Posts about: "F-WTSB" [Posts: 8 Pages: 1]

M2dude,

Re the MEPU at the Le Bourget museum...
The story I just got was that it was taken off F-WTSA or F-WTSB at Roissy for a fault and replaced (both 'SA and 'SB operated out of Roissy around '74 / '75 for things like route proving, etc.).
It got left on a shelf in a store, and was only discovered again in 2003 during the "big clean-out" and was saved 'in extremis' by somebody who recognised it for what it was, stopped it from being 'binned' and took it over to the museum.

Initially of couse it was. It was not until the return to subsonic, towards the end of the flight, that the contents of the n\xb0 11 trim tank were moved forward again to the other tanks.
So yes, you're right, essentially all of it was "useable" fuel, it did not serve only for the trim.

Don't we all....
Jock Lowe seems to have stated there is a photo.... and we all still wonder if there is some footage taken from the Lear Jet during the filming of "Airport 79". But none is publicly known to exist ... we just know it's been done!

Biggles78
Sorry Biggles78, I'd forgotten to answer your CofG query, so here we go: CofG was a really critical parameter on Concorde, being a delta, with no tailplane made it more so at take off speeds, and as we've previously said, was how we trimmed the aircraft for supersonic flight. CG was expressed as a percentage of the aerodynamic chord line. To get indication of CG you needed to know the mass of fuel in each tank; easy, from the FQI system. You needed to know the moment arm of each tank, (fixed of course). You then needed the zero fuel weight (ZFW) and zero fuel CG (ZFCG); these were manually input into the CG computers by the F/E, from load control data. The final parameter you needed was total fuel weight, again easy from the FQI system.
The 'normal' T/O CG was 53.5%, but in order to increase fuel weight (and hence range) an extra 'bump' was enabled to allow a max T/O CG of 54%. (CG was indicated on a linear gauge, with forward and aft limit 'bugs' either side of the needle. These bugs would move as a function of Mach and at the lower end of the speed range, A/C weight also). As the A/C accelerated, the limit bugs would move rearwards (with of course the rearward shifting centre of pressure) and so the fuel would be moved from the two front trim tanks 9 & 10 to the rear tank. 11. Once tank 11 reached it's preset limit (around 10 tonnes), the remainder of the 'front' fuel would automatically over-spill into tanks 5 & 7. (Once the fuel panel was set up, the whole process was controlled with a single switch). At Mach 2, the CG would be around 59%, the whole rearwards shift being in the order of 6'. As we said before, the 'final' CG could be tweaked to give us a 1/2 degree down elevon, for minimum drag.
I really hope this helps Biggles78.

Guys, back to the Airbus thing; My friend ChristiaanJ gave some really accurate insights, (he always does) but there is another legacy that carries on the this day; some of the audio warning tones were COPIED from Concorde into Airbus. (For example, the A/P disconnect audio is identical). I think this is great, and gives 'our' aircraft a lasting everyday legacy.

As far as the fly by wire goes, Concorde had a relatively simple analog system, with little or no envelope protection (Except at extreme angles if attack). As has been previously poted before, production series test aircraft 201, F-WTSB, pioneered the use of a sidestick within a new digital fly by wire Controlled Conviguration Vehicle sytem, with envelope protection and attitude rate feedback. (This evolved into the superb system known and loved by the Airbus community). It is a really bizaar twist of fate that the Concorde FBW system has more mechanical similarities to the system used in the B777 than Airbus. (Mechanically similar at the front end, with an electric backdrive system moving the column in A/P mode; Concorde being backdriven by a hydraulic relay jack).
As a final piece of irony; the Primary Flight Control Computers on the B777 are designed and built by GEC Marconi Avionics in Rochester Kent, now BAe Systems. This is the same plant where Elliot (becoming Marconi and finally GEC Marconi Avionics) developed and built the UK half of the AFCS computers. Isn't this aviation world strange?
Galaxy Flyer
Your inputs here are great, and I'm sure appreciated by all. (I assume from your name that you were a C5A pilot. While I was in the RAF on C-130's, our Lockheed rep' used to supply us all with company magazines, that were full of stuff on this new (it was then) giant of the sky. I fell in love with it there and then).
Anyway, back to Conc': The decel' positions were carefully worked out and adhered to; the aim was to be subsonic to within (I think) 50 nm of the east coast. I'll wait for one of my Concorde pilot friends to confirm that here, but i think I'm correct. I do have a fond memory of one flight out of JFK; we were temporarily 'held' by Boston ATC to Mach 1.6 (and at around FL440) because of an Air France Concorde heading for JFK. We saw this guy above us, at around FL580 on a near reciprical , doing Mach 2, screaming straight over the top of us. We were excited by this amazing spectacle, and so were the AF crew over the VHF ('you never boomed us, did we boom you?'). But the most excited person of all was this guy in Boston ATC. ('I've never seen anything like it guys, your two blips whistled over each other on my my screen like crazy').
Stliton
As far as the F/D noise levels were concerned, once the nose and visor were raised, it was as if someone had switched off the noise . The main source of noise up there was just the equipment cooling, and that was not bad either. It was, in my view, little noisier up than most subsonics. (But not the 744, where you are so far away from all the racket ).
Ozgrade3
You're making us blush here; thanks for your comments, I think we are just trying to share some of our experiences (and 'bit's we've picked up over the years).
From my perspective, I did write some stuff used by our pilots, AF even got a copy or two I think.

