Posts by user "EXWOK" [Posts: 111 Total up-votes: 0 Page: 3 of 6]¶

They weren't used for take off because there was no relevant mode. The initial climb was to hold 250kts after takeoff until a predetermined time for noise abatement (a little over a minute ex-LHR, less ex-JFK) and then start to accelerate after the NA thrust reduction.

It was a balancing act and different for each departure - the RoC actually went up the faster you went so you were easing up, maximising the acceleration, while ensuring you (just) made the SID alt requirements.

So, apart from a few seconds holding 250kts, there really wasn't a mode that would work in pitch; you would have to take vert speed and be constantly asking the NHP to select different VS's and HDGs and they had quite enough to do already. No benefit, so don't use it.

Once you'd got to Vmo during the SID (it was 400kts at that point) you could use Max Climb mode (see earlier discussions) and that was generally when the FD was engaged.

It was permissable to engage the AP at an early stage, in which case HDG mode and Pitch Hold would be used, but it was more effort than hand-flying, less accurate and less fun so that was a rare event.

On approach, if an ILS was being flown, you are correct that the FD could be used, although for a typical approach it needed to be off at 300'. This was because wherever possible we flew a 'Reduced Noise Approach' (again, see earlier comments) which consisted of holding 190kts to 800' then reducing to final speed to be stable by 300'. AP/FD had to out by 300' in this case, owing to the very tight pitch control required for which it wasn't certificated (although it could carry out a very good coupled approach and landing if given a more stable approach).

In summary - a very 'hands-on' aeroplane. And all the better for it

For those who wanted to know what the difference in fuel burn between a 737 and Concorde LHR-MAN........I don't know! (Never had the pleasure of flying the 737).

My best guess - at least 200% more. Probably higher.

A comparison:

Typical Concorde taxying fuel burn: 6500kgs/hr

Typical 777-200 cruising fuel burn: 6500kgs/hr

Of course, as we've already discussed earlier, the magic thing about Concorde was that once you'd got to Mach2 its efficiency was outrageously good - better miles per gallon than a 747. An option not available, however, between LHR and MAN.

Edited to add: a slow taxy out at LHR would almost definitely consume more fuel than the 737 would burn for the sector.

And later in the flight, 13 degs was the initial setting for the decel.

Or was it 18?? Late at night here - I'll think about it tomorrow!

Thanks Dude. Age and time catching up, but probably mostly caused by having been awake for 24hrs when I posted!

Seemed a good idea at the time.

I echo your fears about AF - it would be nice to see some of the enthusiasts with wild ideas scale them down a bit and focus on saving AF rather than an impossible pipedream.

Has AF really accrued fewer hours than AG, with her time out of service?

Always my fave so I'm particularly keen she doesn't get butchered.

2% seems a bit high to me - but I haven't tried to calculate it yet.

Coriolis effect was measurable if you looked for it - about 1 degree of bank, I recall.

I believe the control laws of the FBW Airbii have to take it into account, as they command 1g in level flight. I'm sure there are people out there who know.....

Notfred -

There was no real difference between a touch and go and a normal take off/landing. As already stated earlier in the thread bucket contact was always a possibility if the landing was a little high-pitched, especially while the buckets translated. Not having the wings perfectly level reduced bucket clearance significantly. Not much of an issue on take-off.

As for checking runways - there was a lot of that done for this aeroplane, but nowt to do with clearances. Runway roughness was a potential issue on take-off, it was to do with the structural dynamics. No time to explain now, though, but I'll revisit it tomorrow if no-one else does.

In short - bucket contact would be the result of mishandling of some sort (e.g. incorrect Vref, speed decay, overflare, wings not level) not runway roughness.

Hi Galaxy Flyer -

When I first got the beast on my licence it was recorded as 'Concorde Series 102 & variant'.

(Translates as British-built series plus s/no. 214, aka G-BOAG)

These days it appears as just 'Concorde'. (I'm surprised it still appears at all since the type isn't current on the register).

It's a while since I filed a flt plan for a Concorde sector, but recall that it was entered as 'CONC'.

ATB

Pedalz -

I'm not the best person to reply to your ramp query - he'll be along later! - and it's been largely answered already, but the bare bones are this;

Ramp 1&2 Green system, back up of yellow, 3&4 Blue, backup yellow.

Any continuous surge at supersonic speed would affect the adjacent engine, hence the requirement to close all 4 throttles.

Cheers,

EXWOK

Short answer: Yes. The procedures were necessary.

Even using them, it didn't take much to generate a noise fine (e.g. on a warm day, departing 31L from intersection KK because the full length wasn't available).

We couldn't climb ahead to 500ft like the blunties do because Concorde would be much further along the runway owing to higher take off speeds and a lower initial climb rate until you'd got above 250kts. We'd then be flying the turn at 250kts rather than the 160kts ish of a blunty so you have a much bigger radius of turn.

The solution was quite inventive and did the job well, taking advantage of Concorde's excellent handing qualities. And it was most enjoyable to fly, to boot.

I flew back from JFK last week and it just ain't the same.

Which was the same as the profile for BGI-LHR: Throttles pushed to the stops at the start of the take-of roll and not touched again until the decel/descent.

Once you know how the rating selections work, enabling the throttles to be left fully forward throughout normal flight, you can draw a line to the Airbus FBW thrust lever arrangement - the detents equating to different ratings.

Mercifully no-one had thought of that when Concorde was being designed; I still think it's a diabolical system.

BTW I was told in the conversion course that during the design phase the idea was mooted to only have one thrust lever for all four engines. This would probably have worked - even non-normal engine shutdown drills didn't require the engine's throttle to be closed, the first thing you did was pull the shutdown handle.

