Posts about: "British Airways" [Posts: 177 Pages: 9]

Thanks M2dude.
I agree that Concorde was a commerical success especially for BA. Unfortunatly due to outside factors ie cost of fuel etc; it never had a chance to sell in sufficent numbers.
I wonder if it had been an american product if it would have sold more? Ideal speculation maybe!
What is certain is that everyone involved in designing,maintaining and operating her has every reason to be proud of their contribution to aviation.

ChristiaanJ
For once my friend you're not quite correct. The Plessey PVS1580 Aircraft Integrated Data System, fitted to all BA aircraft from mid' 1977 used a microprocessor in the data entry panel. In the mid-80's, a fault interrrogation module was fitted to the Engine Control Units; this used a 4 bit Intel 4004. Otherwise (as usual ) we agree.
I've some production series CG diagrams, that I will post here when I can find out how to do it......

I feel like the fog is begining to clear and I am getting a slight understanding of how she flew. I was hung up with her flying at Mach speeds where as she was flown at an IAS (specific the the profile she was in). The Mach speed, especially when high, was a result of the temperature and not because she was f a s t ! The altitude flown was due to temperature and weight of the areoplane. This is true of all aeroplanes but due to the extreme environment this was more true of Concorde?

The subsonics have issues with Coffin Corner (I think I read that one Airbus model had somehting like 7kts between the high and low end of the envelope when up high); did Concorde have this "problem"?

I remember reading the BA Concorde flew with 2 Captain Pilots (and of course the most important Flight Engineer) and when I was watching The Rise and Fall of the Concorde , I was looking for the 4 bars in the RHS. Didn't see one but on the Air France Concorde the RHS pilot had 3 stripes. Was this correct or are my "little grey cells" confused?(sorry can't type a Belgium accent )

I don't know why this popped into my head but what was her glide ratio if all the engines stopped? Maybe because I remember from my early training being told the a B707 had a better glide ratio than the PA28-140 I was learning in. Now that was an eye opener at the time.

Biggles78


...The altitude flown was due to temperature and weight of the areoplane. This is true of all aeroplanes...

Sadly, it isn’t, as subsonic aircraft are allocated a specific cruising flight level and often - for example on the North Atlantic Track system - a specific cruising Mach number as well, and no deviation from that clearance is permitted without specific permission from ATC. Obviously everyone flight plans at the most economic heights and speeds for their aircraft type, but in busy airspace not everyone gets what they want!

Think of your flight plan as being Angelina Jolie, and your ATC clearance as being your wife. Your flight plan is what you’d really like to have, but your ATC clearance is what you’re going to have to live with!


... altitude flown was due to temperature and weight of the areoplane...this was more true of Concorde?...

Subsonic aircraft could equally benefit from using cruise-climb techniques (early long range aircraft crews knew all about cruise-climb techniques and used them when able) but with the large number of subsonic aircraft now using the world’s airways it is impractical for ATC to allow them to drift up and down at will, and so they are assigned specific cruising altitudes.

Few other aircraft got up to Concorde’s cruising levels, and so ATC were able to issue much more flexible clearances to her.

A typical Concorde ATC clearance would have allowed her to accelerate to M2.00 whilst operating within a "block" of altitude, rather than at a specific flight level. Typically this block clearance would have been to operate anywhere between FL450 up to FL600 without restriction.

So, unlike subsonic aircraft assigned a fixed cruising altitude such as FL350, Concorde could, and did, drift up or down, and was thus able to remain at the optimum altitude for the prevailing conditions throughout most of the flight.


... I remember reading the BA Concorde flew with 2 Captain Pilots (and of course the most important Flight Engineer)...

Concorde operated, as did all 3 crew aircraft in BA, with a standard crew of a Captain, F/O and F/E.

A small number of trips had two Captains on board (or two F/Es for that matter) when training or checking was going on, or an extra crew member was carried for PR purposes, but otherwise, the vast majority of occasions, just the standard crew was on board. Everyone preferred it that way, especially the F/O and F/E!


... The subsonics have issues with Coffin Corner (I think I read that one Airbus model had somehting like 7kts between the high and low end of the envelope when up high); did Concorde have this "problem"?...

Have a look at this picture of G-BOAE, cruising at her maximum certificated altitude of FL600, en-route to Barbados on 16 August 2003:





The available IAS speed range is shown on the ASI, and lies between the yellow and black Barbers Pole, currently indicating 440kts, and the white bug set to 300kts, the VLA ( L owest A uthorised speed) at this altitude.

