Posts about: "INS (Inertial Navigation System)" [Posts: 43 Pages: 3]

OK guys, here are the answers. If you disagree about any of them then fire away, the old memory certainly 'aint perfect.
As many of you have guessed, there were 22: The 14 production airframes, the 2 production series development aircraft (201 & 202), the 2 pre-production airframes (101 & 102) and the 2 prototypes 001 & 002. PLUS, the major fatigue test specimen at the RAE Farnborough and the static test specimen at CEAT in Toulouse. The CEAT tests actually tested the wing to destruction; I seem to remember it was something like a 200% overload before the wing failed at the root. And great but rather sad pictures VOLUME , never seen these before.
OK, from MY memory , we have: London LHR (duhhh!!), Bahrein BAH, Singapore SIN, New York JFK, Washington IAD, Dallas DFW, Miami MIA, Toronto YYZ, Barbados BGI, and Riyadh RUH. As well as charters being ommited, so are some of the special 'surprise' shuttle appearances that Concorde would make, substituting a subsonic to and from destinations such as Manchester and Edinburgh.
11:15
The BA193 and BA 195.
OK, there were 12 engine feed pumps (3 per engine) 8 main transfer tank pumps (2 each for the transfer tanks 5, 6, 7 & 8), 4 'A' tank pumps (2 each for 5A & 7A), 8 trim-transfer tank pumps (2 electric pumps each for tanks 9, 10 & 11 PLUS 2 hydraulically driven pumps for tank 9), 4 electric engine start pumps (there was a single electric start pump per engine that delivered fuel to it's own dedicated start atomiser in the combustion chamber. The pump automatically ran when the engine HP valve was set to OPEN and would continue running for 30 seconds after the DEBOW switch was returned to the 'normal' position), 4 engine first stage pumps (a single mechanically driven pump per engine), 4 second stage pumps (a single pneumatically driven pump, sometimes termed 'the turbopump, per engine. This would cut out at around 20,000'), our scavenge tank pump (triggered automatically when there was 7 US gallons in the tank; pumping it back into tank 2. This pump was identical to an 'A' tank transfer pump), and FINALLY, a single de-air pump for tank 10. The pump would drive the fuel through a mesh, removing air bubbles from the fuel. Tank 11 used the L/H trim pump for de-air (similar principle)and would be switched on during take-off. This is why the tank 5 trim inlet valve being set to over-ride OPEN would result in the tank being highly pressurised in the case of the Gonesse disaster; the pump would obviously pressurise the L/H trim gallery and any tank on that side with an open inlet valve!!!
G-AXDN, aircraft 101. (A production wing, fuselage, droop nose and intakes, but with the short tail section and secondary nozzles of the prototypes.
Ready ChristiaanJ? There were 18....Yes, the single SFENA standby horizon, 9 INS gyros (one per X,Y and Z platform in each of the 3 INUs), 8 autostab' rate gyros (one per axis for each of the 2 autostab' computers PLUS a monitor gyro for the pitch axis). The radar by the way used attitude signals from the INS.
9. One per main wheel plus the single 'in flight braking' nose wheel brake.
Mach 0.7!!! Between this and Mach 1.26 the intake surfaces were positioned as a function of engine N1 if the engine was shut down for any reason. (Otherwise of course the intake surfaces were fully up). You needed a sub idle N1 of 57% and below for all this to happen, and it was to assist relight performance and reduce buffet. Between Mach 1.26 and 1.32 the ramps were driven down slightly to about 5%, full supersonic scheduling itself commencing at Mach 1.32.
Already brilliantly answered by Brit312 (as well as the FSLabs diagram). Yep, Geen GO, T/O monitor armed, fuel flow and P7 at or above datum, A/C on ground, reverse not selected and CON light not on. Amber CON (Reheat selected and not detected, N1 OK or reverse selected and primary nozzle (Aj) not at minimum. Blue REV; steady buckets at reverse, flashing buckets in transit.
Fairford, followed by Brize Norton, and then a host of airfields from Prestwick and Shannon to Chateauroux.
OK, probably no surprises now:
Landing - 27L & R, 9L & R (prior to LHR mag' deviation update were 28L & R & 10L & R) together with 23/05.
Take off - 27L (28L), 9R (10R) and 9L. (10L never happened as take offs on this runway only occurred in 2003).
It was FedEx, they planned to operate two stripped out aircraft, leased from BA, between Shannon and JFK as high value parcel carriers. The idea was that parcels would be flown in from all over Europe by small FedEx feeder aircraft and the parcels transferred to Concorde which would then speed on to JFK in around 2 1/2 hours. It never happened because of a combination of economics appraisal by FedEx and BA deciding that it could would not release the aircraft anyway.
A/C 101, G-AXDN first flew on 17th December 1971 with FIXED INTAKES!! (101 was going to be the launch vehicle for the new digital intake control system, but the 'boxes' were still being designed). This placed an operating limit of Mach 1.5 on the aircraft, limiting her ability with such a restricted flight envelope. She returned to Filton in late 1972 for installation of the system, as well as the new Olympus 593-602 engine. (The engine, very similar to the production Mk 610 version, used a quite revolutionary annular combustion chamber, and eliminated at a stroke the thick smoke exhaust that had up to then been Concorde's unwanted visual signiture). The aircraft flew more or less smokeless on 15 March 1973, achieving Mach 2 soon afterwards. As ChristiaanJ pointed out, the British prototype 002 had a similar gap, actually significantly higher, of 19 months. (The French aircraft 001 had an even longer gap of some 20 months).

