[Brighton] Concorde over the Palace Pier

[Happy Exile]

I went to a school about 15 miles from Heathrow, and Concorde would go over every time it flew. It was so loud for several minutes at a time that lessons would have to stop until it had gone past. Same at home, if we were watching TV we'd have no chance of hearing it as Concorde went over, especially if the house windows were open, and all conversations would have to stop too. Slightly weird to recall now how much I just assumed it was part of life that everything would halt for a couple of minutes at a time on such a regular basis.

 

[clapham_gull]

I lived in a flat on Clapham High Street and the toilet extractor fan used to omit dust when Concorde went over.

That's my only Concorde anecdote.

 

[Knotty]

Indeed, “down time” pleasure flights did very well for Concorde. Canterbury Travel used to offer trips on them and did very well from them.

I was lucky enough to take one of these trips from New York for two hours one Halloween night. The pilots were all dressed in Halloween masks and clothes. We were also allowed to go to the cockpit in small groups during the flight. Must say it reminded me of a cigar tube when on board, so small with a 2-2 configuration. The only time I really felt the power was on take off. I can only compare it to going down the road in Ferrari rather than a bus, in comparison to planes like a Jumbo as it accelerated down the runway. Awesome power.

It was chartered by my company, Goodwood Travel of Canterbury, not Canterbury Travel. Concorde flew into Gatwick on a subsonic flight from Manston in Kent on Saturday evening. Then, on Sunday, flew a 1 hour 40 minute supersonic flight from Gatwick back to Gatwick and then a 40 minute subsonic flight.

The Captain and First Officer were both Sussex-based and still are. The Captain’s Mum was on the beach and he’d told her he was going to do a display between the two piers.

Flights were sold by us as reader offers through the Argus.

Happy Days!

 

[Icy Gull]

It was chartered by my company, Goodwood Travel of Canterbury, not Canterbury Travel. Concorde flew into Gatwick on a subsonic flight from Manston in Kent on Saturday evening. Then, on Sunday, flew a 1 hour 40 minute supersonic flight from Gatwick back to Gatwick and then a 40 minute subsonic flight.

The Captain and First Officer were both Sussex-based and still are. The Captain’s Mum was on the beach and he’d told her he was going to do a display between the two piers.

Flights were sold by us as reader offers through the Argus.

Happy Days!

Got the location right! The trips from NYC were a short lived arrangement by a company I was involved in at the time.

 

[Knotty]

Got the location right! The trips from NYC were a short lived arrangement by a company I was involved in at the time.

Which location have I got wrong?

 

[Icy Gull]

Which location have I got wrong?

No, I got the location in Canterbury right, but not the company name!

 

[Knotty]

No, I got the location in Canterbury right, but not the company name!

 

[Shropshire Seagull]

The Air France concorde crash happened during my time at the CAA. I attended an aeronautical society presentation by the concorde chief test pilot just after it got its air worthiness cert reissued.

Opening slide taken from the flight deck looked like either a sunrise or a sunset. In fact, it was the sun coming up on the western horizon.
Concorde took off from Heathrow shortly after night fall and was flying across the Atlantic faster the the earth rotation so was able to force a sunrise in the west.

He also mentioned that at this time the fuselage had grown 6 inches longer from when it had taken off due to air speed friction.

Awesome piece of flying kit ...
RIP Concorde

 

[Icy Gull]

Such a fabulous aircraft, apparently you could see the curvature of the earth from the 60,000 feet it flew at during daylight.

 

[Barham's tash]

The Air France concorde crash happened during my time at the CAA. I attended an aeronautical society presentation by the concorde chief test pilot just after it got its air worthiness cert reissued.

Opening slide taken from the flight deck looked like either a sunrise or a sunset. In fact, it was the sun coming up on the western horizon.
Concorde took off from Heathrow shortly after night fall and was flying across the Atlantic faster the the earth rotation so was able to force a sunrise in the west.

He also mentioned that at this time the fuselage had grown 6 inches longer from when it had taken off due to air speed friction.

Awesome piece of flying kit ...
RIP Concorde

So I have to ask, given your background, do you agree with the findings of the report?!

 

[Knotty]

Such a fabulous aircraft, apparently you could see the curvature of the earth from the 60,000 feet it flew at during daylight.


View attachment 157683

You could, indeed! And the sky was a very deep blue.

 

[BrianB]

As an indication of the age of Concorde technology , I'm 68 and my Grandfather was involved with Concorde's development!...
Also my father won a BA raffle in 70s to fly too Washington on Concorde and back same day on a 747 in an attempt to make the route look more successful, ( the aim was to get NY . ) needless to say that he was mighty chuffed to fly on a plane his father was involved with!.

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

The Air France concorde crash happened during my time at the CAA. I attended an aeronautical society presentation by the concorde chief test pilot just after it got its air worthiness cert reissued.