The available Mach speed range is shown on the Mach meter, and lies between the yellow and black Barbers Pole, currently indicating M2.05, and the yellow bug which indicates the lowest Mach number allowed for the current aircraft CG position (the AFT limit) currently showing M1.35.

So, given that at her maximum altitude she had a speed range of 140kts IAS and a Mach range of M0.7, we can see that coffin corner was not a problem!


main_dog


...I too would like to ask what her idle thrust glide ratio was...

By my calculations, the figures quoted for a straight in approach, give an average glide ratio of around 20:1, however these were for a standard decel/descent, and on Concorde the early part of the decel/descent was not flown at idle power.

A considerable amount of power was left on initially, around 94% N2, for various reasons, and only below M1.0 were the throttles usually selected to idle.

I hadn’t noticed it until now but there does not appear to have been a chart giving glide distance at idle thrust!

However, since the speeds to be flown during the “4 Eng Flame Out” procedure were not too far from the normal decel/descent speeds, I’ll hazard a guess (and that is all it is) that the glide distance from FL600, with no thrust, would have been about 150nm, giving a glide ratio of around 15:1.

You're right, M2dude, I should really have written that there were no \xb5Ps on board when she first went into service (1976), and that they only slowly filtered in afterwards.

Another example on the BA aircraft, of course, in full view of the pax, were the "Marilake" cabin displays that showed Mach, altitude, speed, etc. that replaced the earlier Mach-only displays, and where everybody just HAD to have their picture taken once at Mach 2. Each of the four displays (two up front, two at the back) had a micro-processor.

Not sure when those were first fitted.... it was during one of the cabin re-do's and livery changes.

Re Mach 2 ....

In the earliest days of the project, Concord(e) was described as a Mach 2.2 airliner.

Once the RR58 alloy arrived, and the first thermal fatigue tests were underway, Mach 2.2 appeared as somewhat optimistic, and to assure an acceptable airframe life, the Mmo (maximum operating Mach number) to be certified was brought down to Mach 2.04.

Interesting question just asked by somebody on another forum....
Why Mach 2.04 ? Why not Mach 2.10, or Mach 1.96 ?
With thermal fatigue still being a field that was only starting to be explored, was that a fully technical choice.... or was there a commercial aspect ?

Mach 1.96 would again have meant a few more hours life for the airframes, and would not really have made a significant difference in the flight duration.
But think of the huge difference between "more than twice the speed of sound" and "not quite as fast as twice the speed of sound".....
Mach 1.96 would simply not have "sold"......

I have no answer to the question who finally decided on '2.04', and I don't think many of the people that wrote the "TSS spec" are still with us, so we'll probably never know.


And along the very same lines, another snippet.....

In 1985, during a major cabin upgrade, BA installed the "Marilake" displays, that showed Mach, altitude, groundspeed, etc. in place of the simple Mach-only displays that Air France kept until the end.
Nice display, complete with microprocessors.... you must have seen photos.

Of course everybody wanted their photo taken next to the display saying "Mach 2".
So these display were subtly programmed to read "Mach 2.00" as soon as the Mach number was above 1.98, and they stayed there....even if the aircraft went to Mach 2.03 or beyond.
A tiny bit of cheating... but commercially it made a lot of sense, of course.

Like the earlier BA cabin displays, the Air France displays only showed the Mach number, and they were little more than "rescaled" digital voltmeters that directly displayed the 0-12V Mach signal from the Air Data Computer. They tended to flicker a bit from 2.00 to 2.01 to 2.02 and back, but at least they didn't "cheat". And I still proudly have a photo of myself with a "Concorde grin", at Mach 2.03 !

I have yet another couple of questions and I hope all you Concorde experts don't mind me taking up your valuable time.
As regards fuel burn: was there any difference between each indvidual airframe and if so was it significant enough to be considered when calculating the trip fuel? Also did different engines also have slightly different fuel consumption?
Whilst on the subject of engines, I just wondered how many were required to keep the BA Concorde fleet flying? What sort of useful life could be expected from the engines?

