Posts about: "Haynes guide to Concorde" [Posts: 13 Pages: 1]

Ozgrade3,
I would say those books already have been written... from the autobiographies of Turcat and Trubshaw, through the books by people like Brian Calvert, Christopher Orlebar and others, to the Haynes "Concorde Owners' Workshop Manual" (!), that's come out recently.

I've written some bits and pieces, but it's more for my offspring, to explain what all that Concorde junk and documentation in the shed is all about, so they don't all thrash it when I'm gone... I don't think my story would interest a larger public.

As M2dude says, we just like to share some of our experiences with those who are interested.

First of all, THANKS to all you from Concorde family for this fantastic topic. Started reading last night and almost slept in front of computer trying to read everything!

As a Concorde fan for 10 years (since I bought FS2000), and passionate developer of SSTSIM Concorde and FSLabs ConcordeX (flight dynamics, weight and balance), it's simply awesome to have you guys and gal here sharing your memories.

Regarding the CG corridor, here's a fantastic graphic from online Concordepedia, aka ConcordeSST.com, Technical/Fuel System section:



Interestingly, it doesn't show a warning for CG>59.1% above M1.6, opposite to what M2Dude said earlier on the topic.

I got curious on the Max Climb/Cruise and ALT ACQ not being primed. How the levelling at FL600 was done? Manually?

Regarding the fuel tanks, specially tanks 6 and 8: did these tanks' lateral center of gravity change with quantity? Due to their completely assymetrical shape, I'd expect some change in it.

Operationial question: did BA use the 380kts descent profile? Have heard that only AFR used it, but Haynes' book says that BA started using it too.

There are many doubts regarding procedures as manuals and informations available on the internet are mostly from BA 1976 entry-into-service era. But i understand many things changed along the years, as I can see on a Aug 2000 manual I've got, with percentages showing differences from the 76 era, or even completely new tables.

Well, that's it, hope to be able to contribute on the topic, but mainly learn from you that flew the real thing.

Hello again!

I went on Thursday to one of the few aviation libraries in Brazil, and found a very rare book on Concorde. Once they take copies of the items I requested, will share here.

The book in question was edited in 1969, French and English, and shows all suppliers of the protoypes, with some interesting ads.

Well, just recycling my questions, lost on the previous page:
1) Were the flights to Ronivaniemi supersonic?
2) For BA001 and BA003, 2 Concordes were prepared for the same flight, right? Did ever happened some situation that required a ready-for-takeoff Concorde be brought back? How long a cargo and passengers transfer would take? The backup Concorde was fueled?

And a new question:
3) Haynes' book on page 23, says about an increased MLW of 130 tons instead of the famous 111,13 tons. I NEVER, ever, heard/read about this, can anyone shine a light on it?

Thanks again for all your posts, about to watch the BBC videos!

BlueConcorde

... Haynes' book on page 23, says about an increased MLW of 130 tons instead of the famous 111,13 (sic) tons. I NEVER, ever, heard/read about this, can anyone shine a light on it?...

I'm not aware of what Haynes may say about Concorde - I don't have a copy of the book and haven't read it - however it is well documented that landings at weights up to 130,000 kgs were permitted on Concorde, provided various conditions were met.

It was a Conditional Procedure called Fuel Saving Landing .

BA did not plan flights to land at 130,000 kgs but the procedure was available for use when required.

In practice it was rarely used, and the occasions on which it was used tended to be following a return to the departure airfield, or a diversion in the early part of the flight, with the aircraft still above the (normal) maximum landing weight, in order to reduce the amount of fuel to be jettisoned.


Best Regards

Bellerophon

Nice, thank you Bellorophon for clarification. The books makes it sound like it became something normal.

By the way, I highly recommend this book to everybody, a different point of view, new photos and nice info regarding this bird.

Nice!! Do you have any idea of the route? Supersonic over the North and Norwegian Seas then inbound continent? Or Supersonic only after getting to the Baltic Sea?

