achievement goes, between the 747 and Concorde. So many boundaries had to be crossed with the Concorde design, and technical problems were overcome that had defeated many of the world's leading designers. I do have a vague idea what I am talking about here; although I was directly involved with Concorde for 30 years, I am also licensed on both the 744 AND the 777, and although I hold Boeings with the greatest respecect and admiration, nothing so far in the realms of commercial aviation can really compare with the technological marvel that was Concorde.
I think that most of the posters here will be sorrry that you felt you wasted 2 hours reading through these pages, I feel most of us have thoroughly enjoyed reading each others posts.
The YouTube links were great though.
atakacs
To the best of my knowledge no. The original TU144 was an extremely crude attempt by the Soviets at commercial supersonic aviation, and the political climate at the time would not have permitted such a thing. The TU144D used in the 1990's as a joint NASA/Russian experiment was a different beast altogether however, with far better engines and systems, but as far as I am aware the only western pilots to fly it were American chaps.

Dude

Yes indeed.
That sort of discussion belongs in the Military Aircrew forum.

One could say that the Tu-144, and also the Boeing 2707 and Lockheed L2000 were part of the background against which Concorde was born.

But "F-4 v a Mig 19/21" is not really part of that context...... so please?

CJ

Hi canuck slf, Your incident was not the hydraulic contamination one, I'll describe that one in a minute or so below.
As far as your adventure goes, in the early days of Concorde operation there was an on-going issue of hydraulic seal failures. This led to the sort of thing that you described, where a major seal failure would occur, resulting in the loss of a main system. The standby Yellow system would be switched in to replace the failed one, and depending on the nature of the initial failure, could leak out of the same failed seal. (There were a couple of 'common areas', they were the intake spill door jack, and the Powered Flying Control Units; failures here could result in a double system fail). Your incident was almost certainly due to one of these cases. In the early 1990's the original Neoprene hydraulic seals were replaced with a new Viton GLT seal; this material had far superior age shrinking characteristics to Neoprene, and more or less cured the problem overnight. Eventually all the seals in each aircraft were replaced, and apart from a very few isolated cases, dual system losses were eliminated forever. Air France suffered a similar proportion of failures, however as their flying hours were a fraction of BA's, the effects were not as immediately apparent.
As far as far as the hydraulic contamination story goes, this happened in 1980 but involved one aircraft only, G-BOAG, but in it's original registration of G-BFKW. (having previously been on loan from British Aerospace, where it flew originally as a 'white tail' under this registration). The fragile nature of Concorde hydraulic fluid was not fully understood at this time, and as you say, a hydraulic drum dispenser had inadvertently been left exposed to the atmosphere, and had subsequently suffered water contamination, and this contaminated fluid had found it's way into G-BOAG. Now this hydraulic fluid, CHEVRON M2V has only two vices: One is that is extremely expensive, and the second is that it is highly susceptible to water contamination, EXTEMELY SO. If my memory serves me correctly, the maximum allowable level of water in the fluid is about 8ppm. (parts per million) and the fluid that was analysed after G-BOAG's problems was at about 30 ppm. The water deposits in the fluid gave the equivalent effect of 'rusting up' of critical hydraulic components. I was investigating an air intake control defect the previous day to the incident, but like everybody else had no idea that the real issue here was one of major systems contamination. We were all convinced that we had nailed the problem, only to find that the aircraft turned back on it's subsequent LHR-JFK sector with more serious problems, not only affecting the air intakes, but the artificial feel system also. It was now that we realised that there had to be a hydraulics problem here, and after fluid analysis, the awful truth was discovered. After this event, and the fragilities of M2V fluid were better understood, a strict regime of housekeeping was put in place in terms of fluid storage, and no such incidents with BA ever occurring again. The aircraft itself did not fly again for nine months, all components that were affected were removed from the aircraft and completely stripped and overhauled. Also all of the system hydraulic lines had to be completely purged, until there were no further traces of any contamination. After the aircraft was finally rectified, she successfully again returned to service with her new 'BA' registration of G-BOAG. However the following year, during a C Check, it was decided that due to spares shortages, and the closure of the LHR-BAH-SIN route, there just was not being enough work for seven aircraft, and therefore G-BOAG would be withdrawn from service. (In terms of spares, BA at the time for instance only had six sets of aircraft galleys, as aircraft went in for C checks the galley was 'robbed' to service the aircraft coming out of it's own C check). The aircraft was parked in a remote hangar, and was only visited when a component had to be 'robbed' for another Concorde, and the aircraft soon fell into disrepair, was filthy externally and became a really sad sight. Many people (not myself I might add) were adamant that G-BOAG would never fly again. However, in 1984 things had really started to improve for Concorde, with the charter business increasing and the LHR-JFK route in particular becoming a staggering success. It was decided that OAG would be returned to an airworthy condition. In 1985, with a fresh new interior, and with the new BA colour scheme, she was finally returned to service; and remained as one of the mainstays of the fleet right up to the end of Concorde services in October 2003. She now resides at the Boeing Museum of Flight in Seattle. (I have particularly fond memories of G-BOAG; in a previous post I mentioned flying through an electrical storm in late 1991 over Saudi Arabia, while returning from BKK-BAH to LHR. What I forgot to mention was the spectacle of DOZENS of fierce fires burning on the ground, towards our starboard horizon. These were Sadams oil fires, still burning in Kuwait. It made a sombre contrast to the amazing electrical spectacle right in front of us).

