Posts about: "Quiz" [Posts: 13 Page: 1 of 1]¶

Just because I am so curious, what speed and profile would be used when flying the circuit? I came across a figure somewhere saying minimum V2+50 (with 250 kts suggested); was that maintained all the way to final, and did that not make for some very large circuits?

Rather amazing that the circuit speed of the Concorde would be more than twice the cruise speed of what I fly...

And also, could the Concorde handle something like, say, a destination where the only instrument approach would be a full procedure non-precision approach with a 185 kt max base turn? Or a SID where the initial turn would be made 10 miles out at maximum 210 kt?

Trivia questions, I know, but this plane and everything about it is just so fascinating!

I thought it might be nice to throw in a few trivia questions here to lighten things up. Most readers of this thread should be able to answer fairly easily; if necessary by checking back on some of the previous posts in the thread. (All questions relate to the BA fleet). Or there is always Uncle Google :
1) How many fuel tanks werer there on Concorde?
2) How many seats were there?
3) At what approximate altitude and KNOTS EAS was Mach 2 achieved?
4) Only one BA Concorde had three different registrations, what was it?
5) What was the maximum permitted altitude in passenger service?
6) How many wheels on the aircraft
7) How many flying control modes were there?
8) How many positions of nose droop were there?
9) What was the first microprocessor application on the aircraft?
10) How many main electrical sources were there?

Answers tomorrow

Dude

Not sure all of them are pure trivia!
Even myself, who supposedly knows the aircraft fairly well, is hesitating on several!
Give us a couple of days at least, Dude!

CJ

ChristiaanJ
Wow, you surprise me my friend. OK, answeres on Thursday then.
(I used to do regular quizes for the aircrews, you should hear what THEY said about me )

Dude

1) How many fuel tanks werer there on Concorde? - Lots
2) How many seats were there? - 12, the rest were freight bays
3) At what approximate altitude and KNOTS EAS was Mach 2 achieved? - Very high and very fast but NOT very very fast
4) Only one BA Concorde had three different registrations, what was it? - The one that was made at Filton
5) What was the maximum permitted altitude in passenger service? - Feet, metres or FL?
6) How many wheels on the aircraft - Just enough
7) How many flying control modes were there? - Fast, very fast and very very fast
8) How many positions of nose droop were there? - With the STOP or without?
9) What was the first microprocessor application on the aircraft? - Pacman (wild guess)
10) How many main electrical sources were there? - Tomato and BBQ

So what do I win?

