Posts by user "M2dude" [Posts: 257 Total up-votes: 1 Page: 6 of 13]¶

The last time that I 'flew' the Concorde simulator at Filton was about 15 years ago. The visuals were the superb Rediffusion (as it was called then) 'Wide' displays and I seem to remember that there was a sort of mechanical mask over the screens that looked somewhat like the visor, and this came up and down with the visor control lever. The very first time that I went on the sim' was in 1980, when the visuals comprised of a TV screen at the central parts of the windsheilds. (The DV and side windows I seem to remember were blanked out). The 'picture' was provided by a TV camera tracking over a huge vertical landscape model, populated with runways, houses, cows, fields etc. (If one of the models became 'unglued' it would appear to shoot horizontally across the screen).
I think that these Rediffusion 'Wide' vusuals were installed in the late 80's/early 90's and were as advanced as any simulator visuals anywhere. I believe that the original 'landscape model' was donated to a university.

Dude

Self Loading Freight
The aircraft could be very unforgiving regarding rough runways, and was a major design headache in the early days. There was particular concern regarding about runway conditions in JFK, and extensive modifications were carried out to the shock absorbers to help reduce the effects. However simplified solutions WERE sought by the manufacturers, one of these being to try and reduce the damping of the main gear by removing a meausured amount of oil from the cylinders and chage the 'tuning' of the leg, but this proved to be, er... less than successful:
In early 1977, aircraft 210, G-BOAE was doing it's pre-delivery test flying out of Filton (Fairford was now closed as a permanent test base, but day flying was carried out from there, the aircraft returning to Filton at night). and it was decided to try this rechnique on 210. A little French guy from the landing gear manufacturer Messier spent all day, travelling from the other side of France to Filton in the west of England, and arrived at the plant at around 23:30. He spent several hours that night, draining off his carefully calculated amount of fluid from each of the main landing gears, and returned to France a happy little bunny the following morning. BIG MISTAKE !!
When OAE did it's test flying the following day, everything seemed to be going well, but on the final landing of the at Fairford.. THUMP!!! The barrels of the shock absorbers bottomed, sending a sizable shock through the entire airframe. No structural damage was done, but several systems went off line, and I particularly remember one of the incidence vane heaters being knackered by the force of the vane thumping against the stops. Our poor little Messier rep' arrives home LATE that night, only to receive a message telling him to go straight back to Filton. The poor guy was a wreck, but like a true trooper headed straight back to the UK, and inserted his carefully measured amount of oil back into the main landing gears of G-BOAE. (Always thought that this would have made a great comedy sketch)

Dude

Feathers, these are the joys of afterburning; a totally gas guzzling way of extracting some more thrust from an engine. With Concorde, at 15 degrees TAT, you got a 78% increase in take off fuel flow for, as you say, about a 6000lb increase in thrust. Normaly adding an afterburning/reheat system is a fairly complex and heavy affair; you need both the system itself plus a variable exhaust nozzle. Because Concorde already required the primary nozzle for N1 control, the addition of reheat was at least a relatively simple and lightweight afair. The original Olympus 593-22R engine was really a little lacking in terms of dry thrust, and the addition of the reheat system was deemed essential. Concorde only had a single reheat spray ring and flame-holder, military systems often have several, with a corresponding increase in thrust growth as well as a hyper increase in fuel burn.
Further development plans for the Olypus 593 included a large increase in dry thrust; the reheat being retained only for transonic acceleration. It is such a pity that it was not to be.

Dude

Dixi188
Actually Rolls Royce always told me that the (new) Type 28 secondary nozzle was a bit of a dissapointment. Aerodynamically it was a far better interface with the wing from a drag point of view than the original design, but fell short of it's design promise in terms of performance. The design responsibility for the secondary nozzle system awarded to the French engine manufacturer SNECMA. They in turn farmed the whole manufacturing side off to STRESSKIN inc., a division of General Motors, and the air motor and electronic control unit were designed and built by Garret Airesearch in the US also.
The original secondary nozzle was 'freely floating, with no actuation; the thrust revereser itself was a pair of cascade doors, driven by an air motor. Tertary air doors opened at low speeds to admit ambient air into the nozzle anulus, instead of the eyelids of the later 'buckets'.
If you look at the diagram below you can see what a complicated animal the prototype powerplant was. The intake dump door (alternative name for spill door) was hinged both at the front AND the rear; either hinge mechanisms automatically releasing at specific Mach numbers. It was the mechanical nightmare that the diagram suggesrs.