Nice info regarding BA004! But if a repair was needed, would BA004 take-off anyway to Gatwick or Birmingham? Has it ever arrived a bit late?

I always read/heard that above 300 knots the ride became veeeeery smooth, and that below this speed, the vortex became "active". IIRC this is written on Stick & Rudder and/or Calvert's book.


Thank you all, awesome topic!!

Thanks Dude and Bellerphon for such graphic descriptions of JFK 31L take off. Nearest I came to experiencing anything like that was landing at Kai Tak in the 80's!
Out of interest Bellerphon was there a supersonic acceleration point for JFK departures or as you were soon over the ocean, was it a case of it happened when it happened?
Regards
Nick
P.S Thanks Christiaan for your Concorde book thread. I am hoping that Santa brings me the Haynes manual!

You mean you actually were on one of the Concorde landings at Kai Tak?
You'll have everybody here green with envy....
Even if it was on a "blunty" it was still spectacular.
And I think Kai Tak is already in the Brooklands sim database.... so you can now come and fly it yourself....

I'll let Bellerophon answer.... but there once was a low-weight take-off from Cardiff straight out to sea, without any restrictions, that IIRC still holds the record for the shortest time to Mach 1 and Mach 2 from brake release....

No thanks needed... I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I did !

CJ

I have been a Concorde fan since I won a flight on it in 1980, courtesy of a competition in the Birmingham Evening Mail.

I got the Haynes Manual for Christmas. On page 95 there is a diagram and photo of the centre dash panel, showing among other things the fuel consumption gauges, which, remarkably, read up to 35 tonnes per engine per hour. There appears to be two digital displays per gauge as well as an analogue display.

What was the peak consumption per engine, and why two digital displays on each gauge?

To refresh memories, here's the only, not very helpful, entry in the Flying Manual that I've found.



My guess is that the upper digital counter indicates the proportion of the fuel flow that goes to the reheat but it's only a guess.

Sorry, I have no figure for the max fuel consumption.
The '35 tonnes/hr' limit on the indicator is obviously beyond the upper limit, like the speedo on a car.....
But yes, fuel consumption at takeoff with reheat was horrendous, and would have emptied all the tanks in an hour or less.

CJ

If the quote in message #1504 is correct, why would there be a vibration problem on take off in engine #4 only ?
Ref: p80 Haynes 'Owners Workshop Manual'

I make no claim to technical knowledge but this seems unlikely. Is there a source for this?

Year of the Tiger

I don't envy you your self imposed task, you will I'm afraid find it quite difficult to get any detailed drawings as they were long ago buried in the archives of two now non-existent companies - Sud Aviation and British Aircraft Corporation.

The best source of overall structure drawings I have seen is that on the HeritageConcorde.com site. which also gives some explanations of the structural concepts. The Haynes Concorde Owners Workshop Manual also has some interesting data. One problem is that the loading conditions on the various bits of the wing varied so much and the whole thing was so finely optimised for weight saving that there are many different structural concepts used.

You (and others here) may find a 1999 lecture given by Dudley Collard (a much respected Concorde design engineer) of interest. You can find it at www.svfw.ch/Archiv/ConcordeDev.pdf

Felicitations!

I agree with all of you. It's a very very difficult challenge, but I figured I might merge two things I enjoy very much: studying airplanes and being creative.

The modeling in it self isn't difficult, I've been doing it for many years. To me, proportions and correct dimensions are more important than detail, so the real challenge is finding drawings that show major structural components accurately.

As for the detail, ideally I'd love to capture it all, but that is impossible. In my experience helping friends who were studying Industrial Design in college, once you have the correct proportions down for the main components, you can continue adding smaller and smaller parts / details later on with relative ease as information on them become available. Whereas building the smallest detail and working up is a very bad way to start.

Thank you all for your support. I'll keep reporting back as I make progress. Hopefully I haven't come across too crazy (but a little bit is OK and probably a given).

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 ?