Posts about: "Simulator" [Posts: 32 Pages: 2]

I'm just an interested non-pilot bystander, & hope it's OK to post here.
Thank you all for this truly fascinating information. I've a question arising from watching the ITVV DVDs:

Having two pilots obviously gives some options if one becomes ill or incapacitated, but how were things handled if the FE became unable to perform his duties? Did the FO take over, & how familiar were the pilots with the FE's duties - could either pilot do the FE's job in full, or was it limited to some subset such as required for a diversion/landing etc. I assume this kind of thing was practised in the simulator regularly?

I note (unless I've misunderstood) that there was some presetting of the load limit fuel transfer system, so that the pilots could initiate a CofG movement for descent if required.
Thanks!

I understand that before the first flights the test pilots had many sessions in the Concorde simulator. I have always wondered how before the first flight they decided to programme the flight enverlope into the simulator; especially as Concorde was so different to other jet transports?
I guess that as more information was gained during flight testing; that this was programmed into the simulator and therefore made it a more suitable machine for airline crew training.
Thanks
Nick

From the thousands of hours of windtunnel tests, test flying with aircraft like the Mirage IV, HP 115, BAC221, etc. etc. they already had a pretty close idea of how the aircraft was going to fly.
IIRC, Andr\xe9 Turcat remarked after the first flight of 001 it flew pretty well like the simulator, or if anything somewhat better!

There were two development simulators, one at Toulouse and one at Filton, that were used by the test pilots and by the engineers. These were "tweaked" whenever more data became availble before the first flights, and then updated with flight test data.
For airline crew training , two new simulators were built in the early seventies, again one in Toulouse (later moved to CDG) and one in Filton.
In the best Concorde style, they were designed and built by two different firms....

I don't believe anything of the development simulators has survived.
As you will know, the "cab" of the British Airways Filton simulator was salvaged and taken to Brooklands, where it's now slowly being brought back to life.
The Air France simulator at CDG, minus motion system and video display, was taken back to Toulouse, where it's slowly being restored, to go on display in the planned Museum at Toulouse.

CJ

M2dude,

The Braniff crews were great characters and yes many did wear cowboy boats, but the story I like is the one that goes as follows

After hours of briefing prior to going on the simulator [for the first time] the Braniff crew got on the sim and went through all their checks, started the engines and taxied out to the end of the runway for their first Concorde sim take-off. Everybody was strapped in with seats in the correct position and all checks complete.

The Captain called out "3,2,1, now" and all the throttles were moved sharply to full power and away we went with the visual showing the runway passing by at an ever increasing rate. Now the F/E had a couple of calls to make prior to V1 relating to how good the engines were performing the most important being at 100 kts, however before we got that far the Braniff F/E stood up in his harness and let out the cry " Gee Whiz look at the son of a bitch go".

Needless to say that take off was stopped and we went back to start again at the end of the runway

Bellerophon ,

Many thanks for filling one of the many current gaps in my memory!

I only "flew" her once, and that was on the original Filton development simulator.
Took her up to Mach 2.11, well into the "cricket" zone... never forgot... (I think that was some development issue we were trying to settle at the time).

I've been involved in a minor way with the restoration of both the Filton/Brooklands sim and the CDG/Toulouse sim, and with the SSTSIM and FlightSim Lab Concorde simulator programs, but never yet "flown" any of them.
Maybe it's time I should !

CJ

Kangerlussuaq? Wow, that should have been awesome. Ronivaniemi flights were supersonic? I built and flew a EGLL-EFRO flightplan on the flight simulator once, supersonic along the Norwegian coast, descending and entering continent to reach Ronivaniemi from Northwest. According to my calcs, the difference to a subsonic-only trip using normal airways would be small, so that got me wondering how you actually did that.

Nice! So, by what I already read on this topic, you only worked with Concorde, right? But do you know if Concorde had the same issues as other airliners, or even for you guys "you're not (working) in an airplane, you're in Concorde" quote hold true?

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?

Please, Landlady, that would an even bigger pleasure! Very interesting to read about Concorde from another point-of-view, much more human than Tons, Kgs, CG %, Celsius degrees, etc.

Perfectly pointless question, I'm afraid, dazdaz1....

Concorde is a rare, and maybe unique, case.... Out of the eighteen surviving airframes... eighteen are now in museums.

But all of them are now exactly that, museum exhibits, and none of them are even remotely likely to ever become airworthy again.

And even some of the magnificient flight simulators that are around today (like the flight sim at Brooklands, or the current PC flight simulators, such as SSTSim or the new FlightLabs one) do not allow anyone to become "current" again on Concorde.

CJ

Update: This reply was not intended to be posted publicly, as it was directed to select few individuals. We will, however, honor all requests sent to Flight Sim Labs, Ltd. until 30 September, 2010. Apologies for the inconvenience!
---

Gents (and Landlady!),

I am ashamed to admit that I only now discovered this wonderful thread regarding the best aircraft that ever was.