In my case, my time is no longer THAT valuable, being retired for several years !
And I enjoy answering those questions, if and whenever I can!
There WERE differences... after its misadventure at Dakar, F-BVFD definitely consumed more fuel, although IIRC he was already reputed as a gas guzzler even before that incident.
It was one reason why, when Air France withdrew an aircraft from service, Fox Delta was the first one to go.
Also, due to the gradual improvements in production methods, and minor redesign, the last British production Concorde, G-BOAF, was about a ton lighter than the first one (G-BOAC). While the differences weren't huge, they were noticeable.
Of course... but there I have no figures at all, and I doubt the differences, evened out over four engines, were really significant.
Interesting question, and I hope somebody will come in and answer it.
According to 'Wikipedia', 67 engines were built, which would mean, in theory , 64 engines for 16 aircraft and 3 spares....
In practice, of course, fewer aircraft flew at any one time, so the statistics are different, but even so, a lot of engine swapping went on over the years.
As to the MTBO, I don't know... it's not my field at all....

Biggles78
This is the minimum Mach number that can be flown with the existing CG. (which would be around 59%). Just as the CG indicator (not shown in this photo) gave minimum and maximum CG for a given Mach number, the Machmeter gave a reciprical indication also). You can also see that as the aircraft is not flying at Vmo any more, being at Mach 2 cruise, that the VSI pointer is now away from the orange and black Vmo bug. At our 'not so coffin corner', now that the aircraft is at maximun alllowable altitude, Vmo would naturaly coincide with Mmo; the orange and black Mmo bug being shown at Mach 2.04. This really superb photo taken by Bellerophon gives a graphic illustration of what the panels looked like at Mach 2. Note that the with the TCAS VSI Concorde retained it's original linear VSI also. (Miust have beeen the only aircraft flying with FOUR VSIs. (The originals had to be retained due to the fact that the autopilot Vert' Speed Mode error was derived from the indicator itself. As far as TCAS goes, R/As werer inhibited above FL300 (on acceleration this would coincide with the aircraft becoming supersonic, and the mfrs would not countenance the aircraft doing extreme manoeuvrs as a result of TCAS RAs at supersonic speeds).
The tail wheel was lowered for all 'normal' gear cycles (not stby lowering of free-fall). It was designed to protect the bottom the nacelles in the case of over-rotation, but in practical terms the thing was a waste of space (and weight) and a simple tail skid (used on the prototypes) would have sufficed. Any time that the tail wheel contacted the ground, it would ALWAYS collapse, damage the tailcone structure and in fact aforded no protection whatsoever. Fortunately these events were EXTREMELY few and far between. The biggest problem with the tail wheel was a major design flaw: On gear retraction the assembly would retract in sequence with the nose and main gear, and as it entered the opening in the tailcone, it would release over-centre locks that were holding the spring-loaded doors open. The doors would then firmly spring shut behind the gear assembly and finish the job. UNFORTUNATELY this was a very poor design; if for any reason one of the two doors had not gone over-centre on the previous gear lowering, it would be struck by the retracting tail wheel gear and cause structural damage to the local skin area, that would have to have a repair done. Unfortunately these events were not quite so rare, and several measures were tried to reduce the chance of this happening. Although not a safety issue, it was an issue that was a total pain. (As a matter of interest, G-BOAC had this happen on one of it's first test flights out of Fairford in 1975).
Nick Thomas
As ChristiaanJ said, the last two BA aircraft WERE lighter than the others, and would be preferred aircraft for certain charters. But that is not to say that any aircraft could not happily do ANY sector. We fortunately had no distorted airframes in the British fleet, so this was never an issue. There was very little spread, regarding fuel consumption between different engines; one of the best parts about the Olympus 593 was that it hade very little performance deterioration with time, it was an amazing piece of kit.
Time on wing for the engines was a real variable. Each engine was built up of modules, each one of these had a seperate life. In the early days of operation, time on wing was quite poor, and MANY engines would be removed on an attrition basis. One of the early failure problem was the fuel vapourisers inside the combustion chamber were failing, taking bits of turbine with it!! A Rolls Royce modification that completely changed the design of the vapouriser not only solved the problem completely, but also increased the performance of the engine. As the engine matured in service time on wing greatly improved, and in service failures became a thing of the past. A 'trend analysis' was done after each protracted supersonic flight, where engine parameters were input into a propiatry RR computer program, that was able to detect step changes in the figures, and if this were the case, more boroscope inspections were carried out. The OLY time on wing was nothing compared to the big fan engines, but the conditions that it operated under bore no comparison. Not really sure about absolute figures on this one Nick, I'll ask one of my Rolls Royce friends and see if I can find a figure.

