Posts about: "LHR" [Posts: 93 Pages: 5]

Would you all believe 35 years today Concorde entered airline service (BA LHR -BAH and AF CDG-GIG). I remember as if it were yesterday.....Gosh I'm getting old

Best regards
Dude

So many vivid memories from so many people.
I suppose personally I'll always remember the first time that I ever saw Concorde flying as well as the LAST time :
The very first, as I posted here many months ago, was in 1970 when I, as a young grotty little RAF erk, was in Swindon and heard this loud roar in the sky over what was then Bon March\xe9 (Now Debenhams). Looking up I saw this amazing sight of 002 complete with her attending Canberra chase plane flying over. (And trailing a sizable black exhaust plume to boot).
The very LAST time I saw her flying was in November 2003 at the side of LHR 27R as G-BOAF, the last Concorde ever built and the last one ever to fly, made her final departure out of a very dismal Heathrow bound for Filton. For me, the weather at LHR that day perfectly matched to gloom of the occasion I'm afraid.
A really lasting memory I wil always treasure is while my now VERY grown up children were still young, they were (almost) as big Concorde 'nuts' as their dad. Concorde would fly over our house daily and they would run to the window every time they heard the sound of an aeroplane. The general disappointed chant they would come out with was 'it's not Concorde dad, it's just a plane'. For the life of me I don't know why they would develop THAT kind of prejudice and from whom they would get it from . (I used this particular ditty in a 2003 Concorde BBC TV documentary we did, but my cover is blown here anyway, so what the hell .

EXWOK
I went over base for a meeting last week and saw OAB parked at the side of the apron. I had several lumps in my throat as I drove past too I have to admit. To think that the last time OAB flew was in August 2000. when Les and the boys brought her back empty from JFK after the CAA pulled the Concorde C of A.
Hopefully she will get a fitting 'home' soon so that more people can marvel at our absolutely beautiful and truly timeless aviation icon

Best regards
Dude

Please please please let me be a SLFConcordeBore - 1 post, then I\x92ll shut up.

2 items that I had on my \x93Do before I die\x94 list were \x93Sail into New York on QE2\x94 (sadly, didn\x92t happen, now obviously won\x92t), and \x93Fly on Concorde\x94.

Part of the enthusiasm for Concorde came from a friend in the Middle East, who worked for Airwork, who did contract maintenance for your air force. He was based in Saudi Arabia IIRC, working on Lightnings. As an expat in Saudi (good pay + no tax = high disposable), when he had some leave available at one point he took Concorde from Bahrein - London - Bahrein. Loved every moment.

He told the lovely story of his first day back after his hols, when a Lightning pilot came in in his G-suit, saying \x93I\x92ve just done Mach 2\x94 (you know where this is going...) to which Slim was able to reply \x93I did that yesterday - and I was drinking champagne at the time\x94. What an astonishing aeroplane Concorde was.

I got to fly Concorde courtesy of BA - they called one day and asked if I\x92d like to fly Concorde LHR - JFK - LHR, out one day, back the next, put up overnight at the Waldorf Astoria - all courtesy of BA. After the \x93is this a practical joke?\x94, and \x93what\x92s the catch?\x94, it transpired that they did invite people from time to time for this type of trip, and somehow my name came out of the hat.

A truly memorable trip - the acceleration, the hot windows, the fantastic service (and excellent food & wine), trip to cockpit, and the \x93Concorde grin\x94. Memorable guests on the way out were Paul & Linda McCartney, with children and minder. I seem to recall that the takeoff from JFK was even more spectacular than the one from LHR. It just seemed to jump out of the blocks and keep going.

Also notable were how much of a private club it was - the crew were welcoming passengers to New York, and saying to various passengers things like \x93I didn\x92t see you last week\x94, with the passenger replying \x91Oh no, I couldn\x92t make it last week, but I\x92ll see you again next week\x94 etc.

Thanks to everyone, ChristiaanJ, M2dude, Bellerophon, EXWOK, Brit123, landlady and stilton and all the others for a wonderful thread about a wonderful plane.

Ah, the good old days! I submitted the following to 'Private Eye' when the Conc retired:

So, farewell then, Concorde
Supersonic Thunderjet
'Arrive before you leave'
That was your slogan
If only you could depart in 2003
And arrive thirty years earlier
Then you could start
All over again.