As far as low speed flying control activity was concerned, this was a combination of the fairly flexible outer wing sections, being buffeted by low speed turbulence (the wing tip tanks 5A & 7A also being empty), as well as some autostab inputs. This was perfectly normal, and part of the design our aircraft. However the development aircraft had even more flexible outer wing sections, which used to almost straighten up in high speed flight. However due to fatigue concerns, external lateral stiffeners were added to the underside of the wings during production of the airline aircraft. (these can be easily seen from underneath the wings, just outboard of the nacelles). Unfortunately these external stiffeners also resulted in over a one tonne fuel penalty to the production aircraft, due to increased weight, as well as higher drag in a critical part of the wing aerodynamic surface.

Dude

Shaft109
The world has only ever had one Concorde female flight crew member, a really wonderful lady who is known as Barbara Harmer. Barbara was an SFO on the BA Concode fleet, joining us in 1993. You can read all about her here:
Barbara Harmer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

After she eventually left the Concorde fleet, Barbara became Captain Harmer, flying the Boeing 777 for BA.

Oops ChristiaanJ, never knew about B\xe9atrice Valle, salutations to her also.

Dude

Sorry.
The way your question was formulated didn't make that clear to me.

Exactly.
For the governments and the manufacturers, there was never even a mention of "profits", was there?
The only serious mention of "profits" has always been the BA operation, and they were just one of the 'buyers'.
Even if in the end they acquired two more aircraft (three if you count DG) for relatively nothing, when you start looking at the operating costs over the 27 years, those totally dwarf the initial acquisition costs.

I would really have to do a 'back-of-the-envelope' calculation to extract a break-even quantity from the limited data in the link I posted earlier.
Also, Concorde #17 would already have been a prototype "B" Concorde"... how much of that is included in the development cost figure?
With only 16 production aircraft, we were only just on the start of the "learning curve"... how exactly that would have evolved compared to other aircraft is anybody's guess.
Although, there was a trend already, since the last Concordes off the production line were already a ton lighter than the first ones.

But the original figures, at various stages, for the break-even point were in the order of 100 to 150 airframes, IIRC.

Unquantifiable in money terms, yes.
In terms of years lost, maybe not entirely.
I'll have to look up all the dates. But if Concorde had been "nipped in the bud", I would guess we would have lost ten years of experience in cooperation in development and manufacture.

