Posts about: "Captains" [Posts: 62 Pages: 4]

All though the number of Concorde pilots was relatively small there were afew more than 97

Britsh Airways ------ Air France

Captains 73---------------------- 74

Co-Pilots 62 --------------------- 54


Total 135 --------------------- 128

Grand total of Pilots 263 [ includes two women]

Flight engineers 57-------------------------56

These numbers do not include the French and British flight test crews

Firstly a very big thank you to all who have made this the best read of the decade.

In response to both Christiaan and Brit312 posts, here is the role of honour proudly on display inside G-BOAC at Manchester.



Regards
Andy

Wow, what a great thread! I started reading it yesterday and am up to page 19 so far! I flew on the wonderful white bird once, in 1999, a Manchester - round the bay at Mach 2 - Paris flight in G-BOAD. And the wonderful thing was I did the entire flight, push back at Manchester to parking at Paris, in the jump seat! What a fabulous experience - thank you Roger!

Here's a picture I took as the aircraft turne left towards the French coast:



One memory is climbing through 50,000 feet over South Wales before turning down the Bristol Channel. It was glorious August day and I had a great view forward past the captain and particularly out of the left window. The speed over the ground at Mach 0.95 seemed noticably faster than a subsonic jet, and that view was breathtaking! The Bristol Channel was edged in golden yellow beaches, and I could see right across south west England to the English Channel. In my headset the controller called another aircraft; "Speedbird 123 if you look up now you will see you are about to be overflown by Concorde". I leaned towards my side window and there was Speedbird 123, a tiny scurrying beetle miles below us. From this height the fair-weather cu looked as if they were on the ground - like small white splodges from some celestial artist's paint brush.

We cruised at Mach 2 and 60,000' over the Bay for a while and the pax came forward to view the flightdeck. I was amazed how patient was the supernumery captain who was answering the same questions over and over again was (the flight crew were too busy to chat).

The approach to CDG looked far steeper than other airliner approaches I had witnessed from the flight deck; more like one of my glide approaches in the Chipmunk! But it wasn't, of course, as we were following the 3 degree glideslope. I guess it was an illusion brought about by the steep pitch angle.

I remember the captain resting his hands on the throttles as they shuttled back and forth under autothrottle control, the smooth touchdown, the 'landing' of the nosewheel followed by full forward stick, and thinking "we'll never make that turn off". Then on came the powerful reverse and the brakes, I was thrust foreward in my harness, the speed disappeared, and we made the turnoff easily!

Oh, and that stange bouncy ride in the flight deck on the ground as the long nose forward of the nosewheel flexed over every joint in the taxyway. So bad at times it was difficult to take a photograph!

What an experience!

I have a question which I hope hasn't been answered in the pages (20 to this one) that I've yet to read.

From an earlier post I understand that the anti-skid used a rotational reference from the unbraked nosewheels to compare to the rotation of the mains, and that with gear down in the air a substiute nose-wheel referance is supplied which, because the mains are not yet rotating, allows the anti-skid to keep the brakes off.

But what happens when the mains touch down with the nosewheels still high in the air? What (if anything) inhibits wheel braking until the nosewhels are on the ground (and therefore rotating)?

Also, this thread started with a question about the lack of an APU. When Concorde was parked could the aircon and cabin lighting be powered by external electrical power, or did the cabin aircon without engine power require an external 'aircon unit' to be connected? Or was aircon simply not available without at least one engine running?

And one for Landlady or any other CC. If a table top was set up between the cabins during service, how did the 'front' crew service the first 2 rows of the rear cabin?

Being 'up front' for my entire flight, I missed out on the cabin service. But superb though I'm sure that was, under the circumstances it's not something I regret!

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

During the early years there was some doubt from the CAA that the aircraft could be handled in Mech signalling in the transonic region. Lots of meetings were held, and finally on a test flight the gentleman was invited again and one of the original training Captains flew the aircraft perfectly through the transonic area whilst descending in Mech Signalling. With that said it was a delicate area and control inputs had to be gentle and small so I understand



Yes there was an Ignitor selector labelled LH--Both--RH, however the engines would be started using only one ignitor. This caused a few small but annoying delays as if the selected ignitor failed the start would have to be stopped the starter given a cooling period and then a further engine start using the other ignitor would be attempted, however it did give a running check that both ignitors were working.