It's entirely possible;, in fact there's a probability of at least some crossover since one idea, as I suggested, is to some extent an extension of its predecessor.

My views on their relative merits aren't affected by that, however.

We wish!

L&B was done by the flt crew on charters; if the flight had a PR flt crew member on board it was his job, otherwise it was the NHP's. (Unless the Captain was the NHP when it became the SFO's job.....)

At some BA stations arrangements might be made to get a L&B through company, but generally for charter flights we operated the way charter companies did!

Edit: Actually, I now recall we did sometimes get a dispatcher sent to UK stations occasionally. No big deal, either way - you just got on with it.

Ref the landing manoeuvre: CliveL is quite correct - there was a distinct nosedown pitch generated by descent into gnd effect.

The machine was very light in pitch on approach (spring feel only and not much positive stability, especially with the A/T active owing to its destabilising effect) so minimal pitch input was the order of the day. Then you descended into gnd effect and a steadily increasing pull was reqd to hold the desired attitude (any nose down change at this stage was a prelude to disaster!).

The overall effect was not unnatural, since it was similar to a flare and hold off in a conventional aircraft (although more Stearman than 747).

AFTER touchdown, selection of reverse caused a distinct pitch up, and if this was allowed to get hold it was a real problem to get the nose back down. As explained pages earlier this deprived you of braking ability.....for this reason both pilots pushed the control column firmly forward after nosewheel touchdown, and I'm guessing that's what ChristiaanJ meant .

Was just just the prototypes, or also the production aircraft, where the outer part of the wings ('A' tanks) was designed to flex a little to create some reflex in the cruise, in order to reduce the aft movement of the CP?

'Dude -

I didn't ever use this mode, and never saw anybody else use it.

Significant turbulence was almost unheard of in supercruise - light to mod was the worst I ever had. Subsonic one would be subject to the same air as the blunties, but in an aircraft which had a high wing loading and good controls. Once you got down into the low-level turbulence on a windy day (say 2000' and below) you were in vortex lift and this seemed even better.

I flew this machine through some vicious conditions and it was - by a country mile - the best aeroplane I've ever flown in bad air, better even than the 747. I could bore you with war stories, but will illustrate the point with the time we asked Tower to advise the aircraft following us that it was pretty wild below 2000', only to hear that everyone else had cleared off owing to the wind conditions.......

The only people that really got a rough ride were the flt crew, who were at the front of a long extension ahead of the really stiff part of the hull, which tended to whip around long before it got bumpy in the cabin.

It wasn't like flying a transport aircraft at all in rough conditions, and this was a real help in keeping a prestige operation in the air when bad wx appeared. (Of course it wouldn't have helped in the present BAA-induced debacle).

NW1 - amen..........

Clive L - the whole aeroflexing of the 'A' tanks thing was something mentioned during ground school on my conversion course; I may have misunderstood or it may have been less than accurate info.

Mr Vortex - the superstab was always available, though clearly it wasn't a regime one could get into during many phases of flight. As for the 'stalling' alpha - it doesn't have any meaning on a delta. By normal standards Concorde lifted off and landed in what would be called a 'stalled' condition on a conventional aircraft; in Concorde this was 'vortex lift' and was the secret to having an 1100kt speed range on one wing section. (We've talked about this much earlier in the thread).

The limiting factors for max alpha are pitch-down control and drag. IIRC the ability to stop pitching up ended at about 21-22degs alpha (CliveL will know exact numbers I guess!).

Stick shake went off at 16.5degs and stick 'nudger' (badly named - nearly tore my arms out when we tried it on the conversion course) at 19.5 degs, although this could go off sooner under phase advance if the rate of increase was high. (NB - all the above from memory; flt crew with manuals or development men with proper knowledge feel free to correct)

Lastly - the thrust recuperator was explained by M2dude much earlier in the thread, I'll have a look for it. Short answer - clever gizmo on the port(?) fwd outflow valve to recover thrust from outflow air.

Hazy recollection - effectively an additional autostabilisation input in the nosedown sense active at high alpha/low CAS.

Ultimately applied a further nose down elevon input (4 degrees????) if CAS was less than (140kts???? That's a VERY low speed). (Colloquially known as 'super-duper stab' on my course)

It's many years now since my course, and that's the last time I saw this so I think I'm going to need help from a grown-up to come up with a decent answer.

For spfoster:

You've pretty much worked HLI out. No particular special requirements, it was normally associated with 54% CG departures, since that was the norm with high fuel loads.

Contacts were bridged which allowed some of the tanks to operate at a higher level before shut-off. Sounds simple, doesn't it? But it was a pain in the a***.

The tanks were first filled to normal level (this got tank 11 filled) then a metered amount was uplifted with the bridges in place to those tanks with HLI (M2dude will remind me which they were.....I'm guessing 5,6,7,8 and maybe 9&10?????). It could take ages.

It was invariably followed by a taxy with a Pre Take Off Burn Off to get the CG to its correct position, so you now had the problem that you had to burn enough fuel from tanks 1-4 to allow them to be topped up by tanks 5 & 7 to the extent that 5 & 7 could accept fuel from tank 11 to bring the CG fwd to 54%. Because they were so full it could take ages to get 5 & 7 to accept fuel and then any bump or turn would shut them off. So overall you've filled the tanks, presumably because you need the fuel, but because you've done this you have to burn loads of fuel taxying while you get the CG sorted out.

As you guess, it was mainly a LHR-BGI thing, or a JFK with weather problems, and more often than not you gained very little.