I hope you guys had fun with this one, regards to all

Dude

Biggles78
oooo that's a hard one to answer. The financial crisis that we are (I hope) clambering out of would almost certainly have impacted in a big way the load factors on the aeroplane. This almost certainly would have resulted in at least a severe curtailment in the operating schedule, but quite possibly now she would be absolutely THRIVING in the recovering world airline business. To answer your question fully, I think that there would at least NOW have been the willing and ability within the airline to keep her going in a big way, but there would be major expense over the last and next few years. The FAA SFAR88 directive would have already resulted in a major review of all fuel tank wiring and components. (However this appplies to any aircraft, ageing ones in particular). EGPWS would have been mandated by now, which means provision for at least one (probably two) GPS antennas. This upside of this would have meant the relative ease of incorporating a more accurate navigation system, the Litton LN93 system (Laser INS with GPS update) was already being looked at before retirement. A major structural modification to the fuselage crown area would certainly have been mandated under the FAA/EASA ageing aircraft programme, although the mods were pretty much drawn up before retirement (and would have been a permanent fix for the one chink in her supersonic armour). It is also probable that predictive windshear would have been activated. (The Bendix RDR4a had this capability but it was disabled in Concorde). I think that for PWS and RWS to operate correctly you'd need some sort of pilot display in any case.
Another seperate issue would be having sufficient 'O' licensed Engineering Officers in the airline; due to basic demographics there would be precious few left in the airline now. (My personal guess is that pilots would have to be trained as to qualify as P3's).
So although it would be far from easy to keep her going, if she was earning sufficient current and potential revenues, then I'd say yep!! (But this is just my humble opinion of course).

Dude

Well, here are my back-of-envelope calcs, with approximate figures, so everyone can check. (After all this IS Tech Log.)

'Centrifugal acceleration' = v\xb2 / r
Speed of sound 300 m/sec, aircraft speed Mach 2 = 600 m/sec, v\xb2 = 360 000
Earth radius 6000 km = 6 000 000 m
Accel 360 000 / 6 000 000 m/sec\xb2 = 0.06 m/sec\xb2
Gravity: 1 g = 10 m/sec\xb2
So the weight loss is 0.06/10 = 0.006 = 0.6 %
So a Concorde 'en route' at 300 000 lbs would actually weigh 1800 lbs less due to this effect.

But there's another effect.....
You're flying at 18 000 m (60 000 ft), so you're 18 km further from the centre of the earth than on the ground, and gravity decreases as the square of the distance.
Again with approximate figures:
You're 6018/6000 = 1.003 further away. Ratio squared = 1.006 (or rather 1/1.006=0.994).
And there goes another 0.6 %!

Since the two effects are not related, that's 1.2 % 'weight loss'.

