Posts about: "Sir Stanley Hooker" [Posts: 10 Page: 1 of 1]¶

There's an interesting piece here...

Concorde: story of a supersonic pioneer By Kenneth Owen, Science Museum (Great Britain)

Dr Hooker's argument that it makes more sense leaving the dead weight of an APU on the ground rather than carry it around at supersonic speed makes sense. (I presume this is the late Sir Stanley Hooker)

TURIN,
Thnks for the headup... I still have to get that book into my little library.

I've seen that quote before.
Dr. Hooker was right of course.

I think we'll never know what Iran Air's reasoning was......
Even with the vastly inferior infrastructucture in the Middle East at the time, it would seem to me it would have been much cheaper to station enough GPUs and ASUs at their various destinations (only two aircraft, after all), rather than go for an airline-specific APU fit.

Thanks for those nozzle diagrams Dude, they are very useful to visualise what's happening.

I remember reading Stanley Hookers book "Not Much of an Engineer" (I know the feeling ), in which he explains how at Mach 2 the Olympus is only providing about 8% of the total thrust but then goes on to say that at the low speed end of the take-off run it was 100% of the thrust so his designers were not let off the hook. That falls to 82% in subsonic cruise.

Ah, found the figures for Mach 2, the inlet provides 63% of the total thrust, exhaust nozzles 29%. That certainly explains why the thinning and re-profiling of the inlet lip was so important to improving the fuel burn, and hence range.

A detail I know but wasnt the Olympus really a Bristol engine? (cf Hooker "not much of an engineer" )I know RR bought the company but it wasnt their original design
rod

jodelistie
First of all Rod, welcome to our Concorde thread, and thank you very much for your kind words.
Now as far as the rumour goes, I'm afraid that it is nonsense, however the truth is an even more complex story of collusion, betrayal and intrigue. You may read that 'Concorde was retired by BA and Air France purely due to economic reasons', however that is not quite the case (and as far as THIS side of the English Puddle goes, is total poppycock!!). Now BA lost a huge amount of her regular traffic as a result of the 9/11 tragedy and also as a result of the 2003 Iraq war, but things were improving nicely. In her 27 years of operation, Concorde had survived countless dips in her traffic, only to return stronger as market conditions improved.
It is early 2003, and French Concorde traffic to the USA has almost vanished, down to single digit loads. This is due mainly to total French opposition the impending US/UK invasion of Iraq, and US businessmen using BA Concorde almost exclusively. (French business seems to be boycotting the US altogether, so their contribution to passenger loads virtually ceased). Due to the apalling loads, AF are losing absolutely MILLIONS of Euros, at a time when the carrier is trying to privatise itself ... but there is more:
In the same February, AF very nearly lost ANOTHER Concorde, yet again largely down to total incompetence and lack of adherence to established procedures. Aircraft F-BTSD was flying between CDG and JFK when there was a failure of the reheat delivery pipe that runs from the engine 1st stage fuel pump to the reheat shut-off valve. This failure, although not particularly serious, led to a chain of events that very nearly resulted in the loss of the aircraft, and all those onboard. (Air France engines were overhauled seperately to BA, who never experienced this particular failure). What was required in the case of this failure was a precautionary engine shut-down, closing off the fuel supply to the engine totally, and a descent/deceleration to subsonic speed, carefully monitoring fuel consumption all the time. Unfortunately the crew 'forgot' to shut down the fuel LP valve, and this resulted in the fuel continuing to gush out of the failed pipe at an alarming rate. (Oh, and also they forgot to monitor the fuel consumption). Only after the crew FINALLY noticed that they were still losing fuel did they remember to close the engine LP valve, but it was almost too late. The aircraft just managed to land in Halifax, with barely enough fuel left in the tanks to taxi!! So, herer we are, AF are horrified that they have come very close to yet another disaster, knowing full well that yet again human error was a major factor.
But there is more....
One week later another AF aircraft loses part of a rudder panel due to de-lamination of the honeycomb surface, not particularly serious in itself, but it put even more jitters up the trousers of AF. (Rudder failures had happened to BA aircraft many years previous to this, but BA had purchased brand new and improved rudders from Airbus UK in Filton, but Air France chose not too).
So it seems that the chairmen of both Air France and Airbus (who regards Concorde as a waste of its valuable resources) have a 'secret' meeting to plan what was effectively the murder of Concorde. There is no way that AF want BA to carry on flying Concorde while they have to cease operations, so the plan is for Airbus to make a huge hike in their product support costs; these costs would have to be borne by BA exclusively, which they both knew would not be possible. If these support costs were not met, there would be no manufacturers support, and without this there would be no type certificate, and without this, no more Concorde.
Their (AF & Airbus) hope was that BA would not challenge this move legally, and sadly for the world of aviation they did not. At a meeting, BA AND AIR FRANCE!!!! were told by Airbus about the hike in product support costs, and BA would also have to cease operations. BA were not even allowed to continue until March 2004 (the Barbados season was nearly fully booked already), and so would have to cease operations in October 2003.
But the British were far from blameless in all this; a now retired very senior British airline person had always obsessively HATED Concorde, so the French conspiracy was a very early Christmas present for him; he finally got what he had always wanted. The 'end of Concorde' anouncement by both airlines was made in April 2003; AF had got what their executives wanted and finished flying in May, reluctantly leaving BA to fly until late October. If you want a full (and extremely well informed) explanation of what happened in that whole debacle, the article by Don Pevsner is worth reading. It can be found at this website:
THE BETRAYAL OF CONCORDE
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that without the truly disgusting events in France in early 2003, Concorde would still be proudly flying for BA. (And with modifications and enhancements would fly safely for many more years).
quote** "in the hands of true professionals, Concorde was the safest aircraft that ever flew. and in the hands of BA crews at least, she was always just that..*