E J Thrubshaw (Mach 17\xbd)

If anyone's interested, I've started a thread entitled ' LHR nostalgia ' on the ' Aviation History and Nostalgia ' forum.

Thanks to all who have contributed to this wondrous thread. As one of the guides who work on Alpha Charlie at Manchester (with that Shaggy Sheep pperson), I have set myself a little task. We regularly get people who have travelled on Concorde on our tours who just want to refresh their memories but don't know which aircraft it was.
My "little" task is to document which a/c did which flight ? There were somewhere about 50,000 flights for the BA Concordes. I'm currently up to 14,353 thanks to Stephen at Home .
Does anyone have a source of other none Heathrow data ?
I've used an assumption that BA003 followed BA002 to bulk some of the data up.
The BA museum can't help.
PS If anyone wants a copy of the data so far it's in a spreadsheet format at the moment and I'll happily pass it on. Just ping me a message rather than post here.

I worked on the project for eighteen months in production design control at Brooklands. We were to facilitate certification by the CAA and BEA (Fr).
We built the enlarged tail cone tank and the "droop Snoop" and fwd. fuselage.
I recall that one of the biggest design problems was the toilet up the front.
There simply wasn't the space.
Sir George Edwards fired most of us prior to to the first revenue flight of G-BOAC out of Heathrow.
I got a job at BP in Meadhurst and enjoyed listening and watching this beautiful aircraft get airbourne for New York from the roof of the research establishment that day.
I only played a small part but by God it was fun.
I am looking at my office wall in Fremantle, Western Australia at a photograph of G-BOAC after getting airbourne on its maiden flight. It is signed by my work golleges at Brooklands.
Somewhere in a trunk I have a copy (blueprint) of prototype 01 notated in both English and French. (I cannot recall how I came by it).
This is the best thread I have read ever. What a machine !!
The spin parachute and emergency escape hatch are interesting

Gentlemen (and ladies) on this superb thread. I hope this question isn't too "spotterish" but I'm sure it can be answered here. I've learned sooooo much about this gorgeous aircraft reading these pages.

I was listening to this radio dialogue between the last Concorde to leave JFK on Youtube here: YouTube - Last concorde communication with JFK.wmv

It's actually a very lovely (well to me it is) almost 7 minutes, with the very final sentences spoken each way - such a nice touch. Just being humble SLF though, I can't work out what "Mike" means in the dialogue i.e.

For the last time, Speedbird Concorde 2 IFR London Heathrow with Mike requesting a Canarsie climb.

Also

... expect FL290 10 minutes after, Squawk 1136 and Mike is the ####

What's Mike and also the #### term?

Thanks. CD

Coffin Dodger

The term #### , which you were unsure about, is ATIS , an acronym for A utomatic T erminal I nformation S ervice.

The ATIS is a continuous recorded broadcast, on a separate VHF frequency, of relevant airfield conditions and information, such as wind velocity, runway in use, airfield pressure setting, air temperature, taxiway closures, delays etc.

The first such recording of the day will be designated information Alpha and every time during the day the recording is updated (say roughly every twenty minutes) the letter (NATO alphabet) increases by one.

This system spares the ATC controller from answering the same questions from every aircraft endlessly through the day, whilst also allowing him to check that each aircraft checking in with him has received the latest version of the ATIS.

Had Mike Bannister (for \x91twas he) reported that he had Lima , the controller would have realised he had an out of date ATIS report and would have asked him to copy information Mike .

Had Mike Bannister reported that he had November , the controller would have realised that he probably hadn\x92t copied the ATIS at all and was bluffing!


Best Regards

Bellerophon

Hi,

I am trying to find out some details of the Farewell Tour for a project I am undertaking.