Obviously, the INS (inertial navigation system) 'knew' all of this... it even knew the earth isn't round.

But it might be interesting to know where else this came into play.
One example : in theory the aircraft did weigh 1.2 % less, so the lift was 1.2 % less and the drag was 1.2 % less, so the fuel consumption was less too, so did Concorde have another 50-odd miles range thrown in 'free' by flying higher and faster than it's low-down subsonic brethren?

Even a passenger weighing 165 lbs would already have lost 2 lbs, just by flying on Concorde.
But of course, that's where Landlady comes in... "champagne, caviar, anyone?"

CJ

JFK 31L, Kennedy 9 Departure, Canarsie transition, Concorde climb


Speedbird 2, cleared take-off 31L.

You call 3-2-1 Now , start your stopwatch, pre-set to countdown from 58 seconds, and slam the throttles fully forward till they hit the stops. Four RR Olympus engines start to spool up to full power and four reheats kick in, together producing 156,000 lbs of thrust, but at a total fuel flow of 27,000 US gallons per hour. A touch of left rudder initially to keep straight, as the #4 engine limiter is limiting the engine to 88% until 60 kts when it will release it to full power. The F/O calls Airspeed building, 100 kts, V 1 , and then, at 195 kts, Rotate . You smoothly rotate the aircraft, lift-off occurs at around 10\xb0 and 215 kts. You hear a call of V 2 but you keep rotating to 13.5\xb0 and then hold that attitude, letting the aircraft accelerate.

The F/O calls Positive Climb and you call for the Gear Up . On passing 20 feet radio height, and having checked the aircraft attitude, airspeed and rate of climb are all satisfactory, the F/O calls Turn and you slowly and smoothly roll on 25\xb0 left bank to commence the turn out over Jamaica bay. Some knowledgeable passengers will have requested window seats on the left side of the aircraft at check-in, and are now being rewarded with a very close look at the waters of Jamaica Bay going by very fast! As you accelerate through 240 kts, the F/O calls 240 and you pitch up to 19\xb0 to maintain 250 kts and keep the left turn going to pass East of CRI.

54 seconds from the start of the take off roll you hear the F/O counting down 3-2-1 Noise whereupon the F/E cancel the re-heats and simultaneously throttles back to noise abatement power, around 96% as you pitch the nose down to 12\xb0 to maintain 250 kts. It is less than a minute from start of roll and already 435 US gallons of fuel have been used.


Speedbird 2, contact departure, so long.

Turning through heading 235\xb0M, the F/E quickly re-applies full dry power as you pitch up to 17\xb0 to maintain 250 kts, but simultaneously reduce the left bank to 7.5\xb0, in order to increase both the radius of turn (to stay on the optimum noise abatement track) and the rate of climb (less bank, higher RoC).

On climbing through 2,500 ft you increase the bank angle back to 25\xb0 left bank and as you approach the 253\xb0 radial JFK, you hear 3-2-1 Noise from the F/O for the second time. The F/E actions the second noise-abatement power cut back, you pitch down to 12\xb0 and, if not in cloud, sneak a quick peek out of your left hand window, looking for the car park by the Marine Parkway bridge, as you would ideally like to pass right over the car park, if possible, as we tip-toe quietly across the Rockaway Beaches, in order to minimise the noise impact on the residents.

Keep the left turn going and intercept the 176\xb0 radial outbound from CRI, and at 5 miles DME from CRI, call for the F/E to slowly re-apply full climb power as you pitch up to maintain 250 kts. We are still in US territorial airspace, below 10,000 ft, and subject to statutory speed control.


Speedbird 2, present position direct to SHIPP, climb FL230, no speed control.

The F/O selects direct SHIPP in the INS and tells you that she has selected that information into your Flight Director. Having checked that the gear lever is at neutral, you call for the Nose Up , and then the Visor Up . Flight deck noise levels drop dramatically as the Visor locks up. Now more than 12 miles away from the coast, we are clear of US speed control requirements so lower the attitude to 9\xb0, accelerate to V MO , currently 400 kts, and ask for the After Take Off Checks.