You're right, it was 201 (F-WTSB).
After certification the aircraft was retained for several flight test programmes, not all of them Concorde-related.
In this case it was an early trial of the sidestick for the A320.
Concorde was already a fly-by-wire aircraft, so it was "relatively" easy to hook a sidestick into the system.
Unfortunately, I remember only some of the details...
It was only fitted on the left.
The righthand side remained fully conventional, and the RH seat pilot acted as the safety pilot.

Yes, definitely.
The story doesn't tell, I'm afraid. At the time it would have 'confidential', of course.

Not really... as I said it was just an early test for the A320.
At the time the aircraft were already certified, so it would have meant a MAJOR modification of the flying controls, AND recertification.
Also there was no requirement for it... the Concorde flying controls were judged perfectly satisfactory by the pilots.

Yes, that remained connected to the conventional controls (I'm not even sure whether the LH control column was removed).
Of course the sidestick would have its own, totally different artificial feel, since the control laws were different.

CJ

OK, I see others have already posted answers.
I've carefully avoided looking at them, but I'll might as well plug in mine now.

My personal problem is that I was involved in the very earliest days, before the aircraft went into service, and then in the last days and afterwards...
So the questions dealing with the in-service period are totally outside my field of experience... all I can do is guess, in case I saw the answers somewhere.

1) How many Concorde airframes were built?
Twenty-two.
Two static-test airframes.
- One at Toulouse, for purely static tests, and tests such as vibration and flutter.
- One at Farnborough, for the long-duration thermal fatigue tests.
(A few bits and pieces of the Farnborough test specimen have survived, and can still be seen at the Brooklands museum).
Two prototypes (001 and 002)
Two pre-production aircraft (01 and 02)
Two production aircraft used for certification, that never entered service (201 - F-WTSB and 202 - G-BBDG)
Fourteen production aircraft, seven that served with British Airways, seven that served with Air France.

2) As far as the British constructed aircraft went, name the destinations that were served?. Regular flight numbers only, excludes charters etc.
Not a clue as to the full list.
- Bahrain, obviously.
- JFK.
- IAD (not sure if that's rated as regular, or only incidental)
- Dallas (with Braniff)
- Barbados (of course, right until the end)
- Sngapore (with Singapore Airlines, and G-BOAD in Singapore Airlines colours on one side)
- Sydney (again no idea if that rated as a regular flight or only a few tries)

3) What was the departure time for the ORIGINAL morning LHR-JFK Concorde services? (Not called the BA001 then either).
Not a clue either. Vague memory of about 10:00 am which gave you a full working day in New York.

4) Further to question 3 above, what WERE the original flight numbers for the BA001 and BA003? (The morning and evening LHR-JFK services?)..
Never flew on them, never had to deal with them.
BA174 comes to mind from the depths of my memory, in that case BA003 would have been BA176?

5) There were no less than FORTY SIX fuel pumps on Concorde. What was the breakdown for these? (Clue; don't forget the scavenge pump )
M2dude, I did AFCS, not the fuel system. I believe you, but without pulling out some diagrams I honestly have NO idea.
I expect each tank had at least two pumps, which gets me up to 26.
Then there were a few emergency pumps for the trim tanks, and I suppose each engine had additional pumps associated with it.
Still nowhere near the 46 I need to find.....

6) What airframe had the only TOTALLY unique shape?
That would have been my old friend, 01 (G-AXDN), first pre-production aircraft, now at Duxford.
It was the first Concorde with the new transparent visor, but it still had the short tail that characterised the prototypes.
It was 02 (F-WTSA), the first French pre-production aircraft, that was close to the final shape of the production aircraft.

7) This one is particularly aimed at ChristiaanJ. What was the total number of gyros on the aircraft?
Good question.... never counted them all. But I'll try a guess.
First a nice one, the SFENA Emergency Standby Artificial Horizon (made by the firm I worked for).
Ran off the Emergency Battery Bus via a small independent inverter.
And if that failed too, it would still run reliably for several minutes on its own inertia.
Next, the rate gyros used by the autostabilisation system ; these measured the angular rate of the aircraft along the three main axes, pitch, roll and yaw.
There were six, three each for the two autostab systems.
Now the rest....
Each IMU (inertial measurement unit, part of the inertial naviagation system) had three gyros.
With three INS on board, that would make nine.
Much as I try, I can't remember other ones, so I'll look forward to the final answer.
I can imagine the weather radar using an additional gyro for stabilisation, but I never went there.

