Posts by user "Mike-Bracknell" [Posts: 21 Total up-votes: 0 Page: 1 of 2]¶

Finally, after 3 nights reading this thread in my spare time i've come to the end of it (for now - it's an organic thing!) and i'd just like to echo the thanks from a wide-eyed SLF who always ran outside of my house every time she went overhead twice a day - and what a noise

Anyway, I have 2 questions to put to the assembled experts:

1) Earlier it was mentioned that the tailwheel was the only piece of bad design on the Concorde. Does this mean that the rudder failures were as a result of corrosion/fatigue of a sound original design and that it was just a bit of bad luck that nobody could have foreseen? also, how easy was it to remedy?

2) Were the rudder separation and the in-flight "hole in the wing" issue (reported on the Concorde TV programme) the most serious issues experienced during service? or were there any other issues which manifested themselves such that the passengers were oblivious but the crew were more than a little concerned?

Thanks!
Mike.
(p.s. - my wife's still chuckling at the Prince Philip story)

I went searching for Brian Walpole to read about the out-of-fuel incident and found this video. I don't suppose anyone has any footage of a barrel roll do they? Anyway, some excellent footage on the clip: YouTube - Concorde Captain talks about Barrel Roll

Wasn't there mention of a Ford Cortina disc brake for either the front wheels or the ones in the skid?

I have a question related to returning a Concorde to the air.

Obviously it's a theoretical one...

IF funding were secured to get 1 Concorde from each fleet into the air again, which one out of each fleet would be the easiest to return to service, given what has gone on since retirement?

Also, a subpoint, does anyone have any finger-in-the-air figures as to how much cost it would take and whether there's any fundamental issues that would need to be sorted aside from the airworthiness certificate etc.

(no, i'm not a secret billionaire, i'm just curious as to what it would cost etc)

Thanks guys, and sorry for worrying you with such a potential thread divert Christiaan, that wasn't my intention and M2Dude answered my question with exactly what I needed to know (although I think it's closer to $100m than $100 )

Welcome back Landlady

Here's a question for you - how often did they surprise shuttle pax with Concorde as a replacement?

...and for the rest of you, roughly how much in terms of fuel would a shuttle flight in Concorde cost BA versus say a B737 or A320?

(i.e. it was obviously done for PR sakes as much as anything, but was it really costly?)

Wasn't it the case that the F-104 had a reputation for killing a lot of capable pilots due to it's slow speed characteristics even WITH a working engine?

That's not the first thing that sprang to mind*







(*must get it out of the gutter)

Evening Chris Thought I recognised the username.

Since a picture's worth a thousand words, if you guys would like to point to the strengthening straps/spars/thingies on this?

How's about this one then?

Trust me, i'm definitely just here for the ride (so to speak) and quickly defer to you and the others who definitely know!

The AF pic was the best I could do, but i'm glad I didn't mess up too bad to miss out the bits in question for a second time!

Merry Xmas to you and to everyone else who's kept the SLF like me informed and amused for months on this thread.

A little p.s. from me - having looked at Clive's diagram on this page showing the bathtubs, aren't the strengtheners the oval cups outboard of the main fixings on the page? with one pointed to by the words "Bottom machined skin panel"?

This looks like it's another layer of shear in order to fulfil the brief of working around the reported skin problems in that area. Just strange it had to break the surface like that?

Here's a new question for you...

We all know Concorde went at Mach 2 at FL600, but were there instances (for the press, certification, etc) that you went supersonic considerably closer to the deck? and what issues (if any) did that bring up?

Nope, at Aldworth (hence the tapestry): Bell, Aldworth, Berkshire, RG8 9SE ? The Good Pub Guide

"The Bell Inn" is a pretty common name for a pub in the UK.

Another pie-in-the-sky Q for you guys:

Concorde carried 100 fare-paying pax.

Hence, If you were looking to redesign Concorde today, to be more cost effective, you would I assume look to increase passenger loads?

Would this purely be a case of sticking everything in the photocopier and hitting the 'enlarge 150%' button? or could you have got away with expanding the cabin width or lengthwise without totally ruining the performance envelope? (a total redesign of the structure notwithstanding)

and which way would you expand? cabin width or length? or both?

Also, I assume a lot of the heavy analogue avionics kit would be replaced with lighter, microprocessor-controlled kit, giving more space and weight for fuel?

The Olympus engines replaced with more efficient ones given the march of technology?

So basically, if the British & French governments had another brain-fart and decided in 2011 to build Concorde2, what would you keep? what would you junk? and what realistically would we end up with in terms of pax numbers, performance, range, etc?

(you have an unlimited budget but need to make the thing a better economic prospect than if just presented with a fleet of de-mothballed Concordes).

Cheers,
Mike.

I think David Gunson covered this one quite well:

"Concorde flies faster than a speeding bullet....which is why they've never made a military version, because when it opened fire it'd shoot itself down"

I think even in 1985, at the age of 14, I could have possibly scraped \xa330 together if you'd told me i'd get a trip in her

Anyone got \xa31.25m under the sofa?

Concorde Rolls-Royce Olympus 593-610 Turbojet Engine with Reheat | eBay

I think you might find you're conversing on this thread with some of the people who actually had a hand in creating the diagrams in the first place, etc.