I've chatted with some of the great minds behind the development of the actual aircraft and I've felt very proud that a select few (ChristiaanJ and others) have helped my team with invaluable insight as we developed the Concorde-X addon product for Flight Simulator X. (We only hope we did "her/him" a bit of justice with our final result).

In recognition of all your efforts, I'd like to offer everyone who has been involved in the development and/or flying of the real aircraft a free download copy of our product, if only as a token gift which might bring back some memories of what it felt to be inside its Flight Deck and cabin. Just write our support team (support (at) flightsimlabs (dot) com) a small note (please give us some info on the nature of your relationship with the bird) and we'll provide you with the information required for the download.

Please keep those memories coming - they are the best way to keep the legacy going!

Regards,
Lefteris Kalamaras
Flight Sim Labs, Ltd.

Are there any concorde simulators that are still working and retain their certification?

Regarding LHR JFK routes.

What was the avarage fuel load and how close to full tanks was it.

At FL500-600 what sort of wind was usually encountered. So high above the tropopause I would think very little.

Flying magazine from the US did a spread on the concorde many years ago. Theye stated that the wind component was such a little percentage of TAS that the block times rarely differed by more then 10 mins. True or false.

They also said that the type rating course was so hard that only the top performers (pilots) were selected for the training and even then there was a 50% washout rate. True or false.

Does anyone still have a complete set of ground school notes?

CRON
I can only speak here from the Concorde ground engineering school that I attended over a total of 13 weeks at Filton in 1980 and 1981; the pilot/flight engineer questions there were I'm sure FAR nastier (and also more operationally specific); we did get to share simulator time though, which was really useful. Like the aircrews, we stayed up in a hotel in Bristol during the week. (I personally had only left BAC, as it was then, for BA at Heathrow in late July 1977, so I was returning to familiar pastures). The exam format would be several dozen multi-choice questions per week/phase; a typical question would go something like:

The Inner Elevon Light, plus 'PFC' red Master Warning is triggered by:
a) The Green Flying ControlComparator
b) The Blue Flying Control Comparator
c) Either Comparator
The correct answer is (b).

Another flying controls question I can remember is:

Outer Elevon Neutralisation is triggered at:
a)Vmo + 10 KTS
b)Vmo + 15 KTS
c)Vmo + 25 KTS
The correct answer here is (c).

The pass mark in these exams was 75%, with penalty marking applied for any wrong answers. I always found the worst part was the fact that the exams were on a Friday afternoon after lunch

Nick Thomas
Hi again Nick, one really for the likes of BRIT312, EXWOK etc, but there was, as was mentioned before, an emergency forward transfer switch in the roof panel above the pilots (F/O's side if I remember correctly). When placed to the emergency poition two electric and two hydraulic fuel pumps for the rear trim tank #11 would start up automatically, as well as the forward tank inlet valves being opened also.
From what you said about the 'lady' being ahead of her time, I would certainly agree with you here; in my view she was generations ahead of everything else.

nomorecatering
The BA simulator that resided at Filton has been re-located to Brooklands Museum, and has been re-activated, but without motion and I'm not sure about full visuals either. I've not seen it myself yet, but I'm told that things have progressed really well with the operation. Obviously it is no longer certified as an active simulator; I'm not sure about the situation in France, perhaps my friend ChristiaanJ can answer that one.
I seem to remember typical loads for LHR-JFK being around 93-96 tonnes, depending on the passenger load and en-route conditions. Full tanks, depending on the SG was around 96 Tonnes. High fuel temperatures in the summer were a major pain; restricting maximum onload due to the low SG.

As far as ground school notes, mine are all out on long term loan (MUST get them back). The ground school are totally priceless and I am sure that there are many complete sets lying around in atticks/bedrooms/garages/loos etc.

Dude

nomorecatering asked: M2dude answered:
The BA simulator, now at Brooklands, is a long story.
For various reasons, only the simulator 'cab' could be salvaged. It was taken to Brooklands to be used as a static exhibit of what the Concorde cockpit looked like.
It was only well after its arrival at Brooklands that people started to think about bringing it back to life.... a huge piece of work, since about all that was left was the 'cab' itself, with the instruments and controls... the computers and interface circuits, needed to make them work, were all gone.
A team of volunteers, a simulator firm and university students have now brought it back to a state where it can be 'flown'. Even if not everything works yet, ex-Concorde pilots who've 'flown' it were already full of praise.
As to the visuals, the original visual system was taken back by BA, since it was recent and the same as used on other BA simulators.
It's been replaced by a specialised video projector and a wide screen, which appears quite satisfactory, although I 've heard rumours about plans to replace it with a three-projector system.

The story of the Air France simulator, that was located at CDG, is very different.
After the end-of-service it was moved almost in its entirety to Toulouse (Airbus), minus only the visual display system and the motion platform.
A small team of volunteers (mostly Airbus engineers) are slowly bringing that one 'back to life' as well, but (contrary to Brooklands) using most of the original electronics.
The intention is to have it ready for display (and use) at the Toulouse 'A\xe9roscopia' museum, which hopefully will open within a few years.
Unfortunately, until then the sim is not accessible to the public, since it's inside one of the Airbus site buildings.
And no, of course that one isn't certified either....