In a roundabout way, look at the cancellation of the Boeing 2707 SST in 1971.
The figures at the time showed that the US had spent almost exactly the same amount on SST development as had been spent for Concorde at the same time.
For that, Boeing had a hangar-full of design drawings, a couple of nice-looking wooden mock-ups, and a few test articles for the swing-wing.
At the same date, we already had two prototypes and a pre-prod aircraft flying, and the production line getting under way.

What did we gain? Only a few Concordes, but also a European aircraft industry capable of meeting Boeing on its own terms.

What did Boeing gain? Some swing-wing design experience for the B1.. and even that wasn't much use... look at the B1-B.

CJ

Roger

My appreciation for your complement. Anyone, yank or otherwise, who does not appreciate the long term and continuing world wide cooperation that is required for any project like Concorde or Apollo is simply being xenophobic. Today, Boeing has a large engineering bureau in Moscow, BMW has a design office in California.

Many of the engineers that worked on Apollo, 747 and, even, the C-5, were Canadian ex-pats fired from the Avro Arrow program shutdown. BTW, my nomination for least appreciated, least known but most ambitious aircraft design.

GF

Cron
You sure touched a nerve or two there Cron. I can only speak for myself, but to me Concorde was more than a job, far more than just 30 years of my life, she was (and still is) an amazing and astoundingly beautiful aircraft. She was flown by dedicated, highly professional crews, some of which I still regard as some of my best friends. She carried an enormous variety of people, from the wealthy and famous to old Granny having a chance of a lifetime birthday treat. She epitomised what dedicated men (and women too) can achieve in the field of adversity when there is sufficient talent and dedication available to overcome massive political and technical hurdles. These guys and gals produced what is to me simply avaiation perfection. There is another aspect of Concorde's life that is seldom mentioned, that of live organ transportation across the Atlantic (in both directions I might add). I wonder just how many lives were saved by this marvelous use of speed. (The organs were transported in refrigerated containers and the speedy transport from the aeroplane was both slick and professional. I could go on.... but will give instead my personal feelings regarding this 'world without Concorde. The real TRUE story of why Concorde was withdrawn from service is for another time (this story has already been alluded to several times in this thread), but I am stilll filled with feelings of sadness, of guilt (was there really nothing any of 'us' could have done?) but mainly a deep feeling of anger and revulsion towards a small handfull of nasty little individuals that managed to destroy something so wonderful, so unique and so special for ALL the wrong reasons. I just hope these characters look back and are truly proud of themselves; this aviation 'crime' is right up there with the TSR-2 cancellation in my view.
But life goes on, and I had to spend the next few years learning all about those Boeing things. (You know I never realised that it was possible to fly WELL BELOW the speed of sound ).

BN2A
errrr nope.
Regards

Dude

speedbirdconcorde
5 seconds I know, but it does at least compensate for my other screen hoggings.
Some really nice shots of G-BOAG and the SR71. (I particularly love the 'business end' shot of the J-58, showing the 4 afterburner rings).
I last visited OAG in Seattle about 5 years ago and the exterior had really suffered from the elements, being parked right next to a highway near one of the most beautiful but wettest cities in the USA. (Boeing told me that they were planning a re-paint, don't know if it ever happened though). The interior however was absolutely immaculate, thanks to the pre-conditioned air being pumped through the entire fuselage. (Now THAT'S the way to do it ).
And as for the last photo..... (I laughed so much I almost fell of the chair).

1965 BEA
Nice clip, pity it's an ambedded Flash movie. It is at a good resolution however, if you zoom in the web page it's really quite good quality.

Regards
Dude

Mr Vortex
The Thrust recuperator (or thrust recovery nozzle) was fitted to the outlet of #1 (that is, left hand) forward discharge valve (outflow valve in Boeing speak) only. It was a variable 'louvre' type nozzle that would progressively close between 3 and 7.5 PSI diff'. The idea was to direct pressurisation outflow air directly backwards along (theoretically) the aircraft centre line (That at least was the theory). I read somewhere that at max diff' (10.7 PSIG) it would recuperate some 600 lb of thrust. HOWEVER, this system was fitted to the #1 system only (1 & 2 were used on alternate flights) and there was no performance penalty when the thing was not working. Here are a couple of diagrams.