This was not very popular with the crews and the ground engineers were persuaded to test the ignitors before presenting the aircraft for service. However due to the engine starting Fuel Pump switching, this resulted with a small fire in the hanger, and so the crews were back to starting on Lh or RH ignitors.

If I remember correctly the RR Conways on the VC-10 also had 2 ignitors per engine with a LH--Both-RH selector.

At one time there was a suggestion that BA adopt the Air France technique where the F/E did this check on the ground pumps prior to engine start, which did not go down very well with the F/E. It was fortunate that some one came up with the suggestion that this would wear the ground pumps out , and so this check stayed as apilot check after the engined were running [Thank God]

If you remember, if something went wrong with the Flying control check the F/E was always busy. This gave him a chance to think up a suitable answer or even better the pilots did the check again and it now worked.

No dude we never came to see you boys for the "Pilots Tech Refresher" as we always had to keep those lectures very simple as otherwise the pilots would go to sleep.

Now I have to admit coming across the hanger to consult with you boys when preparing for a new sequence of F/E "Tech Knowledge Checks". Not that we did not understand it, you understand, but mainly to make sure that we were correct before some clever line F/E informed you of your error. Very embarrising that, and I should know

Hi,

I've been following this thread with great interest. I hope some of you silver haired Captains (yes, with a capital C) can answer a question that has been bugging my mind for the last few days.

After watching the ITVV Concorde video it is apparant that you check the Reversers and air shut off valve. How do you do this test and what are you looking for?
I've been trying to get it to work in the FLS ConcordeX , but so far without luck. The buckets move accordingly in the air and when selecting reverse. And they say it's simulated as well.

Thanks,

Martin

Blue Wave
Although Marketing (bless 'em) and the usual 'Emperors New Clothes' brigade thought that this was wonderful, most of 'us' in the fleet thought that this was really quite a naff idea and would end up being a total annoyance to most regular Concorde passengers. The idea was that at Mach 1 a battery of blue lights would wash a single pulse from the rear to the front of the cabin. At Mach 2 you would get a double whammy blue light show to help ruin your concentration.

Marilake
I remember these 'improvements' to be embodied in 'project rocket' (as you say, pretty unreadable) but it would be interesting to look at the history of this thing. When it was first fitted in the mid to late 80s it proved itself to be total junk: Instead of using an off the shelf microprocessor design, Marilake Instruments decided to use a custom processor running from dedicated TTL/CMOS chips, it used a clumsy parallel instead of serial databus between the displays (stacks of extra wiring) ran red hot all the time (the toasty display units were surrounded by coats in the wardrobes to boot and also used a master/slave layout, where it the master (fwd right hand) display developed a fault you lost the whole shooting match. Just to put the cherry on the parfait, flight data had to be entered via a laughingly called 'hand held controller' that was fitted against the side of the C/B panel behind the captains seat. (This thing was so big that the supernumerary seat had to have restriction fitted to its fwd travel, to prevent the seat or occupier colliding with this monster). Now this thing, which was in reality a quite large LCD portable commercial computer terminal (it even ran BASIC!!), had to be initialised before every flight, and the crew had to input Baud Rates as well as all sorts of other bilge before the system would hopefully initialise. As often as not the system would lock up, and I'm quite sure that if this thing had not been tethered via a power and data cable, many a pilot or E/O would have tossed the thing out of the DV window!!. Reliability became so awful that eventually the whole system was disabled for about a year while Marilake were forced/coerced/threatened into a total system redesign. The final product, which ran nice and cool abandoned nearly all of the original hardware (no more master/slave arrangement either), utilised an ARINC 429 type databus and came equipped with new plasma displays which FINALLY worked rather well. The crap commercial computer terminal was replaced by a really neat data entry panel that was fitted on the left hand centre consul that worked pretty good from day 1. FINALLY the darned system worked.

Best Regards
Dude

What a cracking image and again, what a cracking thread which I read and re-read to appreciate the machine and the people who operated and cared for it.

Having watched David, Les and Roger more times than my wife cares to remember and studied Mr Calvert's excellent book I find the image facinating in that to the rear of the Captain there are lots of trip switches (?) and below the Flight Engineers table on each side many items that I havent seen before.

If someone could explain what they are I would be extremely thankful!

Kind regards

Sidders

hissinsid
I have to admit, this is one superb image (and a nice high resolution one also) of my old friend Alpha Alpha.

