Posts by user "gordonroxburgh" [Posts: 24 Total up-votes: 0 Page: 1 of 2]¶

Upgraded a few weeks ago to be 3072 X 768 pixel 3 channel HD display

80% of the main dash gauges are now restored to working condition and most of the control inputs work.

The AF simulator was regarded as a sub standard machine, never had the required interface or processing power compared the the UK machine that was built as a joint effort by Sinker-Link Miles (structure and motion) and Redifon simulation (interface and computers), with a view that the developed product would be offered to the option holding airlines.

A key failing of the AF machine was that it could not correctly simulate an engine failure on take off without going off the runway.

So what happened when AF had an apparent engine failure/fire after V1 in 2000? The crew made a right hash of the procedures....Nuff said really.

Good point. Only trying to put out fundamental differencies, which I think are important from a technical and historical point of view, which was relevant for this topic.

The blue wave looked impressive with the cabin lights off, crap and tacky with them on.

YouTube - Project Rocket Lights on a/c

What would have been better was a new 787 style, LED lighting system on the aircraft, but that level of technology was not yet developed properly in 2000

'Dg still has her original fitted. It was not the same indicator, simply a 5deg lock indicator and a switch (poss wiper park). I wonder where this one came from!

I've just dug out some archive pics of the sim and the lighted cockpit mock from the 70s and they all have grey EL panels, so it did not come from there....and only the production fleet were this design.

G-BBDG

Its not used on G-BBDG, we put the LED strips in along one side to see how Naff it looked......and yes....it was really crap!

agreed Dude...

202 was built as 2nd Production, with a defined role as a test aircraft. Several studies were carried out over the years to see if she could be reused. Initially with the manufacturers, where if Concorde has been a success she could have been refurbished and sold to another airline at a "good" price. Of course here flying outside the certified flight envelope led to a lot of further concerns that really was curtains for any modification.

BA had robbed a lot of parts from her in the 80s, especially to bring G-BOAG back into service, so it was a no brainier in the end to put her in a hangar and rob whatever was required to kept the fleet of 7 in the air.

One little point, in the very late 70s here MEPU was decommissioned and she was fitted with the HYRAT...although the guts of the de-contaminated MEPU is still up in her tail cone.

If you want to see an Concorde as it was in Airline Service go visit MAN or EF, fantastic displays showing an Airline Concorde in the 90s or 00s

If you want to visit a Concorde and want to see the 4 stories in one (Concorde story, the unique story of a development aircraft, the airliner passenger experience and they story of how Concorde pilots were trained).... then visit Brooklands.

We've never been able to prove from a documented drawing perspective at Brooklands that the roof of the forward fuselage was any thiner than that of 204.

The side stick fitted to 201 (in 1977 according to Flight International), was very much proof of concept for what would be the future A320 programme sponsored by the French government, very very limited hours were flown using it apparently (like 10!). The next step I believe in the development was to fit it onto a FBW modified A300 in the early 80s, but for the initial tests to see if a pilot could fly with a "computer joystick" it had to be done on Concorde as this was the only a/c with a suitable FBW system.

It would be good to know how it was done, but I guess it could have been wired into the emergency flight control system, which relied on electrical strain gauge inputs to move the control surfaces if there was a control column jam.

My only reasoning for guessing on the Emg flight system was that its would be easy to turn on and off and recover to the normal flying controls.

For a very short test programme, well ahead of any A320 programme which did not come about till 1984, I suspect this was no more than a belt and braces to see if you could fly an aircraft from a side mounted stick.

If the Flight article from the 80s that says only 10 hrs of flying was done is correct, it can only have been for limited in flight handling and not anything approaching the limits of the understood flight envelope......and I sure you would not have been contemplating take offs and landings.

A few of the Toulouse ex pats might be the people who would know, Dudley Collard etc...

Steve,

I don't have exact details, but I understand the Manchester, Birmingham, Cardiff and Belfast flights were supersonic "round the bay". The round the bay was essentially a trip out to 8w on the normal supersonic flight path, turning 70 miles around the tip of lands end, then decelerating back in down the English channel over Guernsey, where they then routed to the relevant airports.

