Posts by user "howiehowie93" [Posts: 17 Total up-votes: 0 Page: 1 of 1]¶

Well I have to say this is a brilliant thread.

I stumbled upon it by accident and been catching up on it when I had a spare moment and have found it completely riveting and it has whiled away many hours over the past month.

I\x92m ex-RAF and spent the last ten years working as an engine bloke on the T aeroplane & RB199. We were always told there were many parallels with Concorde & the Olympus 593 \x96 TBT/T7 Gauges, Optical Pyrometers, EPC Coils on-engine FCU\x92s, Vapour Core Pump for reheat fuel as well and the like. I attended the RR Manufactures course for two weeks at the Patchway Works and spent a day at the Concorde Museum seeing the similarities with the Electronic Control Units too though Lucas Aerospace made the MECU\x92s or GR1/4 (& DECU\x92s on the F3\x92s).

Also while on the course the distinguished RR Instructor Gent filled up in with various snippets of Engine History too such as the Vaporisers which were fitted to RB199 & the later models of Olympus 593 were originally Armstrong Sidderly designed for the Sapphire, also I learned the whole 15 Stage Sapphire Compressor was lifted completely and fitted to later Avon\x92s as it worked better.

I was at Leuchars in the early 80\x92s and the Open Golf peeps all arrived in one of these magnificent lady\x92s \x96 the visit was notable for several things; someone fired off an escape chute!!! \x96 What does this little handle do on the Main Oleo ??? whoosh ! and after the dusk take off the pilot beat the place up several times in full reheat !!!!

My last place of work before I was de-mobbed was at the RAF Marham Engine bay and I had the good fortune to meet an RR Technician called Phil (second name escapes me) but he was part of the team of RR Controls Engineers during the Hot & High Trials. He said they used to modify the three \x93Amps\x94 for each Engine control \x96 Lane1, Lane 2 & Reheat on the fly and the aircraft often flew with different schedules installed on all four engines \x96 I think the aircraft at Duxford has these still fitted in the racks (??M2Dude??) but that\x92s another Tonka thing too; three control lanes. Were all these Amps combined into one black box??

They are always Amps in RR Speak?? The Spey 202 had \x93Amps\x94 in its reheat system too.

I was lucky to find a job with the TVOC in 2001 until they ran out of money (as they do) and worked to have their flight worthy Olympus 20202\x92s tested at RR Ansty but left before that happened. In fact I don\x92t know if it did happen though it was a CAA requirement. While I was there we were working with Alan Rolfe & Mike Batchelor of the RR Historic Engine Department were offering support too. (593\x92s were their responsibility also !!! Historic !!!) but I think that was unofficial until there was an agreement about the costs.

After that I worked in industrial applications of Olympus (and Avon) and worked on many installed Olympus in power generation but based on the 200 Series \x96 I think the 300 was thought to be too fragile. But I did have a good look at Olympus 2008/003 Still in good working order in Jersey on the Channel Islands with it\x92s Bristol Sidderly Name plate on it. They didn't have Inlet Guide Vanes as the 300's had but just 6 Forward Bearing Supports, hollow with anti -Icing air blown though, controlled by a Garret Air Valve.

I never saw a DEBOW sort of function on the Industrials but there is a critical N1 speed which has to be avoided because the LP Turbine Disc can fail. The Trouble with that speed range is that it is right where the usefull power is produced!!! Was there any Normal Operating Range RPM's which had to be avoided on the 593 ?

Again thanks very much for all the fascinating information here\x92s to another 42 pages!! Sorry to have rambled on so much

Howie

Thanks M2Dude.

Yes Hot Streak Reheat Ignition on the RB199. Only problem was the Injector was right underneath (or perhaps on top is more accurate! ) of the Reheat FCU and as it jutted out into the Combustor it was often blocking with carbon . so either - off with the RHFCU or disconnet the pipe and try the OM15/Landrover Speedo cable cleaning out trick. There was eventually a test set to tell you if it was still blocked (helpfull - NOT).

I'd left by this time but I was told RR came up with a way of back flushing combustor Pressure to clear it out with some success.

regards
HH93

Greetings.

Service Bulletin 0420 Industrial Olympus Gas Generator \x96 LP Turbine Disc Cracking Safety Related Operational and inspection requirements.
to paraphrase:

Avoid steady operations in the range 5450 to 5850 RPM I believe that 100% is 8000RPM so that equates to 68 \x96 73%. It is ok the accelerate through that range apparently.


There seems to be a lot of history about Olympus LP Discs:
Test House 40 \x96 I think - at RR Ansty still has the deep groves in the brickwork where an engine broke up during test.
From Wikipedia:
\x93XA894 flew with five Olympus engines, the standard four plus an underbelly supersonic Olympus 320 fed from a bifurcated intake starting just aft of the wing leading edge and inboard of the main intakes, in a mock-up of the BAC TSR-2 installation. This aircraft was destroyed on a fire on the ground on 3 December 1962\x94

I read the LP Disc did a QANTAS A380 and decided to leave the engine:
An Aviation Heritage story

So there\x92s nothing new in the world really

regards
HH93

IMHO I'd the simplicity of the design. I have worked on many flavours of Gas Turbines since I left the RAF in 2000, GE, RR, Rustons, (EGT, RGT the same really just a name change every few years and now Siemens) oh and Solar - who I work for now - better not forget them !!