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

stilton

...In your superb photograph ... thank you ... both RMI'S shown seem to be showing a heading of 230 while the heading on the HSI shows 220 with the annunciation TRUE above the HSI...I am thinking that the RMI's are showing magnetic headings ?...

Correct. The RMIs show 230\xb0(M) and the HSI shows 220\xb0(T).


...were you operating on TRUE headings in this case as it seems...

Yes.

The HSI had earlier been selected to show TRUE data, by moving the RAD/INS switch (out of picture) to INS. This changed the data inputs to the HSI from Magnetic to True, but did not affect the data input to the RMI compass cards. The data input to the RMIs was always magnetic, supplied by one of two compass systems; normally #2 compass system fed the Captain\x92s RMI card.

The red/black flags visible in the VOR RMI indicate that both the VOR stations selected are out of range.

The flags visible on the HSI indicate:

• TRUE.......True compass data (not magnetic) is being displayed. (TRUE/MAG)
  
  
• INS..........An INS (not a VOR) is supplying Nav data to this HSI. (INS/RAD)
  
  
• 1............#1 INS (not #2) is supplying Nav data to this HSI. (1/2)
  
  
• HDG.........The steering index shows selected heading (not track). (HDG/TRK)
  
  
• LIN...........The beam bar is displaying linear (not angular) displacement. (LIN/ANG)

... what was the reason for this ?...

When flying long legs over areas of the world with few/no radio facilities, aircraft generally navigate from one Lat/Long waypoint to the next Lat/Long waypoint by using their INS systems, rather than tracking from radio beacon to radio beacon. The North Atlantic Track system is good example of this, as is this route down to BGI. Because there is no useful magnetic/radio information to display in such areas, True (INS) information is usually displayed, which brings with it two main advantages.

Firstly, you get to monitor how well the autopilot is doing, because the beam bar in the HSI should always be centralised if the aircraft is on track.

Secondly, as the aircraft changes course over a waypoint, you get the chance to check the Initial True Track it then takes up corresponds to the ITT pre-calculated on your flight plan. This is an important check (called the \x93Waypoint Change Drill\x94) in BA, that you have not mis-programmed the INS waypoints!

This procedure, of navigating in True, is by no means a Concorde procedure, all long range BA aircraft utilise it, and it is in common use in most airlines and aircraft flying long range routes around the World.

Best Regards

Bellerophon

Going back to my earlier question regarding expansion of the airframe. I have noticed that the BA Concorde paint scheme was slightly different to the rest of the fleet. All other BA aircraft have blue paintwork to the lower third of the fusalage yet all of the Concorde fuselage was painted white. Was this to reflect heat or just a marketing ploy? I have always presumed it was the former.
Thanks
Nick

Mine is one of the 202 development units, and 'knitting' is too kind... 'kludge' describes it better. I'll post a photo, if you like.
That myth was amplified substantially by BA removing those "secret" AICUs from the aircraft after the final delivery flights.
The way I understood the story was that they tried to collect as many reasonably reliable spare AICUs for the last few delivery flights, so as not to have to suddenly cancel a flight.
The AICU was right at the top of the list of "unscheduled removals". IIRC the tea maker was second...
The one I know about is the ADC/DAC board (analog-digital and digital-analog converter board). The supply of either ADCs or DACs ran out literaly worldwide, and the board had to be redesigned, requalified and recertified with more recent components, and a new batch manufactured. The cost, for the replacement of that board alone, came to about 3 million euros.
Somebody passed me a photo taken at Casablanca of a table full of AICUs waiting to be programmed... of course every software mod had to be programmed into all eight computers!
"... 'burning' each individual logic gate with a 9v battery." I believe you, thousands wouldn't... Didn't you have at least some sort of programming unit?
I went through a similar exercise around 1976, but at that time at least we had a programming "suitcase", that let you copy the original in RAM, modifiy bit-by-bit with a keyboard, then 'burn' the PROM (or EPROM, by then) 'automatically'. Still took half the night....

Funny in a way how these things have stuck in our memories... But then, yes, Concorde was unique.
I've said this elsewhere, but I don't mind repeating it... in those days, there were two programmes to be part of. One was Apollo, the other was Concorde. And I've had the chance to be part of one of them.

