Posts by user "911slf" [Posts: 8 Total up-votes: 0 Page: 1 of 1]¶

I have been a Concorde fan since I won a flight on it in 1980, courtesy of a competition in the Birmingham Evening Mail.

I got the Haynes Manual for Christmas. On page 95 there is a diagram and photo of the centre dash panel, showing among other things the fuel consumption gauges, which, remarkably, read up to 35 tonnes per engine per hour. There appears to be two digital displays per gauge as well as an analogue display.

What was the peak consumption per engine, and why two digital displays on each gauge?

As prompted by ChristiaanJ. I won the trip in a competition using Prestel (anyone remember that?). I was using my employer's Prestel set and had to lie about it else the prize would have been raffled among my colleagues .

It was a 1 hour and 40 minute flight from Manchester to Paris, via Ireland and the Atlantic Ocean, accelerating to Mach 2.0 and immediately slowing down again. It was a charter flight in which the other 99 seats were occupied by the most successful fire extinguisher salesmen from a company called Chubb. Return was the following day, on a BAC 111. I spent a beautiful September evening in Paris, and it cost me a fortune. Having arrived by Concorde I tried to live up to the image, seeing a show in the Lido, buying a meal on the Champs Elysee, and buying souvenirs for the wife and children. I later discovered that all the fire extinguisher salesmen had spent the night in the hotel bar .

What I remember about the flight was the phenomenal acceleration on take-off, at a light weight, the spectacular climb rate, and the fact the window got perceptibly warm when supersonic. Also, as I was sitting near the back I could see the floor of the aircraft flexing slightly, a bit like a fishing rod. We only went to 43,000 feet so the sky did not get very dark.

A bit of politics here: I always thought that Concorde was Britain's admission ticket to the European Union. And national pride - nothing wrong with that!

thanks Bellerophon, and EXWOK for a comprehensive reply.

I believe that engine #4 was limited to somewhat less than max power until 60kt because of a vibration issue. Did this mean that reheat for that engine could not be selected until 60kt was achieved?

That 250 kt limit had a truly startling effect on climb rate. Compared with an unrestricted climb, how much would that limit cost in fuel?

If the quote in message #1504 is correct, why would there be a vibration problem on take off in engine #4 only ?
Ref: p80 Haynes 'Owners Workshop Manual'

I make no claim to technical knowledge but this seems unlikely. Is there a source for this?

ref #1496
I have still got my key ring from my 1980 flight. Thank you Birmingham Evening Mail competitions department.

Still cost me an arm and a leg. I arrived in Paris by Concorde and tried to live up to the image. Trip to the Lido, dinner on the Champs Elysee. Never did admit to the wife what I spent.

Thanks ChristiaanJ#1508 and CliveL#1509. That's what I thought. It was the quote in #1504 that implied left and right handed engines with all the stock problems that would cause.

At risk of thread drift I think that anything with propellers would be likely to suffer much more from asymmetry, but I think folk just put up with it - except in the few cases where there are contrarotating propellers.

Am I right in thinking that once the necessary minimum rpm was achieved, reheat was selected on all four engines, but that some (automatic?) control restricted the power to engine#4 until 60kt was achieved?