Dude

DavvaP
There was one small part of the 'B' model that did find it's way into the production aircraft by way of a retro-fit in the late '70's.: The leading edge of the dorsal fin was re-profiled, taking out the original 'dog leg' and the flying control surfaces were slightly extended. The whole exercise was one of supersonic drag reduction, although I never saw the actual gains quantified. (It was due to the extensions of the elevons and rudders that water ingress caused failures in later years. I just hope the fuel, if any, we saved was worth the trouble ).
As far as ChristiaanJ's point about the Olympus; the only plans I ever saw were for the Olympus 593 Mk 622, which gave a thrust increase of around 4,000 lbs static thrust but retained reheat. I know there were definate plans for a larger diameter engine (not just the LPC) that would have naturally required a larger intake. As far as the intake irself went, believe it or not, the plan was to remove the rear ramp altogether.
The 'B' would have been a hell of an aeroplane; but the 'A' was still absolutely amazing in any case.

Dude

Feathers McGraw
In scale model test the silencers produced quite promising results. However on the aircraft itself they proved to be worse than useless, the only real difference they made was that they resulted in a reduction of thrust. (But because the fly over altitudes would consequently be far lower, they did a good job in INCREASING the noise nuiscance).
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, and would not have enabled Trans-Atlantic revenue load crossings. (And what with the noise and the smoke, I guess our environmental friends down there would REALLY have had something to complain about ).

Dude

Good question Roger, the short answer to that is 'no they didn't. Radiation (in millirems) was logged after each flight, the data coming from the onboard radiation meter developed at the Harwell nuclear research centre in Essex. (A counter clocked the overall dose and an analog dial indication showed the dose rate). Although the dose rates in Concorde were higher than in a subsonic aircraft, because the sector times were over twice as short everything kind of cancelled out. The indicator itself
I do remember that when the Three Mile Island Pa accident happened in 1979, some spikes were seen on the radiation meter on the IAD-LHR sector, and occasionally throughout the years we got minor spikes when overflying the Atomic Weapons establishment at Burghfield in Berkshire. (All we did in that case was to telephone the duty officer at Burghfield who would say 'thank you' and log the event).

As far as the 'B' model goes, well yes it is a little frustrating to know that the full potential of this wonderful design was never fully realised, but as I said before, 'the 'A' model itself was still totally amazing.

Dude

Zimmerfly
I have to echo Landlady's comments. This has really been done to death in various forums (yawn!) , and people forget (or perhaps never knew in the first place) just how much vital work the captain in question did for the whole Concorde operation. (Including for example, personally negotianing with HMG regarding BA taking over the Concorde support costs etc, and forming and heading up the division that saw Concorde transformed from a loss making burden into a major profit centre for the airline). Also he was GM Concorde Division and not Chief Pilot.
To answer Steve's original TECHNICAL question; you must remember that using fuel for trimming was to offset long term changes in the centre of lift and not any short term stabilty shifts during landing. (The combination of pilots and elevons coped with that quite admirably ). And around four tonnes WAS transfered into tank 9 after landing, in order to aid ground stability, particularly during disembarkation.
landlady
I hope you are having a great time sunning yourself ('aint jealous, honest ) and have a rum punch or two for me.

V1...Oops
This site you mentioned is definately worth a visit; there are some great images there.

Dude

Brit312
Obviously not Brit; however nearly every time I saw the aeroplane after landing there was, you've guesed it, around 4 Tonnes in tank 9.
Feathers McGraw
Hahaha It was not as if our guys werer particularly portly either, in fact it was a combination of the portly, the not so portly and the 'I can't see him, where the hell is he?.'
But the aircraft was probably more prone to ground stability issues than any other that I have known in my lifetime.

PS. Would you believe that this brilliant thread has had more than 53,000 reads now? All thanks to Stilton for starting it up in the first place. Keep posting guys (and gal(s) ).

Dude

Bizdev
Sure, give me a day or two and I'll throw in (up?) some more trivia stuff.
Regards

Dude

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?).

SNN is Shannon my friend.
Oh, and you may want to copy questions again; there is an extra one I've added.
Best Regards

Dude

OAB11D
Not posting any answers here yet, but you've done very well, SLF or not. I am sure that I speak for all of 'us' when I say that your input is more than welcome here, as are you sir. From your screen name I assume you once flew in 11D on G-BOAB?
You might want to look again at my wording for the 'destinations' question #2, it said British CONSTRUCTED aircraft. (I apreciate that once the G was covered over in IAD the aircraft became American registered).

Dude

Keep the answers coming guys, and yes Mike; their WAS a single nose wheel brake based on an automotive design. This brake was not electronically controlled like the main wheel brakes, but hydraulics for the UP selection was automatically ported to the single brake unit during retraction. (hmmm.. kinda given away the answer for that one ).