As far as the trip switches to the rear of the captain, not quite sure what you are refering to I'm afraid unless you mean the area on 213 circuit breaker panels? Also located here are the Audio Selector Panel, the emergency windshield de-ice switches (quite hairy really , 200 volts placed straight on the main windshield heating film with no temperature regulation or overheat protection). As well we also have the lighting controls for the panel and a fully deployed observer's coffee cup holder.
As far as the bits either side of the E/O's table, well there is a fair bit, but I'll do my best:
To the left we have the engine start panel, the air conditioning test panel (also encompassing the fuel vent suppression test and indication and gauge limit reset button) and door warning panel. Below these panels are the mode selector panels for the Inertial Navigation Systems and the artificial feel test and Ram Air Turbine control panels. At the very bottom we have the air intake test and diagnostic panels, as well as the anti ice indicator panel. The E/O's Audio Selector Panel and last of all we have the radiation meter and landing gear fault annunciator. (This item is not fitted to aircraft G-BOAG or any Air France aircraft).
To the right we have the Aircraft Integrated Data System panel and immediately below that the compass control panel. (Concorde was one of the very last aircraft to have a magnetic heading reference system, modern aircraft synthesise magnetic heading against true heading and geographic position). Below that we have the oxygen indication panel and to the top right of the section we have the engine and fire test panel. Immediately below this we have the automatic test panel for Automatic Flight Control System and below this the smoke detector test panel. Below this we have the cockpit voice recorder panel and last of all the current monitor panel for the intake secondary air doors.
WHEW!! I hope this helps but if not please ask away.

Regards
Dude

Dude

Many thanks for your comprehensive reply, you have indeed answered my curiosity and I couldn't for the life of me think of the words "circuit breakers" when I typed my message but you are right, thats what I meant in terms of the area behind the Captain and where the fourth cup holder is .

I dont think this question has been asked so far and I always wonder, did they all fly the same or did the crews know that each airframe had her own foibles? I do understand that AA was a bit heavier than AG but were there examples of knowing that AC was a bit slow to get her nose and visor down for example?

Many, many thanks for your contributions and expertise I do so enjoy reading this thread, even with a heavy heart knowing shes no longer pushing Mach 2.00.

Regards

Sidders

It's on the captain's side - no. 1.

G-AXDN and G-BBDG in the UK have the 3 INS controllers across the front of the pedestal under the primary engineer gauges. I can only suggest that this was dow to the Pilots being the navigators and the engineer being the engineer. Once in Airline service ensuring each crew member has an INS control panel greatly speeded up the checks. Of note 001/002 actually had a navigator in the cockpit behind the Captain, rather than the jump seat.

Standard spec INS systems for that time. Someone may have more information, but they were upgraded over time to having very little memory requiring load from a data card, to having memory for the core routes the aircraft flew in the system permanently, but still only 10 Waypoints could be loaded live at any one time.


GPS would been a complete replacement for an INS. The clever thing the INS system could do was use DME updating to refine their position when in range of a ground station....a bit like how your smart phone can work out your location by cell mast triangulation if it does not have a GPS receiver in it.

Very relevant for the current time: it was a similar INS system that was hashed into the Vulcan to allow it to find the falklands for the blackbuck raids.

Wow, what an amazing thread which I have only recently found.

Congratulations to all for a fascinating read

Although I never got the opportunity to fly on Concorde, I will never forget seeing her fly some charters from Filton in the late 1990's. On one occasion I was stood at the wire fence at the end of runway 27 and watched Concorde taxi directly towards me, do a 360 degree turn and line up for takeoff. Concorde was only around 100ft-150ft away from me when the throttles were opened. Luckily I was holding tightly onto the fence and got a face full of dust as the reheats kicked in! The noise, power and heat I felt from those Olympus engines was phenomenal. She looked stunning as she rotated amongst the heat haze and the slender delta climbed steeply away towards the Bristol Channel. What an aircraft!

My grandfather worked on the Olympus 593 engines at Rolls Royce in Filton, so I will always hold Concorde close to my heart. I have been onboard Foxy at Filton when she was open to the public and I have visited 002 at Yeovilton and 101 at Duxford. I live quite close to Delta Golf at Brooklands and have been onboard her about 4 times now (including a sit in the cockpit) and recently flew the fantastic Concorde simulator with Captain John Eames and First Officer Ian Smith which is a day I will treasure. Opening up the throttles for take-off on 31L at JFK and tackling the checkerboard landing at Kai Tak were experiences I will never forget.