Speedbird 2, present position direct to LINND, climb in the block FL550-600, accelerate Mach 2.0

Call for the Climb Checklist at Mach 0.7, which will trigger the F/E to start pumping fuel rearwards to move the CG aft, then when he's done that, straight into the Transonic Checklist . Maintain 400 kts IAS, and around 24,500 ft, at M0.93, ask for the re-heats back on, in pairs, and raise the nose by 3\xb0 to maintain 400 kts as they kick in.

Precise, smooth flying is required through the high drag transonic region, as the mach meter creeps up towards Mach 1. A sudden flicker on the VSI and Altimeter confirms that the shock wave has just passed over the static ports, and the aircraft is now supersonic. A quick glance at the elapsed time indicator shows that you\x92ve been hand flying for just over 9 minutes since the start of the take off roll.

Another fun start to a day in the office, and to think we got paid for doing it!


Best Regards

Bellerophon

You're right Christiaan - memories of the exact details are growing misty now, but I do remember trying to get the autoflight VOR tracking facility to work and not getting anything sensible. I (and everyone else I ever flew with) invariably used the INS to track to a VOR - or just tuned the station and flew it like an aeroplane using controls and needles. The Concorde aeroplane encouraged the latter technique because it was so rewarding (but occasionally deeply frustrating) to fly. Good days were phenominal. Bad days were... bad (Mike Riley put this well in his "Concorde - Stick and Rudder" book).

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

Ahhhh... the famous Reheat Capability Indicator. (Yes that was its official title). I seem to remember that before we did the modification to fit the 'RCI' in the late 1970s, the guys used to set an INS CDU thumbwheel as a memo to whether the take-off was a 'go-er' or a 'stopper'.
It seems a million years ago when we fitted this high presicion lump of alluminium. (Hang on a minute, it WAS ).

Best regards
Dude

M2dude ,

Can you tell me what the 'hole' forward of the throttle quadrant between the INS units on the centre console was for please? Would something have been there in service?

Many Thanks

Humble aplogies to all, of course its mounted by the #1 EGT gauge (ANOTHER senior moment on my part). The RCICS, Reheat Capabilty Indication Control Sub-system (Oh OK then, I just made that up ) was fiitted in the very early days of Concorde operation. It looked at first sight a belated April Folls joke, but as was said (much) earlier prior to this amazing piece of technology the #3 INS CDU waypoint thumbwheel was used as the reheat GO/NO-GO indicator.
And NB2A, no apologies needed from you sir. A great link to the video starring Dave Rowland and Roger Bricknell (sorry Les).

Best regards to all
Dude

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

Best regards
Dude

Nick Thomas

... I wondered how you could chose to fly in Track instead of Heading i.e. did you say have to push the button quickly twice to get the track mode?...

We should establish which button you mean, because there are two buttons , both associated with TRK/HDG, either of which might be the one you are referring to.

On the auto flight control panel there is a white push-button switch engraved with the letters TRK and HDG .




Photo courtesy of, and copyright to, Gordon Roxburgh , from his ConcordeSST.Com website.


When pressed, this will initiate the acquisition and subsequent hold of the preselected track or heading selected on the three digit counter beneath it (and repeated on the track/heading pointer on the HSI). This switch will illuminate White when this mode is engaged.




Photo courtesy of, and copyright to, Gordon Roxburgh , from his ConcordeSST.Com website.


So what determines whether this mode, if selected, would follow TRK or HDG? Beneath the three digit counter is a combined push-pull and rotary control, beside which is marked HDG PULL and TRK PUSH .

The rotary function of this control altered the reading in the counter and the Push/Pull function determined whether the entered number was a TRK demand or a HDG demand. With TRK/HDG illuminated on the push-button control, and with the rotary control pulled out (and thus in HDG mode), this little rotary control was effectively the steering wheel for the aircraft.

Why HDG and not TRK? Mainly because nearly all ATC vectors are HDG vectors. In practice TRK was rarely used, with the aircraft either in HDG or INS.

Best Regards

Bellerophon

Just thought I'd drop by and see what was happening on this thread........

My best personal experience of a quick t/round was a tech stop at SMA which we turned around in 45mins. Fuelling was taking place for about 30 of that. AF used to tech stop SMA on the way to GIG, I believe, so the station had some Conc experience.