The flights I refer to were are the following:

Heathrow - Birmingham - Heathrow (20 October 2003)
Heathrow - Belfast - Heathrow (21 October 2003)
Heathrow - Manchester - Heathrow (22 October 2003)
Heathrow - Cardiff - Heathrow (23 October 2003)
Heathrow - Edinburgh - Heathrow (24 October 2003)

All of these flights were scheduled to leave Heathrow at 10:00 hours and arrive at their respective locations at 11:45, and the return was to leave at 16:05 and arrive at Heathrow at 17:45 (apart from the last Edinburgh flight which left Edinburgh earlier in order to get to Heathrow around 16:00)

Does anybody have any details of the routings that these flights took? I have some information about the Edinburgh flight but I cannot find anything out about the others, if anyone can supply me with anything it would be very much appreciated.

Also, were these flights purely subsonic or was there a short supersonic section in there somewhere, after all it doesn't take 1:45 to get to Cardiff, Birmingham or Manchester etc if you go direct.

Many thanks in advance for anything you can offer.

Regards,

Steve.

gordonroxburgh ,

Many thanks for that, I had a feeling that's how it would have been.

I assume the return would be routed from say Birmingham or Manchester towards UPGAS to enable it to pick up the normal routing to do the trip out to 8 West and then back into Heathrow.

Not sure how the Belfast one would have routed though, back down to the Bristol Channel via the Irish Sea, or cut across Ireland and pick the track back up when she was back over the Atlantic?

Thanks,

Steve.

I was at Heathrow on last Sunday, 15th May; G-BOAB is still in the location detailed by Heritage Concorde. Also I can confirm that the detuner where you can see G-BOAB parked in the other picture, has now been completely demolished.

I've been away 'cruising' for a few weeks (lecturing about Concorde) and thought it was time I popped back into this wonderful forum.
There were a few questions regarding ground running Concorde, so here are some 'facts' as far as I recall (Wrinkled old brain permitting).

Concorde was ALWAYS ground run in the detuners at the BA Engineering base at Heathrow, with the parking brake ON. (Save idle runs on the ramp after, say, replacing a PNC actuator etc. on departure. The required high power nozzle trim run could be deferred until the aircrafts return to LHR). Sadly I can confirm that the Concorde 'Hush House' was being demolished when I was last over the engineering patch a few weeks ago, and is probably all gone now.

The detuner chocks were like nothing else you could imagine. They were HUGE steel affairs that needed wheels to be wound down in order to move into position (took a couple of guys at least to move). Once in position forward and aft of the undercarriage, the wheels would be retracted and these 'chocks' would be tension chained together. Believe me, nothing was going to move these suckers!!

Engines WERE NOT run in symmetrical pairs, but the adjacent engine always was run at idle power. The reason for this was so that there was airflow over the T1 probe of the adjacent engine, a winding in this being used by the alternate engine control lane if needs meant it might be required if the main lane failed during the engine run. The way that the aircraft was tethered meant that symmetrical high power running was not any sort of issue.

We were very mean too. In the summer the hangar doors of TBK opposite would invariably be open during the day, the challenge was to see how long it took for us to make them close the doors to shut out the din. (Like I said, Concorde engineers were mean ).

Good to be back
Best regards to all
Dude

<< I'm guessing you mean rate of climb rather than IAS? >>
<<No, I meant the airspeed you'd be flying at while climbing (post takeoff)>>

OK, then the answer to your Q's:
Also what was the typical climb speed
- At lift-off? About 200kts
- Once 240 kts is achieved? 240kts
- At minimum maneuvering speed at typical takeoff weight? Vla after takeoff was V2 until 15,000'. I.E. about 220kts
- At MTOGW? V2 didn't vary much by weight

Out of JFK we flew at Vmo once further than 12nms from the coast. Vmo=400kts IAS at low level.

Out of LHR overland the IAS restriction was 300kts until past the speed limit point early in the SID - much less draggy than 250kts and hence better climb rates. But you'd quickly be released to get to 400kts (barder's pole) where it was designed to be flown.

<<Why higher speed? That have to do with shockwaves and the resulting pressure distribution differences?>>
The flight envelope was bigger and more complex than subsonic types: it was developed in flight test and probably had many considerations involved. I think someone posted it earlier in this thread in graphical form (from the flight manual) if you want to see it. In practice, you had to be aware of three basic parameters - IAS, Mach and CG position (the CG "corridor"). Once understood, it wasn't that difficult to keep up with it...and the IAS and Machmeters had barber's poles handily programmed to show the limiting values (including, cleverly, max temp on the nose Tmo=127 degrees celcius).