Best Regards
Dude

Spot on, Clive.

I've said something similar (while at the same time being full of admiration and effusive praise for M2Dude). It's worth bearing in mind that at the time (2003 or thereabouts), AI were fighting a battle to keep the A380 project viable (like Boeing with the 747, they'd effectively "bet the company" on the project's success) - and sadly, in terms of business realpolitik Concorde was costing them money, being just a small-run legacy airframe capable of operating profitably for a single customer. Things weren't going to get any better, and as such AI's decision was as understandable as it was regrettable.

I have far less sympathy for BA, who acted with what seemed to me indecent haste to permanently mothball the airframes (the press at the time speculating that Branson would try to get his hands on at least one of them), and while the UK Concorde community have a right to feel aggrieved at the way things panned out - the fact that what was left of BAe effectively bowed out of the Airbus consortium, the better to focus on military hardware with the Americans, meant that we'd thrown away any chance of having a say in what happened to Concorde in the end.

EDITED TO ADD : In reference to Bellerophon's post below - this was *not* intended to take the technical discussion off-course. I was simply trying to thank Clive for summing up how I felt about the whole situation far better than I ever could. Sincere apologies if this was misconstrued as such.

I'll try!

The last time I had anything to do with it people were talking about L/Ds around 10.5 in cruise (up from 7.5).

There are technical issues why one cannot use high bypass engines for supersonic cruise, so the thermodynamic cycle would be much the same as the Olympus. That being so the only real gain would come from higher TETs today so the benefits would be limited - two or three percent sfc perhaps?

[Yes I know the USAF are flying supersonic cruise aircraft, but look at how much bypass their engines actually have and the supersonic cruise Mach Numbers]

Obviously the MOST IMPORTANT condition was supersonic cruise, so this dominated the compromise. OTOH, the reserve fuel was largely driven by subsonic performance, so one couldn't give too much away. It might surprise people, but the 0.93M specific range is much the same as the 2.0M value.

As for variable geometry wings (1970s style), the best I can offer is that Boeing started with a variable geometry design (with which they won the design competition), but as the design process progressed the amount of wing that varied got less and less until the Boeing aircraft looked very much like the Lockheed design that lost the original competition.

What do you think?

CiveL

They weren't looking for cruise drag reductions; just takeoff climb improvements which would have required genuine relaxed stability - CGs back at the aerodynamic centre etc.
This entailed introducing artificial stability terms that would have been difficult in a purely analogue system such as the basic Concorde controls, so they decided to go digital.
Sidestick or conventional control column doesn't come into that of course - see Boeing vs AI FBW systems; but no doubt the French government saw the opportunity to get two for the price of one .....

CliveL

Save Bristol\x92s Concorde and the Brabazon Hangar

The Brabazon Hangar dominates the south side of Filton Airfield. During the 1960s it became the home of the UK Concorde production line, but Concorde wasn\x92t the first aircraft to be built within this amazing structure.
The hangar was originally built during the 1940s to enable the construction of the massive Bristol Aircraft Company\x92s type 167, which is better known as the Brabazon and hence this is where the name of the hangar came from . This giant airliner aircraft had a 230ft wingspan, and was powered by eight pair-coupled Bristol Centaurus piston engines and was Britain\x92s attempt at a non-stop trans-Atlantic airliner.