CJ

Brit312
It's so great to have a Flight Engineer's input into this fascinating thread. Your write up on the complexities of managing the fuel system was something else; the best such description I've ever read. I'm still wetting myself with your story about the E/O coming out of the loo with his trolleys around his ankles after a surge. (Not you I hope ).
The original air intake that was in use for the first few years of airline operation was as you know far more prone to surging than the later modified intake with the thinned and lowered bottom lip, which was far more stable and forgiving. Not only was the 'new' intake more stable, a new leading edge fitted to the rear ramp as part of the same modification, at a stroke cured the very serious ramp vibration issue, that was causing intake structural problems at lower supersonic Mach numbers. The most impressive change of all was a fuel saving of around 1.5 Tonnes per Atlantic crossing, with even bigger improvements in cooler temperatures. A major software change obviously accompanied this modification.

ChristiaanJ

Quote:

The one I know about is the ADC/DAC board (analog-digital and digital-analog converter board). The supply of either ADCs or DACs ran out literaly worldwide, and the board had to be redesigned, requalified and recertified with more recent components, and a new batch manufactured. The cost, for the replacement of that board alone, came to about 3 million euros

YEP! I remember now, the ADC/DAC board definitely WAS one of the candidates that were modified.
I think you will find the tale about AICUs being removed after museum delivery flights was more urban myth. The only units that I can remember being removed or relocated were the ground power protection unit, the TCAS processors and the radar transceivers. (BA had retrofitted their aircraft with a superb Bendix system a few years earlier, and the same units (with windshear detection re-enabled) are used on other aircraft types).
As far as ferrite cores are concerned, asked by DozyWannabe , the original Delco C1VAC INS fitted to the BA Concorde aircraft did utilise ferrite cores. These were replaced with CMOS EPROMs when a modification was carried out in the early 90's, in which a navigation database was fitted to the units. The fuel consumed and total fuel remaining indicators definitely used a ferrite core memory. These electronic displays used an internal memory in case of power interrupts. As far as AFCS goes, can you check your records? Although, as you say, a completely analog system (with the exception of the ITEM test computers) I seem to remember that the Safety Flight Control Computer used a ferrite core for the flying control strain gauge null memory. I could be wrong here, but I can't remember any other NVM in use at the time.

Galaxy Flyer
I'll leave it to one of my pilot (or F/E) friends to answer this one it that's OK.

Dude

Going back to expansion and paint. With the aircraft expanding approx 6 inches and a temp change up to 127`c, I guess a special kind of paint; able to withstand such adverse conditions; must have been used? When deciding on the paint specification was any consideration given to the overall weight of the paint?
Did the repeated expansion and contraction cycle have a detremental effect on the ulitamate life of the airframe?
I read somewhere that on the last supersonic flight of each BA Concorde, the flight engineer placed his cap into the gap between his panel and the cockpit bulkhead thus leaving it there for ever more. A nice story if true.
Once again thanks
Nick

I rode Concorde two or three times and what a ride it was!

On one occasion I had booked to travel BA 'J' class from Washington to Delhi on a regular business trip. Out of DCA to JFK they booked me on the 'Concorde shuttle' (a Dash 8 of US Airways, believe it or not) to connect with a 744 to LHR and another connection on to Delhi. At DCA check in the agent mumbled something about a catering problem out of JFK, but I took no particular notice. On arrival at Kennedy an agent with a name placard diverted me to the Concorde gate, a nice surprise indeed, even for a BA Gold Card holder.

On boarding Concorde, I gave my business card to the purser, asking that she pass it forward. A few minutes later as the door was closing she came back to pass along an invitation from the skipper to join them in the cockpit. During the short delay for start clearance, the captain briefed me on the Canarsie 31L departure I was about to watch from the jump seat behind. "3-2-1 GO" as the aircraft lept forward, V1/Vr/V2, 100', roll left 30 degrees to track towards Canarsie, 1' 30" (or something similar, some details are long forgotten now) power back for 500'/minute ROC to 3,000', then accelerate to 250K as the heading continued around for the outbound course and the ocean crossing. A true aerial ballet.