As for the differences between AF and BA a/c I think most have been dealt with before. AG stood out in BA as a partly 'French' hull; the stuff noticed by pilots was generally:

NiCd main batts, with slight differences to the DC system (no SSB I recall).
No ability for flt crew to 'steal' pax O2.
Perspex flip up visual level on the glareshield instead of open metal construction. Sounds trivial, but I hated it!
No annunciation of DTG to next INS WPT on HSI unless in NAV mode (or was it TRUE?)
Undercarriage monitor not fitted.
Different audio select panels - get this: 6 a/c in the fleet you pushed for TX and pulled for intercom.....AG.......the other way round. Genius.
Probably a lot of other stuff under the skin that I've forgotten.

Allegedly this was representative of the AF fit (certainly as far as the batts/DC) but I can't say for sure. Obviously the cabin fits were very different and over the years the two airlines will have carried out different non-mandatory mods (e.g. the infamous 'cowcatcher' mod).

OAF was a standard BA machine, except that being younger it (like OAG) didn't have the 'crown area' mods done.

All from memory, usual health warnings apply......

For some reason I seem to remember a picture of a Concorde Cockpit with four INS sets side by side, was this ever the case or just my imagination ?


Also, were the INS installed specially developed for Concorde or were they the same as fitted in the B747 for example.


Finally was GPS updating to the INS position ever developed and installed ?

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.

747-400 used GPS to update INS as well as DME when within range. Not a replacement.
At least the ones I was familiar with.

All modern jet transports still use INS, it's output is used for more than just navigation, e.g. Attitude indicator, vertical speed input and others.


GPS (and other sources) merely update and refine the INS position.


I am sure Concorde would have done the same.

stilton

Actually not technically correct mate. The generation(s) of aircraft after Concorde does not use INS as such at all. They either use an Inertial REFERENCE System (IRS) or an Air Data and Inertial Reference System (ADIRS). In both cases inertial data, such as attitude, present position, heading (both true and SYNTHESISED magnetic) acceleration data etc. are output to various user systems. (eg. FMS, EFIS, Autopilot etc.). Wind data, being a function of True Air Speed (TAS) and Ground Speed (G/S)requires in the IRS case TAS data to be input into the IRS from an Air Data Compter, whereas in the ADIRS case we can have muliple ADCs/IRUs effectively crammed into one box, and so wind is kept 'in house'. In either case the autopilot steering signals (LNAV/VNAV) come from the FMS and NOT the IRS. (If you like you could say that an INS knows where it is and where it wants to go, where an IRS just knows where it is and hasn't a CLUEwhere it's going to. In all cases GPS data is fed into the FMS itself, as 'just another input'.
Although Concorde HAD no GPS, (The most difficult part was always finding a part of the upper fuselage where chunks could be cut out for locating antennae) it was coming! EGPWS was being mandated, which required a simplex GPS antenna mount, and GPS updating for the INS was being seriously looked at. In the first case, the EGPWS requires accurate present position to check agaings it's terrain database for known obstacles and the latter case was because the Concorde INS navigational accuracy fell outside of future (now actually) long range navigational accuracy requirements.
Sorry for such a long winded blurb, but I've been away for a while and am gradually looking back over our wonderful thread to see if there is anything I can contribute to/prattle on about.

Agreed and well said, my point was and is that an Inertial source, whatever form that may take is still an invaluable input even these days.


The previous poster had insinuated that a GPS installation in the Concorde would have completely replaced the existing INS fit.


Not that simple.

How exactly would you get the INS into memory mode so you could input the two digit code to activate the route section.
M2dude?

I do not think the Concorde INS had a data transfer unit for route planning, but it could have.

Even the early F-16 in 1979 had no such doofer. They came about in early-mid 80's. The Shuttle probably had data transfer cartridge that the crew could use, otherwise previous platforms prolly had their stuff loaded via a hardwire connection to another computer or via a data link RF system, as we did with Apollo.

In late 60's and until early 80's, we high tech pilots and navs would type in the the stuff!! 'course, the A-7D had the projected map and we could slew it around and enter coordinates using it without having to type. That was late 60's, and nobody else had that until the 80's.

That's what Gums remembers.