The prototype flew in 1949 six years and \xa33 million after the conception, and sadly the aircraft was already obsolete. The British de Havilland Comet jet-powered airliner was already well on the way and on the other side of the Atlantic, Boeing were developing their 707, and both of these would fly faster and carry more passengers than the Brabazon The prototype flew for a short while and a second turboprop-powered prototype (Brabazon II) was being built when the project was abandoned. Both aircraft were subsequently broken up in 1953.
With the demise of the Brabazon project Bristol was then left with one of the largest aircraft production facilities in Europe and therefore the giant Brabazon hangars were put to other uses, these included being used for the production line for the much more successful Bristol Britannia airliner.

But the Brabazon hangar has become more famous today as the birthplace of all the British built Concordes, ten airframes were built there, one prototype known as 002, one pre-production known as 01, one development production known as Delta Golf, and of course the seven airliner production airframes detailed below\x85
G-BOAA
G-BOAB
G-BOAC
G-BOAD
G-BOAE
G-BOAF
G-BOAG
Concorde 216 G-BOAF was the last Concorde built anywhere in the world, and of course the very last one to fly in November 2003. During her final flight she flew back to her birthplace, to Filton to form a major part of a new planned Bristol aviation museum. The plan was to house the whole of the Bristol Aviation Collection, known as the BAC, in one building, a centre to celebrate Bristol\x92s incredible aviation history, and let\x92s not forget that Bristol led the world.
But like so many things in this fast changing world, ideas and directions soon change and as in this case not for the better.
Heritage Concorde has heard of one idea that it wishes to push forward with anyone who would be willing to work alongside the group. With next years closure of Filton airfield, one incredible heritage building stands at risk of being ripped down and lost forever, the Brabazon Hangar. So why not use this building as the centre of the history of Bristol aviation and space industry, and in memory of the man who started it all, Sir George White. It\x92s large enough to form one of the most incredible museums in the world; it would be able to house the whole BAC collection with Concorde 216 at the centre, where she was built.
This idea needs to be looked into and not dismissed so easily by the people leading the effort for the new museum. Heritage Concorde will start to develop this idea further.

Any ideas, any offer of help or advice???
Steve de Sausmarez

I think the estimate is that the supersonic passenger requirement today could be satisfied by ten airframes. Hardly an attractive economic proposition for a manufacturer. If it were otherwise, Boeing and Airbus would be addressing that market with a state-of-the-art SST.

In actual fact BA looked very seriously in the mid 1980s at a limited glass cockpit, where the primary flight and engine instruments would be replaced by and EFIS/EICAS setup, ala Boeing 757. Studies were quite advanced, the main cited advantage was 'reduced cost of ownership.' It seems that the reason it never went any further was, now here's the irony, 'increased training costs. (You have to remember that the 757 was the only glass cockpit BA had at the time, with nothing much else on the horizon).
There would certainly needed to be other upgrades avionics wise, in the fullness of time, but the glass cockpit was not really top of the list. Glaring requirements were improved navigational accuracy, as well as EGPWS together with predictive and reactive windshear protection. (Although to really get the most out of this an EFIS type system is crucial). We (BA) were already looking at both EGPWS and the replacement of the DELCO Carousel 1VAC INS. The Litton 92 had been suggested early on, as it was the only l@ser INS available with a GPS card fitted, but it is possible that given time an IRS with separate MMR interface would have been used. (This of course now requires an FMC, with a potentially rather involved VNAV profile). As far as EGPWS (and GPS navigation), the main problem was going to be 'where to put the darned GPS antenna' up there on the fuselage crown, but this was being looked at right up to 2003. Providing there was an adequate way of displaying the warnings, predictive windshear protection would have been a breeze, as the Bendix RDR4B radar system (itself retrofitted in the mid 1990s) had the PWS capability merely disabled on Concorde). As Concorde was a highly profitable enterprise for BA during the vast majority of her service life, it is my view that natural avionics updates, such as those described, would have found their way onto Concorde given enough time. (EGPWS, GPS NAV as well as PWS protection would almost certainly have been on board by now).

Best regards
Dude

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 .

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 ). Cancelling the SST is probably the best thing that ever happened to Boeing - it likely would have bankrupted the company.

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.