For the balance of the climb I plied the guys with questions and received courteous and detailed answers to every one, along with a 'freebie' - some hilarious repartee between the BALPA captain and the management F/O type, with occasional interjections by the Engineer. I stayed through the supersonic acceleration until I thought I'd worn out my welcome at cruise climb, returning to my seat in the mid cabin area for lunch. They invited me back for the descent and approach, which was very well appreciated.

On descent over the U.K. and passing through 10K' abeam Southampton, as I remember it we got a yellow 'Radiation' caution light (normally to warn of higher than normal levels of radiation in the tropoause from sun spot activity, I believe), which caused me to ask WTHWT? The slightly bored F/O said, as he cancelled the light, "Oh, its 'just' a nuclear power plant down there, we get this all the time"! (And for all these years I had swallowed the PR line from the nuclear industry that they were squeaky clean, unlike those of us in the aircraft manufacturing business??)

The approach and landing at LHR was fascinating to watch, without the frenetic activity of the departure. No flaps and no configuration change after gear down, virtually no flare, perhaps even a little nose down pitch as I observed (was that true??) the handling pilot just let it float into ground effect for a gentle touch down, snappily into reverse and heavy, but not maximum braking. It looked easy, of course.

The F/E was a key part of the entire operation and I find it hard to believe that a Concorde "B" would have eliminated his position, no matter how automated the systems might have become. The whole flight was very, very professionally handled with that air of apparent casualness that comes only from a very disciplined team operating at the peak of performance. A true joy to watch.

I guess I was just a minor part of the vaunted 'halo' effect that BA marketing always claimed for Concorde - its ability to pull additional traffic to its worldwide services in a very competitive business climate. But it sure worked for me! And all because of a catering misadventure, or was that just an excuse??

However, the thing that has always truly amazed me about Concorde is that this machine was created by two companies, two countries, with two languages, two systems of measure and two very different cultures in a period before the invention of Computer Aided Design and on-line communications! What a marvellous thing that mankind created. My hat off to you all.

Thank you, John, that was some flight!

TC

Other than being a regular customer of BA at the time, I was nobody. It certainly was First Class treatment, but as M2Dude said:

On the other hand, among the really important people that I recognized on that same flight included:

Boutros Boutros Ghali sitting in row 1 with his security detail
Paul Newman sitting directly behind me, reading my sports car magazines and asking why I was the one who got to ride up front
John McEnroe down the back, but uncharacteristically quiet!

As a BA apprentice in the early eighties I spent 12 months in the old 'wing hangar' (TBB) cutting my teeth, as it were, on the future of aviation. (The newly introduced B757 was also housed there so I was partly right). I was still growing-9 stone wet through and I had to run around in the rain to get wet-so if there was work to be done in the "Bent Nail's" fuel tanks then I was volunteered. Pouring tins and tins of Thiokols best sealant along leaking joints was a favoured pastime, so it begs the question were the leaks ever plugged?

I have a load of photos of G-BOAG just before it was reintroduced (rebuilt?) into service after being a Christmas tree for years. I think it was taken out of service after the wrong hydraulic fluid was uplifted but I may be wrong there. Never seen so many robbery labels before or since. If I ever get my scanner I'll post 'em up one day.

Fascinating thread gents, keep it going.

I had the pleasure of one trip as SLF on Concorde LHR - JFK (1978/9? grey cells depleting) which involved a return to LHR after dumping fuel due to hydraulic failure of two systems. No complaints from me, two take offs and landings for the price of one plus two hours of additional catering at LHR while the aircraft was fixed. Big run on asprins by the time we approached JFK!
However on the second departure the AC also suffered loss of hydraulic systems and I understood that it arrived at JFK on one system. After a storm delay at JFK I departed on AA listening to the ATC on the IFE with the Concorde following. Yet again the Concorde requested fuel dump and return due to hydraulic failures. The previous days I believe the Concorde had also experienced hydraulic failures and at one point BA cancelled some flights. AF were not experiencing the same problems and I read several years later that the problem was attributed to minute quantities of water being introduced into the system by a repenishing tanker being parked outside, wheras AF stored their tanker inside. The water then generated steam when the system ran with consequent seal failures.

Is the above cause correct, or was there more to the story?

Apart from all the normal Concorde observations, I also noticed that when trolling around over Bristol dumping fuel at a relatively high AoA the rear outboard surfaces, I was seated at the rear, vibrated at an alarming aplititude and frequency. Would this be caused by aerodynamic buffet or rapid auto pilot control inputs?

Thanks in anticipation.

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