Keep up the great postings everyone!

Just finished the Haynes 'Concorde workshop manual'


This is a collaboration between a retired Concorde Captain and Flight Engineer.


The one excerpt that really caught my eye was the reference to the method of construction and differences between the British and French built Aircraft.


'The French fuselage was designed to safe life principles while the British was designed to fail safe. From window line to window line across the top of the fuselage Bristol used three skin panels overlapping at 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock while Toulouse used two, overlapping at 12 o'clock'



This revelation was a big surprise to me, for a production run of 14 airframes two different construction methods were employed apparently, amazing.


I had always thought the airframes were virtually identical.


Anyone have any further insight on this ?

BA 2 JFK-LHR 23.08.1992


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

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

Many thanks in advance.

For those willing to search out a podcast:
166 ? Flying the Concorde | omega tau

This time we talk with former Concorde pilot John Hutchinson about flying this Mach 2 airliner. We discuss the cornerstones of the design and construction of the aircraft, its operation (mostly with British Airways), flying characteristics as well as the infamous accident in Paris in 2000 (on which John has some very specific opinions).

ZeBedie

...Was pilot selection purely on seniority?...

Fortunately, Yes!

It was (almost) exactly the same process as pilot selection for any other aircraft move in BA.

• There had to be a vacancy on the type.
• You had to be "unfrozen" and free to bid.
• You had to be senior enough to obtain one of the vacancies.
• You had to pass the conversion course.

There were two minor differences to the normal BA process that applied once you had been notified of a successful bid and allocated a course date.

• Before starting the course, if you changed your mind, you could voluntarily withdraw without penalty and remain on your existing fleet.
• If the Chief Pilot on your existing fleet felt there were clearly defined technical reasons why you would be unlikely to complete the Concorde conversion course successfully, you could be denied the course.

Over the years, there were a very small number who were denied a conversion course on technical grounds, one of whom I knew personally.

There were several people who voluntarily withdrew from a course they had been allocated. Often this was after a look-see trip and a chat with crewmembers about the conversion course and life on the fleet. This was not uncommon, and I got my conversion course, at shortish notice, after just such a voluntary withdrawal by a more senior pilot.

Finally, often people are surprised to learn that - for various reasons - most BA pilots never put in a bid for Concorde. The year I got my course, there were around 600 captains in BA senior to me who had declined to bid.

@Bellerophon:

Interesting info - cheers!

As a sort-of tangent, as an aviation-mad nipper I watched and recorded the 1988 BBC Concorde Special, and pretty much wore the VHS tape out. The skipper on that flight was Hutch (who also just-so-happened to be a BBC aviation correspondent on the side). The reason I bring it up was that the FO was Chris Norris, who mentioned that he was just about to be made Captain - and regretfully that meant he'd be leaving the Concorde flight deck, most likely for a subsonic short-haul type (he reckoned it'd be the B757).

As I recall, I think I remember reading that Capt. Norris did end up returning to Concorde as a captain before the type was retired - so I'm guessing that previous experience as FO did count when making the bid. Was that the case?

DozyWannabe

Chris Norris did indeed return to the Concorde fleet as a Captain, later becoming the last Training Captain to be appointed on the fleet.

He was one of the most able and respected Captains on the fleet, as well as an excellent instructor, and his signature appears in my licence when he was the instructor on my last Concorde simulator check in June 2003.

Once back on Concorde as a Captain, his previous record and experience as a Concorde F/O would undoubtedly have weighed heavily in his favour on selection for the Training Captain appointment (which was a merit-based selection) however it would have had no bearing on his being offered a return to Concorde as a Captain, which, as described above, was a seniority-based selection.

The annual postings and promotions process in BA, whilst sometimes lengthy and tortuous, had the virtue of being highly transparent. Every application, from every pilot, was listed, along with the results and reasons for the results, and this document was available to any pilot who wished to check!

Former Concorde Captain Keith Myers was one of my IR procedural instructors around 13yrs ago at Redhill. He had some fascinating stories about the early days of operations. Flying circuits at Shannon for example.

I recall a story about timing from break release to Supersonic, I think, from Shannon. Would 9 minutes be realistic? I forget the detail.