As promised here are the answers to our trivia quiz.
Actually there were 14 (but if you are not necessarily a Concorde person, 13 is acceptable). There were '13 fuel tanks, numbered 1 - 11' as we used to tell all the visitors to the aircraft, (The wingtip tanks 5A & 7A making up the extra 2) PLUS a single small scavenge tank at the rear of the aircraft that was used to remove fuel from the vent lines and return this fuel via a transfer pump back to tank 3. (A fuel level sensor would trigger the pump with only 1 US Gallon of fuel in the tank). If the trim gallery became over-pressurised (ie tank 3 already full to the brim) an overflow relief valve (ORV) underneath the rear of the aircraft would open and dump the contents of the tank overboard. There was a flight deck indication if the scavenge pump was running in flight to give the crew an indication that a tank somewhere was probably over-filling and to take the appropriate action. There was one added goody about the ORV; If you were on the ground with the refuel door open and due to a refuelling overfill anywhere, fuel entered the scavenge tank, at 7 gallons the ORV would open and rapidly dump the fuel on the floor. For this reason a vent pipe and fuel drum was often placed underneath the ORV during high load refuels. If this was not fitted and you just happened to walk underneath the aircraft at the wrong moment during fuelling........
As a total aside to all this (or me going off on a tangent yet again) the fuel tanks themselves were gently air pressurised above 44,000' to around 2.2 PSIA. This was to prevent the beginnings of any boiling of the fuel in the tanks, due to the low ambient pressure/high fuel temperatures, causing pump cavitation. (Boiling itself could not occur much below 65,000'). A small NACA duct at the right side of the fin was used to supply the ram air for tank pressurisation, the two vent valves in the tail cone, one per trim gallery, closing off automatically at around 44,000', the pressure being controlled by a pneumatic valve, with full automatic over-pressure protection. OK sorry guys and gals, back to the answers:
This is the stinker.... there were 114 (although at entry into service there were 115!!). 100 passenger seats + 6 cabin crew seats + 5 flight deck seats (including the fold up seat in the aisle at the rear) PLUS 3 LOO SEATS (Originally 4 loos, the fourth loo being removed in the early 1980's).
50,189' and 530 KEAS, but we'll settle for anything around FL500 being correct.
Aircraft 216, G-BOAF, the last Concorde ever built. When 216 first flew in 1979 she was a variant 192 'British Unsold Aircraft' and was registered as G-BFKX. In late 1979, BA purchased the aircraft and it was subsequently converted to a Type 102 British Airways variant, and after modifications were complete, test flights were carried out from Filton under the registration of G-N94AF. This registration was to enable the aircraft to participate in the Braniff interchange between IAD and DFW, but when the Braniff Concorde adventure unfortunately ended in 1980, she was again re-registered to G-BOAF, this is how she was delivered to BA later that year.
Easy one this I hope; 60.000'. (As we've said before this limitation was imposed because of the dual window failure / emergency descent time consideration, not as a performance issue. On test flights 63,000' was routinely attained, and altitudes of up to 68,000' were achieved during development flying. (On her maiden flight, G-BOAB achieved 65,000' and Mach 2.04; the first British constructed Concorde to achieve Mach 2 on her maiden flight, and the ONLY one of the original five BA aircraft to achieve this).
Hopefully an easy one... there were TWELVE: 2 nose wheels, 8 main wheels and 2 tail wheels. (No, even I'm not nasty enough to include the wheels on the bar trolleys ). Oh, and there were 9 wheel brakes, one for each main wheel and as was mentioned in a previous post, a single steel disc brake for the nose wheels (the nose having a live axle), for automatic use during gear retraction only.
Three modes; Blue electronic signalling, green electronic signalling and mechanical signalling. I suppose we COULD be pedantic here and include the Emergency Flight Control mode where even with a jammed control column/control wheel, strain gauges (and Safety Flight Control Computers of course) would still enable you to control the elevons.
OK, three basically. Up (Duh!), 5 degrees for taxi/take off and low speed flight and 12.5 degrees for landing. As ChristiaanJ quite rightly pointed out in an earlier post, the prototype (and pre-production) aircraft landing position was 17.5 degrees of droop. (In my view the nose of the aircraft looked a little like an armadillo in this extreme configuration).
In 1977 the new digital Plessey PVS 1580 Aircraft Integrated Data System was progressively fitted to the BA fleet, this being the first microprocessor application on Concorde, this application being followed in several other systems during the life of the aircraft. The 'final' applications being TCAS and the superb retrofitted Bendix RDR-4A weather radar system.
No we are not including torch batteries and emergency lights etc. There were a total of seven main power sources: 4 x 60KVA AC generators, one per engine, a single 40KVA hydraulically powered emergency generator and 2 lead acid (or ni-cad in the case of G-BOAG) main aircraft batteries. (Not a terribly Re-Volting question I hope).

I hope this quiz was fun and not too perplexing to any of you guys.

Dude

I copied this off M2dude's post a couple of days ago, and tried to answer it all offline without cheating by looking up the answers elsewhere.

1) How many fuel tanks were there on Concorde?
LOL... 13.
I suppose that, for the same reason there was no row 13 in the cabin, somebody decided to name two of the tanks "5A" and "7A", rather than call the tail trim tank (named no.11) number 13.
Yes, I forgot the scavenge tank.
And since it was "BA Concordes only" I didn't want to add the hydrazine tank on the two preprod and the two certification aircraft.

2) How many seats were there?
Good question.
As Nick asked, which seats?
Nominally there were 100 pax seats in the cabin, although originally up to 127 were certified.
Five (three plus two jump seats) in the cockpit.
Cabin seats for the cabin crew.... I honestly don't know. Seven?
Wrong twice... six cabin crew seats, AND I forgot to count the loos!

3) At what approximate altitude and KNOTS EAS was Mach 2 achieved?
Roughly, FL500 and 530 kts.
But not being a pilot I had to check an instant on my flight envelope crib sheet, which I have at hand all the time.....
It seemed pointless to be TOO precise, because that assumed ISA and creeping exactly up the right edge of the envelope.

4) Only one BA Concorde had three different registrations, what was it?
Without looking it up, no idea. My guess is G-BOAF, with a white-tail reg, a "British" reg, and a pseudo-American reg.
IIRC, G-BOAG never had a pseudo-American reg, but I'm not sure without looking it up.
Brain not completely addled, then.

5) What was the maximum permitted altitude in passenger service?
FL600, as certified.