Dude

Great answers about the runways Brit312 but you missed one. In 2003 we started doing take offs from 9 Left (just Concorde). This was due to construction work on the southern runway. The aeroplane would come really low over the hangars too and made quite a spectacle.
Regards

Dude

The reason for 9L being used was because there was a blanket ban placed on the aircraft taking off from ANY runway undergoing construction, post Gonesse. (I seem to remember that the restricion was placed due to crown life issues). Oh, and Brit312; I knew that this all happened long after you put your last HP valve switch to SHUT, that is why I made the coment.
And Dixi188 has kinda answered the trick part of this question too, regarding 10/28 Left & Right. (As well as the 'correct' cross runway QDMs). Nice one Dixi
Answers in total in a couple of days guys, and keep 'PM'ing away about this, I'm happy to carry on answering.
Regards to all

Dude

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

Brit312
I was up at Prestwick in 1988. and I remember that several details were carried out doing touch and goes at Machrihanish also, when the late GREAT John Cook was running things flight training wise.
Concorde noisy? What WERE they talking about
Oh this was typical; so many of, shall we say, the less sensible members of our species, would blame Concorde for absolutely ANYTHING, whether sh was flying or not
Actually a few training sesions were carried out there in the mid to late 1990's, before the norm, became Chateuroux. I remember 'Dirty Nellies' fondly, as anyone who is familiar with SNN will understand.
It was not so much as a lay by as a real car park, right on the edge of the runway. Whenever the aeoroplane was going to fly, word got around and the car park filled up quickly. Right up to when the Fairford Flight Test Centre was closed in early 1977, the car park was always filled to overflowing.

Thanks for coming up with the additional flight training airfields Brit312, my poor old memory is fading... FAST......

Dude

Consider it done Feathers.
As promised, here are a few diagrams of the Concorde reheat (afterburner, for our American friends) system. The ORIGINAL design was done by SNECMA, but due to them getting into all sorts of trouble with the fuel injection system and flame stabilisation, Rolls Royce baled them out, and it became a Rolls Royce/SNECMA design. (The core engine was a 100% Rolls design, with no French input whatsoever. However some engine sub-assembles were manufactured by SNECMA).
The basic way the afterburner worked was by spraying the fuel FORWARDS intially at high pressure, against the jet stram about one inch, until it hit the anvil. . As the fuel strikes the anvil it is blown back by the jet stram and atomises, passing over the of the spray ring and the over the flame holder. The ignition operated by passing 15KV across a dual cylindrical tube, the resulting arc was 'swirlied' into the fuel stream by blowing engine 5th stage HP compressor air into the tube (there were 7 stages in all).
The key to successful ignition was a healthy spark, a good supply of air to the ignitor and accurate scheduling of fuel flow. (This was scheduled against dry engine flow as a funtion of total temperature). The other important factor (as with any afterburner) was correct and rapid operation of the exhaust nozzle. Fortunately, Concorde used it's primary nozzle for control of engine N1 anyway, so adapting this to operate as an afterburning nozzle also was a relative walk in the park, and it operated superbly.
During the light up phase of 3.5 seconds, the fuel ratio is a fixed 0.45 (ie. reheat fuel is 45% of dry fuel). After the light up phase the full scheduling commenced. As far as the FLIGHT RATING figures go (not take-off) the ratios were 0.6 at a TAT of 54 deg's C, falling linearly to 0.3 at 107 deg's C and above. (Remember that Concorde used afterburning really sparingly, just for take-off and then transonic acceleration; cut off at Mach 1.7 altogether.

Dude

Feathers McGraw
Contingency mode could be either manually or automatically selected during take-off. It would automatically be selected if an engine dropped below 58% N2, PROVIDED that the take-off monitor button was set, and reheat was selected. (A small yellow CTY light on the centre dash panel would flash in this case also). OR it could be manually selected by moving the 4 reheat selector switches through a clever little gate, from RHT to CTY. In this case, the yellow CTY light would illuminate steadily.
Actually at entry into service, contingency had a real problem, in that when selected the reheat flame would burn very fiercely, become unstable and extinguish altogether. (So instead of getting more power, you ended up with less; with just the increase in dry thrust, and no reheat at all ). It seems that the reheat flame holder was too small to support the bigger contingency flame, which effectively would just fall over. What we had to do in the early days of service was to isolate the wire that provided the contingency discreet to the reheat amplifier, ensuring that the reheat would hopefully still operate normally when contingency was invoked, so at least you got a small increase in power from the dry engine. The solution was the welding of 7 small 'fingers' to the outer part of the reheat flame holder, this made the flame holder 'appear' bigger than it really was to the flame. It worked perfectly, and we could therefore re-connect our wire again. (Just making the flame holder physically bigger would have had a detrimental impact on the operation of the dry engine).

Dude