8) How many wheel brakes?
Unless this is a trick question, I would say eight, for each of the main gear wheels.
The nose gear did not have any brakes - unless there were some small ones to stop the wheels rotating after retraction of the gear, but not used during landing.

9) What Mach number was automatic engine variable intake control enabled?
No idea.
Mach 1.0 or thereabouts is my personal guess only.

10) Above each bank of engine instruments were three lights, a blue, a green and an amber. What did they each signify?
I know that they each monitored the status of one of the engines, because it was too complex for the pilots to fully monitor all the parameters of all four engines in the short time between start-of-roll and V1... they had too many other things to do.
But I don't remember what each light meant, would have to look it up in the manual.

11) At what airfied were the first BA crew base training details held?
No idea.
Was it Brize Norton, or Casablanca?

12) What LHR runways did Concorde use for landing and take-off? (Trick question, not as obvious as it might seem).
No idea.
Vague memory of it being systematically the North runway for noise issues.

13) What operator had serious plans to operate Concorde from SNN to JFK in the early 1980's?
No idea.

14) What development aircraft did not exceed Mach 2 until fifteen months after her maiden flight?
I would expect the obvious answer to be 002.
Working up from first flight to Mach 2 was a slow and laborious process, and in the end it was 001 that both flew first, and also went to Mach 2 first.
I don't think any of the other aircraft took that long.

A I said, I tried to answer all questions "off the top of my head", without looking at any other sources.

CJ

Clive, you're right.
F-WTSB (201) was painted in that horrific scheme by students at Toulouse.
Since that was in 1989, and 'SB made his last flight in 1985, and was not maintained airworthy, he never flew with that colour scheme....
The 'Pepsi' aircraft was indeed F-BTSD (213), and leased from AF for the occasion.

CJ

ITman, nice question.
I haven't seen any of the detailed (block) diagrams, so I'm not sure at all how the sidestick was "hooked into" the AFCS.

Don't forget Concorde already used "electrical flying control signalling" (aka "Fly-By-Wire")., so system integration would have been easier than on some other aircraft.

For those unfamiliar with the story... F-WTSB, very late in its career, was used for some flight trials with a sidestick controller fitted to the left-hand position (the right-hand seat controls still being the normal ones,and with the right-hand seat occupied by a 'safety' pilot).
The flight test data were later "fed" into the A-320 programme.

How much of the "rate" control and other A-320 control logic was already implemented in the test system is unknown, AFAIK ....
Would be interesting to know some more about it, I agree!

CJ

All questions still welcome!

Not quite....

There were two prototypes , 001 and 002 (the ones with the odd porthole visors).
There were two preproduction aircraft: 01, the British one, with a full 'look-through' visor' and 02, the French one, the first one that looked like the production model, with both a 'full' visor, and the 'pointy' tail.
Then there were two 'near-production' aircraft, that were used for certification, route-proving, and suchlike, but that never entered airline service (201 and 202, now best known as 'F-WTSB' and "Delta-Golf").

And yes, then there were 14 production aircraft, that in the end all made it into service with BA and AF.

This is still a slight puzzle.....
The '67' figure probably refers only to the version of the 593 engnes for the production aircraft (4x14=56, plus spares), and not to the earlier versions used for development/testing, for the prototypes, the preprods and the cerification aircraft.

AFAIK , all the production aircraft flew with 'new' engines.

Funnily enough, there's a current discussion on a French Concorde forum on the same subject, trying to figure out not only exactly how many engines were built, but also the "where are they now?".

It would be a nice item to add to the "Concorde Story". We may have to appeal to the RR Historical Trust to open their archives, and tell us exactly how many Olympus 593's were built, and what they can tell us about their history.

CJ

Thanks again CliveL

A few pages earlier on this thread some of you have posted some of their favourite photos of Concorde. Here are very sad, chocking and rare photos:

This is 211 (F-BVFD) after "Air France's special treatment" (shame on them). The photos were taken in 1994. More photos of this can be seen here: Maripa : Documentation photographique.

To compensate, here's one of my favourite:


Most of those photos were taken at Toulouse (we saw a lot from Filton in this thread but very few from France). The caption of the top left picture says it is 102 (F-WTSA) and 201 (F-WTSB) in the background. The image comes from a french website ( Concorde dans la presse de 1965 \xe0 2003 ) gathering hundreds of articles about Concorde. Very interesting but in French only.
I particulary like this last serie of photos because it shows the process of a dream turning into reality, the beginning of such a beautiful adventure and the symbol of a time where national pride and technical achievment had more importance and value than the basic investment/profitability ratio that rules the world today! And now, more than 40 years later, not only we are not able to build a SST but we are also not able to make a SST flying again.
And this leads to a new question (maybe another 64000$ one):
As we can see in those photos and as I have seen in photos from Filton, several pre-production and production airframes were built at the same time. Did the fabrication of pre-production or production a/c had to be stopped at some point to wait for in flight test results? Similar question: did the early flights revealed unforseen problems that needed to be sorted out before the program can move on?