6) How many wheels on the aircraft?
Twelve, if you count the two Spitfire wheels at the back

7) How many flying control modes were there?
Four. Blue, green, mechanical and ... what did we call it? Control jam, CWS?
Ah, thanks, Emergency Flight Control. I always considered it as a separate mode, even if it was virtually never used.

8) How many positions of nose droop were there?
Four. 0\xb0, 5\xb0, 12.5\xb0 and 17.5\xb0 (the latter only on the prototypes, and purely mechanically, after removing a stop, on the other aircraft).

9) What was the first microprocessor application on the aircraft?
No idea... you (M2dude) mentioned a Plessey data acquisition system?
It was after "my time"...

10) How many main electrical sources were there?
Again, not sure... You're presumably are talking about primary sources.
There was an AC constant-drive generator on each engine.
Then there were two DC batteries.
And IIRC there was an AC generator running off the RAT hydraulic generator when pillar came to post.
Reading M2dude's answer, I suppose the emergency generator just ran off the hydraulics, not specifically off the RAT. Far more logical.

Nice one, M2dude!
And certainly not all trivia!

CJ

As requested here is the second in the diabolical series of Concorde quizes. If you were never personally involved withe the aircraft you can leave out the really stinky questions if you want. Most answers can be found either in this thread, by looking at the many panel photos around or as usual by asking Mr Google

1) How many Concorde airframes were built?

2) As far as the British constructed aircraft went, name the destinations that were served?. Regular flight numbers only, excludes charters etc.

3) What was the departure time for the ORIGINAL morning LHR-JFK Concorde services? (Not called the BA001 then either).

4) Further to question 3 above, what WERE the original flight numbers for the BA001 and BA003? (The morning and evening LHR-JFK services?).

Humble SLF here, hope it is ok to have a stab at the questions, mods please feel free to delete if necessary.

1) How many Concorde airframes were built?

22, 20 that flew and 2 test frames

2) As far as the British constructed aircraft went, name the destinations that were served?. Regular flight numbers only, excludes charters etc.

New York, Washington, Miami, Barbados, Toronto, Bahrain and Singapore, no British registered aircraft ever operated to or form Dallas, should not forget BAs most popular destination of all time-London


3) What was the departure time for the ORIGINAL morning LHR-JFK Concorde services? (Not called the BA001 then either).

0930-Local

4) Further to question 3 above, what WERE the original flight numbers for the BA001 and BA003? (The morning and evening LHR-JFK services?).

193 & 195 respectiveley

5) There were no less than FORTY SIX fuel pumps on Concorde. What was the breakdown for these? (Clue; don't forget the scavange pump ).

Pass


6) What was the only development airframe to have a TOTALLY unique shape?

101, G-AXDN


7) This one is particularly aimed at ChristiaanJ. What was the total number of gyros on the aircraft?

pass


8) How many wheel brakes?

8


9) What Mach number was automatic engine variable intake control enabled?

1.3


10) Above each bank of engine instruments were three lights, a blue, a green and an amber. What did they each signify?

Not sure here, best guess -green was part of the take-off moniter -red failure-blue reverse

11) At what airfied were the first BA crew base training details held?

Prestwick, shannon, and one in France


12) What LHR runways did Concorde use for landing and take-off? (Trick question, not as obvious as it might seem).

28L , 28R, 27L, 27R, 9L, 9R 10L 10R, 23

13) What operator had serious plans to operate Concorde from SNN to JFK in the early 1980's?

Fed-ex


14) What development aircraft did not exceed Mach 2 until fifteen months after her maiden flight?

214? G-BFKW

1) How many Concorde airframes were built?

22 total. 2 test, 9 BA, 9 AF, 2 spares (1 BA, 1 AF).

2) As far as the British constructed aircraft went, name the destinations that were served?. Regular flight numbers only, excludes charters etc.

JFK, Dulles Intl., Barbados, Miami, Bahrain, Singapore.

3) What was the departure time for the ORIGINAL morning LHR-JFK Concorde services? (Not called the BA001 then either).

No idea.

4) Further to question 3 above, what WERE the original flight numbers for the BA001 and BA003? (The morning and evening LHR-JFK services?).

No idea.


13 tanks, 2 main pumps each (except tank 11 which had 4 pumps) = 28
Main and aux engine feed pumps (3 per collector, 4 collectors for a total of 12)
Fuel pumps from aux tanks to mains = 4
Fuel dump = 2


BAC 221. Flying test bed for the wing design.






Filton.


27 L/R, 09 R.

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

Wasn't there mention of a Ford Cortina disc brake for either the front wheels or the ones in the skid?

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