One small bit of trivia... the BA and AF simulators were NOT built by the same firm. The BA one was built by, IIRC, Singer-Redifon, and the French one by LMT.
Today that's a pity, really, because the Brooklands and Toulouse teams have very little technical information they can exchange.

Oh and, yes, I've visited and sat in both of them, but so far I haven't flown either of them yet.

CJ

The AF simulator was regarded as a sub standard machine, never had the required interface or processing power compared the the UK machine that was built as a joint effort by Sinker-Link Miles (structure and motion) and Redifon simulation (interface and computers), with a view that the developed product would be offered to the option holding airlines.

A key failing of the AF machine was that it could not correctly simulate an engine failure on take off without going off the runway.

So what happened when AF had an apparent engine failure/fire after V1 in 2000? The crew made a right hash of the procedures....Nuff said really.

gordonroxburgh; It sounds as though you may have had an involvement in the Concorde simulators with knowledge such as that...perhaps you could help with a question I have?

How did the simulators manage with the windsheild/nose tilt feature? I assume the relevant lever was present in the cockpit...did moving it cause anything to happen in the simulator?

ASI

Gordon should have more details, but on at least one (and probably both) of the sims there was a nifty arrangement at the front, of flat "masks" that limited the view in the same way as the real thing, and that moved up and down controlled by the nose/visor lever.

CJ

(PS: I've seen it on at least one of them, but have forgotten which...)

The last time that I 'flew' the Concorde simulator at Filton was about 15 years ago. The visuals were the superb Rediffusion (as it was called then) 'Wide' displays and I seem to remember that there was a sort of mechanical mask over the screens that looked somewhat like the visor, and this came up and down with the visor control lever. The very first time that I went on the sim' was in 1980, when the visuals comprised of a TV screen at the central parts of the windsheilds. (The DV and side windows I seem to remember were blanked out). The 'picture' was provided by a TV camera tracking over a huge vertical landscape model, populated with runways, houses, cows, fields etc. (If one of the models became 'unglued' it would appear to shoot horizontally across the screen).
I think that these Rediffusion 'Wide' vusuals were installed in the late 80's/early 90's and were as advanced as any simulator visuals anywhere. I believe that the original 'landscape model' was donated to a university.

Dude

A small add-on to the earlier posts about the simulators.

Brooklands sim video

Brief video, taken yesterday (Oct 9, 2010) of a landing on LHR 27L, with the new three-projector visual display.

Also a couple of photosets of the new projectors being installed on the top of the 'cab' and the three overlapping images being aligned. As the photographer (friend of mine) noted , he had to leave before the final tweaks... the borders (overlaps) are now virtually invisible.

Concorde Photos Gallery - 21st September 2010

Concorde Photos Gallery - 25th September 2010

CJ

Thanks for all of your reply.

As galaxy flyer said, I'm haven't met real Concorde in my life and neither see her
flying too. So I'm study about her for a while from flight simulator, manual,
some book, and this forum to get to know more about this amazing plane.
So if i'm bother you guys with a non sense question I'm apologize for that.

Best Regards

Vortex

Thanks, Bellerophon !

That just went into my 'archive'.

Maybe it should be printed out, plastified, and used as a briefing sheet for the Brooklands simulator, where the JFK 31L take-off is still one of the favourites !

CJ

Dude - that really brings back pain form the past! I remember knowing (just) enough about the flying controls to pass the ARB, but a diagram similar to that one was presented at one "Technical Refresher" day (remember those?) by one of our more chatty training EOs (could have been you?!) together with a coloured plastic overhead projector schematic complete with slidey moving jacks and PFCUs and things and it worked! I completely understood the system right up until the first pint of Brains that night...

Flying in mechanical signalling was a different experience - losing the autostabs was bad enough (and proved how good that system was). A mate on the fleet once described it as like trying to fly around on a supersonic dustbin lid. I think that description was too kind - the thing was barely controllable in that configuration. One of our skippers described an airtest when he was on the JS where the crew were trying a decel in MS: as the phugoids were diverging he thought he was about to lose his life so leant forward to restore things. Sadly the switches had been left in MS, so he had to move the switches up to "Blue" as well as then pressing the reset tits - a procedure which he described as almost impossible due to the ever more extreme manoeuvres. Recovery, fotunately, was instant. Resetting electrical signalling and autostabilisation always felt like slotting into a groove on the Concorde.

For that reason, I believe, flight in mechanical signalling was removed from transonic flight on airtests and altogether from Base Training. The simulator was the only sensible way of trying to fly like that...

And that flying control pre-flight check! Learning it was a conversion course rite of passage: one of the sadder parts of reading this thread was realising I'd forgotten it. Great times, great aircraft, great people. Nostalgia isn't necessarily a thing of the past... see you in March?

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