All these engines from other manufacturers have complicated systems to make them efficient:
VIGV's (Variable Inlet Guide Vanes)
VSV's (Variable Stator Vanes)
Bleed Valves
Multi Fuel Metering Valves & other valves to keep emissions under control.

The Olympus - nowt ! Two Spools and a Fuel Valve thats your lot. nothing to go wrong and being an Aeroderivative all the ancillary equipment is either bolted on underneath or away from the engine outside the enclosure.

The only thing I had trouble with was the burner bolts shearing off, 1/4"BSF, if never touched in a good few years !

Was it all still BSF on the 593? That was a Bristols thing - true RR designs are UNC (well Avons are anyway)

oh ! I forgot about the Hot Shot; when I was ground running installed RB199's there was no jump in TBT/T7, you couldn't sense it fire either, the only feel was either the Reheat lighting off with a big roar or the engine going quiet as the Nozzle opened up until the MECU noticed it hadn't lit and closed it again sharpish.

Good eh
Regards
H wie

Mr M2Dude sir !!,
Not quite right here I'm afraid. There are some designs which are coupled to the HP Spool - look up GE LM6000 for that but the majority of installations use the jet efflux to drive a separate (in a mechanical sense) Power Turbine which can be then either coupled to a gearbox or directly coupled to the load and run at a set speed as in power generation - i.e. 3000 or 3600 RPM for the frequency depending on which country. All the controls I've worked on govern the speed of this Power Turbine and the Gas Turbine, often called Gas Producer or Gas Generator, ramps up or down as required. Just being monitored to ensure it is operated within it's limits.

All Olympus installations are like this; ships prime movers, pumps, gas compressors, power generation all the same.

regards
Howie

Not surprisingly there are other threads on here about Concorde, found this stunning picture on page 4 post #76:

http://www.pprune.org/aviation-histo...ircraft-4.html


H wie

There's a description and a picture of such an incident in the RR Heritage Book about Olympus. Happened in "Mach Ally" over the Irish Sea, even though the front face of the Compressor was wreaked it could still run up to 85% without surging. Can't remember which 85% though and the book is 4000 miles away from me at the moment.

Regards
H wie

Brit312 wrote:
Really alternate side Ignitors? All RR aero engines I have worked on always sparked up both sides every time, well the Avon, Spey 202, RB199 & the Oly 20202 (Vulcan) and industrial Oly did. Would this have made a difficulty with starting logic??

Was there LH & RH Ignition selector switch maybe?

I hope I haven't missed further comment on this since page 50 but just back off my Hols and raced through to the end.

Also on a tangent a bit; the roll out picture further on was that a Nimrod's tail in the corner of the hangar??

regards
Howie

SSD wrote:
is there something missing dead centre of the picture ?? to the Left of what I presume is a an FCU on the Gearbox? Looks to be a V-Band clamp still there hanging on the pad ??

Also I heard of a similar test on the RB199; ran it up on a test bed to full power and let it stabilise for a few minutes, drain the Lube Oil Tank and stand back to see what happens - 24 hours later they gave up as it was still running !!
Possibly a standard RR development test ?

regards
Howie

I saw some questions earlier about performance but that's pretty well documented. I was wondering more about for how much longer ( if there had been no retirement )??


Was there a Fatigue Index as other aircraft of the same era \x96 I only know of the Tornado in this respect: a long calculation was made per flight taken of flight duration, G readings, TO weight, Landing weight etc leaving a small number of 0.0000x per flight. Then added to the current FI to give a forecast of life left. If anyone remembers the Tornado 25FI Update Program debacle in the 90's ???


So how was the Concorde's airframe life calculated ?? Flying hours or perhaps pressurisation cycles ? Did a higher altitude effect anything since there would be a higher differential pressure??


On the Engine side, I remember an Olympus Service Bulletin describing the calculation of Fatigue Cycles for the Oly 200:- There was a calculation with several parameters but instruction to disregard below a certain figure, 85% to Max RPM & back was a regarded as a cycle and the LP Turbine Disc was the component with the lowest number of cycles before the need for overhaul.Was this still the case with the 593 ??

I had to look it up on Wikipedia:

Lockheed P-38 Lightning - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

sorry for the thread drift.

regards
Howie

There used to be one of those hanging from the Foyer roof of the Engineering Department of Leeds University. AFAIR is was motorised and the HP & LP Spools used to rotate at a fraction of an RPM. I think there were internal lights too and/or the spools were painted as well. I think it was also in a Concorde type nacelle. This must have been in the 70's as I used to go to the annual Open Days with my Grandad who worked there.

I can't seem to find any reference to it as to whether it is still there, disposed of or in storeage ??? Perhaps someone has contacts ???

regards
Howie

Hi

I had a look on the eBay link and I question the engine model - the Forward Bearing supports are 5 struts but not the same configuration as the Series 200. I thought the 593 was derived from the 300 Series.

see below a picture of a 593 from Wiki:

File lympus593.JPG - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

regards
Howie

Good day,

Just found this pic on the www and I think the reheat looks a bit ragged compared to the Reheated Engines I have worked on - RR Spey & RB199.

Is this a representative sort of view or a false picture and the real thing is much neater with Mach Diamonds and the like???

Yes - I should have Googles first - but there again it brings this thread to to front page again

Just re-read the whole thread from the beginning - still as fascinating as the first time I came across it :-)

Trying to find a picture but didnt the black boxes have the Lucas Aerospace green flash logo on them ? I remember seeing that on the Tornado / RB199 MECU & DECU Black Boxes and being amazed that Lucas made both. Shouldn't have been so surprised though