Edinburgh was supersonic out over the north sea.

Knowing more now about the safety system, I am agreement with you, getting straight in at resolver level looks the best bet on how it may have been done.

The secondary doors across the whole fleet had lots of issues over time. Like the elevons, rudders and belly panels they were made of a honeycomb lattice structure that eventually dis-bonded causing a lot of overhaul stress in the workshops.

I think it would be fair to say that it would be a freak of nature if any of the aircraft actually had the same doors fitted that they left the factory with!

You missed my point completely really, yes some have green primer , some had beige primer on The INNER side, that was the discussion, not the outer side.
The freak of nature was again a point totally missed on you, which is surprising Ricky. So to explain it in simple words, it's highly unlikely that the aircraft in the fleet are today fitted with the said doors they rolled out of the factory with...that was the point, not a about bad engineering practices about painting or anything silly like that.

Maybe it should be in one of the Misc forums?

Re : 9min to mach 2.

Not sure you can get CG back that quickly.

In the (restored) Sim with a lightweight fuel load that will not get you anywhere and not bothering about the CG, the absolute minimum time to Mach 2 at 50,000ft on a pretty constant VMO chase is just over 15mins, so really unlikely that this was possible in real life....but will stand corrected if someone says other wise.

The A/C had diverted to cardiff as they had suffered a engine surge due to a double intake lane failure and had to slow to subsonic early. That coupled with additional time with engines running at JFK meant they were just not comfortable about coming to London and possibly declaring a fuel emergency.

OAF was indeed a true BA aircraft, it title was bought for \xa31000 and 10,000FF, but significant sums ( million+) were then spent to deliver it to the BA spec. BA did fund and purchase it as their 6th Concorde, albeit at a greatly reduced price.

OAG sort of fell into BA's use. They had "bought" it for under \xa3100,000k, with a must sell back clause , before OAF was delivered to give their services resilience while OAC whet back to Filton for repair. During its use it suffered contamination of its hyd systems, so was grounded, before this was repaired the Concrde programme all but shut down and BA held onto the aircraft fully registering it as OAG, initially it had been G-BFKW.

OAG flew for a short while but was eventually grounded, as I understand it mainly for spares recovery, but as it was a million miles aware spec with from the other BA ( cabin was even different) it was a easy choice to make.

When BA acquired all the spares and full access to G-BBDG a decision was made to bring OAG as close to BA spec as possible and be the first to have a new interior on the fleet. OAG was then then launch Concorde in the land our livery and a lot OAF was a standard BA machine, except that being younger it (like OAG) didn't have the 'crown area' mods done the air to air shots from this time are of it in 1985.


Crown area mods...were these not mandated and embodied fleet wide at the 12,000 major?

The flight control inverters were the 26v AC power supplies for the flying controls working (from memory) at 1500hz rather than the normal 400hz.

There are people on here far more qualified, but i believe using the much higher frequency all but ruled out interference from any other aircraft system for the control signalling to the flight control surfaces

G-AXDN and G-BBDG in the UK have the 3 INS controllers across the front of the pedestal under the primary engineer gauges. I can only suggest that this was dow to the Pilots being the navigators and the engineer being the engineer. Once in Airline service ensuring each crew member has an INS control panel greatly speeded up the checks. Of note 001/002 actually had a navigator in the cockpit behind the Captain, rather than the jump seat.

Standard spec INS systems for that time. Someone may have more information, but they were upgraded over time to having very little memory requiring load from a data card, to having memory for the core routes the aircraft flew in the system permanently, but still only 10 Waypoints could be loaded live at any one time.


GPS would been a complete replacement for an INS. The clever thing the INS system could do was use DME updating to refine their position when in range of a ground station....a bit like how your smart phone can work out your location by cell mast triangulation if it does not have a GPS receiver in it.

Very relevant for the current time: it was a similar INS system that was hashed into the Vulcan to allow it to find the falklands for the blackbuck raids.