Posts by user "DozyWannabe" [Posts: 29 Total up-votes: 0 Page: 1 of 2]¶

Any magnetic core memory in any of those systems?

Thank you very much for that information guys. I guess I was trying to work out how the processing work was done, and I suppose from the answers given that other than the INS, it must have been worked out directly on the hardware in realtime. Obviously this was in the decades before von Neumann architecture became ubiquitous, which is why I find the subject so fascinating being a computer scientist (of sorts) myself!

This thread is officially awesome.

Well, it was essentially a development airframe pressed into premature service for the sake of beating a western project into the air. One wonders whether the story would have been different if the designers had been allowed to take their time and develop it properly.

This is off-topic, so I ain't going to bang on this subject after this post, but I wouldn't be so quick to denigrate former Soviet technology in all cases. Those "agricultural" fighters can mix it up with the best the west has to offer (until - or if - the F22 comes online) in terms of manoeuvering ability, if not in terms of weapons. Elements of their rocket technology were in advance of what we had at the time, and the solutions they came up with to put the Tu-144 in the air may have been crude, but they were to some degree effective, which can denote an elegant solution in itself.

That said, this thread is about an aircraft which was the result of - unarguably - some of the best engineering in aviation history, and I'd much rather talk about that!

I think he's referring to the airframes (Fox-Bravo and Delta-Golf off the top of my head, probably others) that required an angle-grinder be taken to them in order to transport to their final destinations via road or waterway that as a result will never be structurally airworthy again.

I may stand corrected - was Fox-Bravo simply unbolted for the canal trip?

D'oh! Though I could say I don't know, 'cos I've only ever seen the Weser close-up.

I'd still say even in an ideal world where such a thing would be possible, having been stored in the open for several years would put Fox-Bravo pretty far down the list of repair candidates though...

That's not a very nice way to talk about BA and AF's finest!

(Sorry, couldn't resist a feed like that)

I don't want to divert this fascinating thread into acrimony, so answer at your discretion.

Really? Why would that be? Aerospatiale (forerunner of Airbus) were responsible for just as many parts on the British production run as they were the French.

The dispersal and disposition of the British aircraft was BA's decision though, not that of Airbus.

This discord really saddens me. Maybe Concorde's premature end-of-life was politically motivated and maybe it was financially motivated - but at the end of the day it doesn't make a blind bit of difference. Can't we just celebrate what was rather than end up fighting over infinitessimal might-have-beens?

Drop the 'x's and you're golden, Clive.

Spot on, Clive.

I've said something similar (while at the same time being full of admiration and effusive praise for M2Dude). It's worth bearing in mind that at the time (2003 or thereabouts), AI were fighting a battle to keep the A380 project viable (like Boeing with the 747, they'd effectively "bet the company" on the project's success) - and sadly, in terms of business realpolitik Concorde was costing them money, being just a small-run legacy airframe capable of operating profitably for a single customer. Things weren't going to get any better, and as such AI's decision was as understandable as it was regrettable.

I have far less sympathy for BA, who acted with what seemed to me indecent haste to permanently mothball the airframes (the press at the time speculating that Branson would try to get his hands on at least one of them), and while the UK Concorde community have a right to feel aggrieved at the way things panned out - the fact that what was left of BAe effectively bowed out of the Airbus consortium, the better to focus on military hardware with the Americans, meant that we'd thrown away any chance of having a say in what happened to Concorde in the end.

EDITED TO ADD : In reference to Bellerophon's post below - this was *not* intended to take the technical discussion off-course. I was simply trying to thank Clive for summing up how I felt about the whole situation far better than I ever could. Sincere apologies if this was misconstrued as such.

The clincher being that 002 carries the legend "SUD AVIATION FRANCE", whereas G-AXDN carries "AEROSPATIALE FRANCE".

Happy New Year, all!

For a second, 'astings, I thought I 'ad been premature...

Later photographs of 002 show her bearing the Aerospatiale name, like her sister ship - she'd presumably been repainted at some point. However, the photo of 101 Christiaan posted is captioned on concordesst.com as being taken at her rollout, which I am presuming means that she never carried Sud Aviation titles, the companies presumably having merged before 1971.