Oh and yes you were correct, the Olympus (the world's first ever 2 spool engine) was originally a 'Bristol-Siddeley' design, before BS were absorbed into Rolls-Royce. Stanley Hookers book is in my view totally superb, a true classic.

Dude

Thank you M2Dude for all this priceless info
I agree about Stan Hookers book and before he died he also recorded remeniscences on I think, a BBC program, I have it somewhere on a tape, must find it and transfer to a dvd
Ps the rumour was tongue in cheek
rod

If it wasn't for people like you, asking the questions, this thread would long since have petered out.
I know the story well... and I've seen some of the photos where all that was left of the aircraft was a huge black smear on the ground....

As mentioned earlier, hydrazine was "tamed" enough in the postwar years to make its use for EPUs in the military feasible (such as the F-16), where the weight gain is more important than the difficulties of handling the stuff.

Even so, just as well it was never used on the in-service Concordes... it's not the kind of product you want around on a civilian airport....
Just imagine a Concorde at the gate.. everybody being cleared away in a wide radius... a few people driving up with goggles, helmets and asbestos suits...
"What IS going on ??" "Oh, nothing, just topping up the APU"....

jodeliste ,
I have Stanley Hooker's book too. If you ever find that tape, put me on the distribution list for the DVD (all costs reimbursed, of course!).

CJ

Hi Cristiaan now you mention it I recall something about hockey stick fuel injectors in Stanley Hookers book
rod

This is for Cristiaan ( and maybe others)

Ive tracked down my old VHS tape of the interview with Stanley Hooker which you said you would like to see, if you PM me your address I will send you a dvd copy
cheers
rod

A pot pourri of responses after my Christmas reading!

This actually is interesting in that the n umbers show one of the fundamental features that made the Ol 593 such a good choice. If you look closely at the TO and cruise values you will find that at TO the overall compressor pressure ratio is 13.5 the compressor exit temperature 460 degC and the turbine inlet temperaure is 1152 degC. In cruise the pressure ratio is 10.5, the compressor exit is 565 degC and the TET 1100 degC.

Somebody, I can't find the exact post, was asking whether the elevated cruise total temperatures affected engine life, and here we see why this is so. As Christian said in another posting, when you compress air it gets hotter - from 21 degC to 460 degC at take off and from 127 degC to 565 degC in cruise. A fundamental limit on engine operation is the turbine entry temperature. Not only does it affect the maximum TO thrust you can get but also the continued exposure to cruise TETs has a very big effect on engine fatigue life, and engine manufacturers have shown extremes of ingenuity when developing new materials and ways of cooling the blades to increase allowable TET.

