Concorde....

[tinkerbell23]

What was so great about concorde??

Im not questioning its greatness by the way!!

But whys it so famous?

Just watching this prog on scary plane landings- its a lovely looking plane!!!!!!! X

[deggers316]

also concordes maintenance was not good if you read the crash report youll see that a spacer was missing from one main bogies it was actually crabbing on the runway when it took off ( see the skid marks it made) and yes if the feul tanks had been lined as was suggested on a precious penetration that led to fuel leaking all those poor sods on the doomed flight would still be here and maybe it would still be in service for the very rich

[DTCwordfan]

thanks and the kevlar tank coating has become standard practice as well for the wing tanks.

[DTCwordfan]

what were the critical design faults? - you made the claim, deggers....

[deggers316]

this is from a report after the crash ive read these official report in detail they are on line...
The major flaw was in the design of the wing. Concorde's wing is basically two planks of metal held apart by tie rods. It doesn't have wing ribs and only a few stringers. The shape of the wing can actually be changed by changing the length of the rods and this was done with the first models because it had too much drag. The problem of not having ribs or stringers is that the wing is strong enough for the aerodynamic loads but has low impact resistance, especially as there is so much space between tie points. This is one major reason it was withdrawn from service and why it most likely won't fly again. The manufacturers finally admitted it was a flawed design...a tyre burst should never bring down an aircraft

[deggers316]

The prosecutors also say that the Concorde's French makers and the civil aviation authority (DGAC) were at fault because they failed to remedy the Concorde's wings and tanks after they were found in the 1970s to be vulnerable. Concorde was built by Aerospatiale and former British Aircraft Corporation. Two retired executives with the Aerospatiale and a former official with the DGAC are charged with failing to take corrective action after dozens of tyre blow-outs, starting in 1979. Several of these punctured holes in the tanks and one, in Washington Dulles airport in 1979, came close to starting a fire.

[DTCwordfan]

Have they been prosecuted?

Thanks for that.

Know one of the Concorde designers, he built a rather nice f1 style racing boat, the largesse of the global fleet here in the Fal spread between Restronguet, Mylor and the Royal Cornwall Clubs.

http://www.windsport....ndsport-boat-park.jpg

[Old_Geezer]

Whilst the design issues are interesting they don't sound to my non-expert ears like anything that couldn't be modified. It's a shame that isn't what occurred. Should take a leave out of MS's book and once your product has crashed just issue an update to patch it.

[237SJ]

Exactly OG. It`s all about modifications that were not done. No aircraft comes onto the market and flies without many modifications being done over the years (the A380`s already getting problems) and I for one am quite grateful that Qantas et al are the people who are learning from the teething troubles ;-)

[237SJ]

Just a few more examples - TWA 747. It took a mid air explosion after many years of jumbos flying to realise that you mustn`t let the fuel tanks empty completely as the vapour can explode. It took a few fatal crashes to determine that the Comet`s square windows were putting strain on the rivets. It took a fatal accident (British Airtours) to learn that P&W JT8D engines could get cracks in their combustion chambers. There are lots more examples. Concorde was no different.

[deggers316]

237....... "Two retired executives with the Aerospatiale and a former official with the DGAC are charged with failing to take corrective action after dozens of tyre blow-outs, starting in 1979. Several of these punctured holes in the tanks and one, in Washington Dulles airport in 1979, came close to starting a fire."
the incidents that you are stating, and i know call about these were put right after the investigation.
the above was not put right "1979 / 2000 that 11 years and nothing was done !

[jno]

there were 20 of them. There's some video here

http://www.britishpat.../concord-002-take-off

They occasionally flew over my house - very loud.

[Old_Geezer]

But not for very long ;-)

[deggers316]

jno
yes your right 6 of these were "test aircraft" 14 went into service

[paddywak]

Probably the biggest fault with Concorde was that it was European, if it had been built by the Yanks there would still be hundreds of them flying about, no matter what faults it had.

[askyourgran]

Unfortunately too expensive to fly now because of the maintenence problems, but they were beautiful peices of engineering. A friend of ours went on the maiden flight, he had all the little freebies from the flight.

[eastern]

Yes the Yanks hated it because it wasn't conceived or built by them. I heard a documentary where a NASA astronaut said the concorde was technically superior to the Space programme ( I think he was being a bit too complimentary). If you look at all the static Concordes inc the one at East Fortune the engineers all put their caps inbetween their console and the bulkheads so that when the plane landed they were all trapped there for ever. I also heard that the ones that were donated abroad had all their tanks filled with concrete, this is probably a rumour. Theres one thing for sure there will never be anything like it again, I saw one leave Teesside airport in 198something, it had just been on a jolly to the Arctic Cirlce (tickets were £150) it left with just the crew on board, no passengers and it made a Typhoon look slow. My Flying Instructor was gobsmacked, bear in mind this plane was being designed 20 years after the end of WW 2.

[237SJ]

For the record - I have made a few enquiries as to whether Concorde will ever fly again. The resounding answer was no. As a civil airliner the CAA would have to give Concorde a certificate of Airworthiness. They would never do that for an aircraft that has been sitting on the ground for 10+ years. Anyone who might fly Concorde would have to have a licence (as anyone would who would fly any type of civilian aircraft)
Unfortunately, there is nobody who has a current licence to train anybody on the Concorde simulator