Was there a reason - other than it was the second example built - that the French pre-production model had the longer tail assembly fitted, whereas 101 did not?

Yeah - "Hutch" helpfully points it out on the late '80s BBC Concorde Special (which I recently re-acquired - yay!).

I think Gordon probably meant "airliner" rather than "aircraft".

The implementation of FBW on the F-16 was intended to solve a very different problem than that of the A320 series. The F-16 was one of the most maneouverable fighters of it's day, but the way General Dynamics achieved that was by having an aerodynamically unstable airframe that *required* constant computer correction to keep her airborne and going in a straight line. The A320 was designed to be as aerodynamically stable as any other airliner, but the FBW was simply designed to assist the pilot by easing the workload when it came to actually controlling the thing, as well as provide safety features as backstops when things got hairy.

The only Western analogue FBW aircraft of the time of comparable size to an airliner (IIRC) were the Avro Vulcan and Concorde. France had no Vulcans, so the airworthy test Concorde they had to hand was the obvious choice.

I daren't use the language my wife uses to describe me for knowing that!

@flyboyike - if you haven't read it already, I can heartily recommend post #875 on this thread.

http://www.pprune.org/tech-log/42398...ml#post6129540

To my eternal regret, I never had a chance to get close to the old girl in her "lifetime", but I'll never forget the day she overflew my Mum's house at what can't have been more than a couple of thousand feet on her way back from Farnborough.

Following on from what EXWOK was saying, you've got to remember that the spec was hammered out in the late '60s - so it's not surprising that the flight deck could *appear* antiquated by 1980's standards. But in this case, as alluded to, appearances are deceptive. While the gauges and switches are very definitely of that vintage, the systems behind them were very much bleeding-edge technology (by aviation standards) in a contemporary sense. Even when Concorde entered production, the most complex digital displays available to aviation were of the 7-segment LED type (as used in the Apollo Guidance Computer), and they were both wildly expensive and of limited use. The flight and engine controls were in fact a pioneering kind of analogue FBW - way in advance of any other type, even those making their debut at the start of the '80s (though FADEC was becoming more widespread by then - with the advent of the B757 and 767).

Ergonomically speaking, both engineers and pilots of the era write of Concorde's flight deck being the best possible balance of form and function available at the time - sure it looks cluttered to the modern eye, but everything was placed in a logical manner and the sheer number of systems used in the aircraft made the accessibility of all that information a basic requirement. It's worth bearing in mind that even those not particularly well-disposed to Airbus will grudgingly admit that the flight deck ergonomics on those types are extremely good - and a lot of the lessons learned were from cramming all that information into Concorde's limited space.

As for the cabin, again appearances are deceptive - I have sat in one of those seats and they are extremely comfortable for the size. Also one must bear in mind that unlike the subsonic Atlantic crossings, these were happening in about 3 hours - so no need to be particularly wide or convert into a bed like we see in Business and First today - not to mention less chance of a queue for the WC!

I have to thank EXWOK for explaining the windows - but I'll add the more prosaic reason that you don't need a particularly large window to see the curvature of the Earth in all its splendour - which is for the most part all you'd be seeing during the flight!

[EDIT : I should also confirm that EXWOK is also correct in stating that BA had Concorde turning a profit from the early-'80s onward, and it took a combination of a financial downturn and the fallout from the terrorist attacks of September 2001 to end the service.

While Concorde herself never recouped the development money granted by the governments of the UK and France, the infrastructure and R&D her development put in place paved the way for the Airbus project which, as we know, ended up becoming a leading player in airliner design and manufacture in the West. ]

Hey Clive - nice to see you!

I was thinking more "indirectly" - in general UK/Euro flight deck layouts were more in line with improving ergonomics than those on the other side of the pond for a long time. Later work may not have been done at Filton as Concorde's was, but the Airbus folk would have been foolish in the extreme not to use the fundamental principles as a basis for that work!

Hence the catch-all term "paved the way" - whereby lessons in how not to do it are as useful as those which were a positive example!