The problem with supersonic operations is that you start from an elevated intake delivery temperature so that when the flow exits the compressor it is already very hot 565 instead of 460 to be exact. But the maximum temperature one can stand for fatigue reasons is limited, therefore the amount of fuel you can pour in must be limited also, and the thrust you can develop per pound of airflow is roughly proportional to the fuel input/temperature rise. To get any sensible cruise thrust then one must squeeze the cruise TET as high as you dare for fatigue reasons but also you need to keep the compression ratio down so that the temperature going into the combustion chambers is as low as you can get away with. This tend to drive engines designed for extended supersonic operations to having a low pressure ratio. This is against the trend in subsonic operations where compression ratios have been steadily increasing along with bypass ratios.


The net result then is that the engine must be designed with a low OPR and must operate with cruise TET much closer to its TO TET value than would be necessary, or indeed desirable, on a subsonic design.



Actually, here, as on some other apparent carry-overs, one should look at the equipment supplier rather than the aircraft manufacturer to trace continuity. Here we have Messier supplying Concorde's gear and Dowty (OK they are now part of Messier) supplying the A330. And having worked on both, I seem to remember that the means of doing the shortening are quite different.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brit312

The Britannia and now you are talking about the love of my life and yes I do remember the story of the nose and visor selector, but we have forgotten the most obvious. Where do you think they got the idea for the control column from

Yes, they both came out of the Bristol drawing office. One minor anecdote: the 'ramshorn' stick was a novelty to the Concorde flight test crews but they got to like it, or at least put up with it. All went well until it came to the time when Dave Davies, the ARB Chief Test Pilot, came to put his rubber stamp on the aircraft.

Concorde's seats, just like those on your car, could be moved back and fore to get your legs on the pedals and up and down so you could see over the bonnet (sorry, instrument panel). The control column of course stayed in one place, so the relationship of the 'horns' to ones thighs varied with ones height. Andre Turcat was about 6ft 2in, Trubbie and the others of average height. The smallest regular pilot was Jean Franchi at, I suppose, about 5ft 7 or 5ft 8. No problems. But Dave Davies was short like me and he found that he could not get full back stick and full aileron because the ramshorn fouled his thighs.


Consternation! Completely unacceptable! I don't know what arguments they used to convince him it was all OK really, but it got through certification. I would certainly be interested to learn from the pilots in this group as to whether it was ever a problem.

Quote:

Originally Posted by exWok

........which was one reason it was so important to touch down with the wings level - even a very small angle of bank could result in bucket contact as they translated to the reverse position. It was a surprise coming to Concorde to find it was even more restrictive than the 747 in this respect

I can't resist this one!. Has anyone ever noticed/wondered about the tiny bit of the outer elevon that has been chopped off? That was my first real input into the design as a young erk looking at variability of touchdown conditions and coming to the conclusion that if the pilot got into trouble and was trying to pick up a trailing wing with too much AoA as well then he was likely to hit the ground with the downgoing elevon. I persuaded my boss that this was so and we made a small adjustment.
In self defence I am going to plead that this was well before the days of the Type 28 nozzle, so the issue of buckets contacting the ground first never came up!

Quote:

As far as your point about the prototype engines; they were way down on thrust anyway, (even without the 'help' of the silencers), produced more black smoke than a 1930's coal fired power station.

To the point where an American Airline maintainance engineer, watching a prototype taking off and with full benefit of being located strategically for maximum sideline noise, remarked on what he described as 'visible acoustic radiation'

On another occasion, it was reputed that Stanley Hooker, watching a TO in the company of HRH the Duke of Edinburgh, remarked that "You know Sir that that noise represents less energy than it takes to boil an egg". to which he got the reply "Then I must congratulate you Sir Stanley, on producing so much noise for the expenditure of so little energy".

Quote:

Originally Posted by CJ

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?

There was an effect and in consequence the aircraft performance brochures were formally calculated for north/south flight. Pity really, it would sometimes have been nice to be able to fly guarantee performance demonstrations in the most favourable direction

That's enough for today!

CliveL