Regarding climb rates - best ROC was at 400kts (MTOW) or 380kts (MLW). As speed reduced below that, drag increased and ROC reduced. At MTOW and 400kts you'd get about 4000fpm max dry power. At 250kts it was all noise and very few feet per minute - after noise abate procedures you had to lower the nose, just barely climb, and get IAS up toward min drag as soon as possible. With an engine failed go for 300kts minimum - Vmo as soon as you can.

<<shockwaves and the resulting pressure distribution differences>>
You had to avoid the "transonic" region due to these effects: maximum subsonic cruise was 0.95M due to the auto-stabilised flying controls become over-active as shockwaves started to "dance" around the airframe (usually asymmetrically). This calmed down by about 1.3M in the acceleration (when the intake ramps started to do their thing). To accelerate to 2.0M you needed reheat until 1.7M so you didn't hang around between 0.95M and 1.7M. FL260 was best for subsonic cruise because at that level 400kts IAS = 0.95M...

As far as the SSBJ goes, there really does not seem to be sufficient demand by the corporations out there, although there have been several stabs at the idea, the most famous being the Sukhoi/Grumman S21. The problem now is, as has been laboured ad nauseam, that neither scarebus or boingo want to go down the road of a long and expensive R & D process without KNOWING whether there are lots of sales at the end of that tunnel. Basically neither of the world's only large aircraft manufacturers have any interest in such a gamble. (And without any serious competition out there they have no reason to either). But we still have the attraction of the HST, typically the Lapcat A2. Anyone who has flown out of Terminal 3 at Heathrow on one of the late night JSA Far East services would know that both First and Business class cabins are invariably bursting at the seams, the intrepid travellers knowing that anything up to the next 24 hours has to be completely written off to the journey. Anyone doing the round trip then has two days completely taken out, not counting those many sweet sweet hours of jet lag. It does not take a genius to work out that a journey time of only THREE hours would be incredibly attractive to a large number of these folks, the trick of course is that the ticket price has to be realistic. The West Coast of the USA is another plumb route, but of course the problem becomes supersonic flight over the continental USA. Polar flying, or over northern Canada is a rather long way round, but possible solution, but of course this whittles down some of the time saving and means we burn more fuel in the process, albeit cheap and very environmentally friendly hydrogen. (And we have of course to assume that a cost effective way of producing and storing large quantities of our liquid hydrogen can be found). It seems that the need for speed is not really out there right now, and to all of us in the world of aviation that has to be a bit of a shame. When Concorde was abandoned mankind took a giant stumble backwards, and for the very first time in history had to settle for far slower journey times. We can only guess I suppose what the future of air travel holds; maybe people are just resigned to being stuffed into bigger and bigger tin cans that go no faster than those cans that came before, who knows. All some of us can do I guess is HOPE that someone out there has just a little imagination.

Hi all,

I'm a humble PPLer, and have been (speed) reading the last 70 pages...a fabulous story, of engineering and operational excellence, which I will read again at length when time permits.

I have only seen Concorde in the flesh on a few occasions...generally while passing through LHR.

But in October 2003, I had the privilege to watch the final Concorde take-off from Belfast at close quarters. I was standing at the GA Apron at Aldergrove as she took off on runway 07, actually getting off the ground barely 150yds from where we stood. I was among a crowd of local aviation buffs, all of whom had managed to cajole, bluff, and persuade their way into the GA area to see her go. And it was awesome. The afterburner roar rippled through my body, the noise was deafening, the reheat flame was mesmerising, but above all she was a beautiful creation.

Art comes in many forms, and to my mind, Concorde was up there with the works of all the great masters.

Roger, they're clips from a far longer video (available both as VHS- 2 tapes- or on DVD) from a firm called IITV.
I'm not even sure about the copyright issues of the UTube clips....
But I can assure you the full video is worth watching (and owning...).
Starts off with a full walk-around at LHR, and a lot more 'stuff'.