Opening slide taken from the flight deck looked like either a sunrise or a sunset. In fact, it was the sun coming up on the western horizon.
Concorde took off from Heathrow shortly after night fall and was flying across the Atlantic faster the the earth rotation so was able to force a sunrise in the west.

He also mentioned that at this time the fuselage had grown 6 inches longer from when it had taken off due to air speed friction.

Awesome piece of flying kit ...
RIP Concorde

I worked on Concorde as an engineer for about 4 months being bused up from Gatwick each day, happy days, not. What a horrible aircraft to work on. Dirty grubby, small access to components and so on.

But what an aircraft. It actually grew about 10 inches in supersonic flight, the surface temp would reach 248 degrees F when at mach 2.

The engines though never flew at supersonic. Jet engines can't fly supersonic it would destroy the engine. Therefore the intake was designed to partially close forming a shock wave in front of the fan, this resulted in the airflow slowing to about 300mph. It is still considered state of the art technology.

The flight engineer would pump fuel forwards to a designated tank (approx. 20 tonnes) to shift the centre of gravity just prior to supersonic flight, this kept the aircraft stable, prior to landing this was then pumped aft. Being a delta wing the flying surfaces are elevons not ailerons or flaps.

The reason it needed after burners to take off is that the Delta wing causes a lot of drag (Ground effect), basically sucking it to the ground. Once in the air it causes very high pressure under the wing allowing it to reach a high altitude of 60000ft compared to a normal commercial jet of 30000ft. The thin air made it fuel efficient and it would fly above the jet stream meaning it wasn't fighting air resistance.

It's nose would droop by 5 degrees for take off, then to 12.5 degrees for landing, this purely to give the pilots better vision. From memory the front undercarriage was 32 ft back from the captain's seat making it hard to taxi as you have to go well past your turning before you turn!

 

[jakarta]

Can concur about the stretchy effect. Was doing some H&S work on a night shift in the Concorde Bay of TBA Heathrow, was asked if I fancied to have a wander through and sit in the Captains seat. No clues as to the answer to that!

Was shown a bulkhead by the Flight Engineers seat and asked to put my hand in between a piece of equipment and said bulkhead. Tight as a drum. Was then shown a photo of a crew member inserting his fingers into the gap when Supersonic...

From memory everything was constantly being checked and tightened up after every flight, hence number of drip trays underneath.

Not a practical airliner really but what a sight and sound!

 

[RandyWanger]

The engines though never flew at supersonic. Jet engines can't fly supersonic it would destroy the engine. Therefore the intake was designed to partially close forming a shock wave in front of the fan, this resulted in the airflow slowing to about 300mph. It is still considered state of the art technology.

I read somewhere that a bird does similar and that's where the idea come from.

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

From memory everything was constantly being checked and tightened up after every flight, hence number of drip trays underneath.

Slightly wrong as leaks would have been serious . Routine "turn round" checks would have been checking for obvious leaks and topping up fluids etc. The dip trays would have been used for draining and replacing engine oils etc. Concorde was the first fly by wire aircraft. The whole computer capacity on board would be equivalent to an iPhone.

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

I read somewhere that a bird does similar and that's where the idea come from.

Think you mean the Delta wing.

https://www.heritageconcorde.com/air-in-take-system

This explains the intake

 

[jakarta]

Slightly wrong as leaks would have been serious . Routine "turn round" checks would have been checking for obvious leaks and topping up fluids etc. The dip trays would have been used for draining and replacing engine oils etc. Concorde was the first fly by wire aircraft. The whole computer capacity on board would be equivalent to an iPhone.

I stand corrected, but there were loads of drip trays, sort of an airborne Triumph Bonneville...

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

I stand corrected, but there were loads of drip trays, sort of an airborne Triumph Bonneville...

TBA if memory serves, was the minor maintenance hangar for Concorde. That would be a 1 to 2 day maintenance check. As a rule only 1 to 2 people would work on an engine and they wouldn't work on another, this was done so that a mistake made by an engineer wasn't replicated across the other engines if that makes sense. It doesn't always work like that but is a good method of working. You could then get 4/8 engineers working on the engines. The fuel and oil need different drip trays for disposal so therefore there could be 8 in use just for the engines. Then you the hydraulic systems, potable water and so on. There's usually loads of filter changes during the check.

I left BA 30 years ago, so many things have changed, the B777, B747-400 and A320 were new aircraft then! Most of them have now been retired.

 

[Shropshire Seagull]

So I have to ask, given your background, do you agree with the findings of the report?!

Firstly, I've no link to AAIB ....
By "Report" I assume you mean the findings into what brought down Air France 4590 on 25-Jul-2000

I have no knowledge to disagree with any of the findings.

As with most air disasters, it it rarely caused by one single issue, but a chain of minor events that create a catastrophic failure.