CJ

IIRC (somebody else can confirm?) that's right.
It was a JFK-LHR BA Concorde which landed at Cardiff (in Wales) with some kind of tech problem. The paxs were ferried to LHR and the repairs were done at Cardiff.
Then the a/c was flown back to LHR. Since the take-off was over the sea (so no noise abatement needed), and the plane was empty, with only little fuel, she went "like a scalded cat" and hit Mach 1 in about 6 minutes.

Mr Hoppy ,
I am aware it doesn't quite answer your question... I hope one of the pilots can answer that. But I doubt they would normally have kept specific records.

CJ

In the ITVV documentary, the SFE Roger Bricknell mentioned the selection of debow of #3 engine upon startup on the JFK to LHR leg, due to the downtime of the engine. This essentially delays the heat-up of the turbine shaft in favor of a more evenly temperature distribution.

Why wasn't the debow selected for all the other engine? (Roger explicitly mentioned to not needing to select the other engines for debow)

Forgive me, I'm probably missing something that was mentioned earlier in this great thread.

hi guys, thanks for a very informative thread.
In the mid 70s I lived in a thatch cottage 31nm west of LHR at the bottom of a hill in the Thames valley.
One particularly grotty dark autumn evening our cottage started shaking, I rushed out into the dark expecting to see a car crash but realised it was a low flying aircraft. (I wasn't a stranger to low aircraft noise as we were in the Greenham Common circuit and the F111 had been based here when Upper Heyford was resurfaced).
I later read that droop snoop had an engine go into reverse in cruise.
The subsequent report in the horror comic was of it's following take off when it happened again on rotate.
What I remembered was some sort of award to engines or probably the whole crew and that she didn't get above three thou until crossing the Bristol coast.
questions...
Was it a simple electrical failure?
Was there any protection to stop it happening again?
Was there a significant speed loss when it happened?
Was there a problem with the adjacent engine?
Flying questions.
What was the engine out climb procedure?
Was there another double engine failure procedure as on the iron duck with immediate fuel dumping?
Was it just a coincidence that the flight was routed outside of CAS but along the Thames valley avoiding the high ground to the north and Membury mast?
Thanks
sorry if it has already been covered but have only got through to page 50...

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I would just like to thank the contributors to this thread - it is by far and away the best piece I've ever visited on the internet. Bar none. It has taken me months (and many arguments with a jealous girlfriend!) to get this far - I didn't want to ask any questions which had already been answered.

My experience; never flew on her but when I heard she was being decommissioned, I decided to make every effort to watch a Concorde take off and hang about for the final three consecutive landings at LHR. I have never seen so many grown men cry. I would have counted more but I think I got something in my eye..

As a Chartered Engineer working on a multi-disciplinary rail project, I am amazed that a project as complex as this was managed across the Channel in the 1960's; how was the Systems Engineering managed - who drove the requirements for the Jet, potential carriers, engineers or politicians?

CliveL - your input to this has been amazing - a quick question if I may; you say wind modelling played a big part in the development of the aerodynamics, how big did the models go? Did you have the luxury of testing a full-scale model? or maybe full-scale parts or sub assemblies?

Dude - its my understanding that you worked on the Maintenance Engineering of the jet, many thanks for your thoughtful remarks. Please keep those grey cells going! Was any maintenance every brought forward when it became clear a member of the Royal Family was to fly? How much input did the carriers have in generating the maintenance periodicities for the works? Did these change mid-life? If so, what and why?

ChristiaanJ - I am blown away by just how much cutting-edge (for the time!) kit was provided to get her up. In the railway, we try and steer clear from 'New and Novel' because of the increased assurance risk required. Did the onboard systems required extended testing to assure the authorities? Please forgive my memory, but I seem to recall seeing the test craft have many 'computers' in the passenger areas while testing - what did these record? How did the data support development?

Bellerophon - your post on 18th Dec 2010, 15:20 #875 had me in tears for about 20 minutes - wife to be thought I'd found out someone had died. hhmmmm..

As someone who's hoping to secure their PPL in March / April I found your piece extraordinary - can you confirm rough altitude above aerodrome (AKA QFE for us GA boys?) before instigating the 25\xb0 left bank to commence the turn out over Jamaica bay?

A thoroughly enjoyable and often moving read. Thank you all. Like a good book / film I think I'll come to read it from page one before long - who'd have thought missing out the APU would cause such a stir?!