Questions tagged [concorde]
Questions about the legendary Aérospatiale-BAC Concorde.
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Why did two of the development Concordes have red cabin doors?
The second British Concorde 101 G-AXDN at the 1974 Farnborough Airshow
(Photo by: Richard Vandervord source: www.airliners.net via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Three of the six development ...
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Why did the Concorde have a prohibition on droop-nose/windscreen-visor operation below 500 feet AGL?
Part of the Concorde's aircraft limitations, from this answer:
The last line of the given excerpt, and the one that this section concerns, reads:
Nose and/or visor operation must not be made below ...
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Why was the nose gear of Concorde located so far aft?
Was this because of the drooping nose preventing it from being placed anywhere further up?
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Did the Concorde have flat plate airfoil?
Did the Concorde have flat plate airfoil?
this is because in all the images I have found it appears to be a flat plate
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How would a wheel-well stowaway have performed on a Concorde?
There have been many news reports of stowaways who hide in the wheel wells of subsonic airliners and survive the flight.
I assume this would not be survivable with a Concorde because they'd be unable ...
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Did the Concorde have darkened windows?
Did the Concorde and the Tu-144 have darker window glass than subsonic airliners, to protect from the Sun when flying above 9/10 of the atmosphere? Or were the crew and passengers at higher risk of ...
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Why did Concorde have a large anhedral?
Why does Concorde and many other deltas have their wings bent down?
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Did British Airways or Air France use Professional Flight Engineers on Concorde?
Did British Airways or Air France use Professional Flight Engineers (non-pilot PFEs) on Concorde or were the flight engineers required to be pilots (not necessarily qualified to fly Concorde) who ...
user22445
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Why did Concorde have a max pitch down attitude in supersonic flight?
In ITVV Concorde (documentary) as the flight's captain introduced the ADI (attitude director indicator) he explained the dotted line (circled above) as follows:
[...] and the little orange dotted ...
user14897
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How does the drag coefficient behave at transonic and supersonic speeds for swept wing aircraft?
I was reading about wave drag and Concorde recently and found some contradictory information relating to drag. For example Wikipedia says:
Afterburner was added to Concorde for take-off to cope with ...
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Why didn’t AFR4590 use heavy in its call sign?
https://aviation-safety.net/investigation/cvr/transcripts/cvr_af4590.php shows that AFR4590 didn’t use heavy in its call sign even though Concorde had a MTOW greater than 300,000 lbs. Unlike BAW, AFR ...
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How much aerodynamic heating do jetliners endure?
At cruise altitude (~ 33,000 ft) and cruise airspeed (~ 500 mph) how much do present-day airliners heat up due to air friction during their journey? Probably not much because there's still ice on the ...
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What made Concorde so heavy?
The Concorde burnt five times more fuel per passenger mile than the 747. A huge contributor must have been the immense empty weight per seat, three times that of the B747.
B747-300
Concorde
Empty ...
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Why did Concorde have a 8000 ft airport elevation limit?
According to the Concorde Flying Manual Volume II(a) - 1 Operating Limitations - page 01.01.02 the take-off and landing airfield altitude is minimum -1000 ft and maximum 8000 ft. Why is Concorde ...
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Why was there no issue with the Tu-144 flying above land?
The Concorde didn't fly supersonically above land, it only could above the ocean. The Tu-144 however flew between Moscow and Almaty, so entirely above land; why did it fly like this? Didn't it have a ...
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Could one see stars from Concorde in daytime?
Concorde flew to an altitude of 60,000 ft (18.3 km) where stars should be visible at noon, aren't they? This question asks on how high stars become visible, and it is said Blackbird pilots could see ...
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How high could Concorde potentially reach by going fast and pulling up?
If Concorde was travelling at mach 2 and FL 600 then pulled up, it would enter a trajectory that went above its normal flight altitude before diving back down. I assume that it couldn't pull up to ...
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How much the Concorde secondary nozzle contribute to thrust?
Does anybody knows how much did secondary nozzles bucket type on the Concorde's engines contributed to the increase of thrust during take of and sub-sonic flight? This is picture of the nozzles and ...
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Concorde thrust reversers engaged on parked aircraft, but not all engines?
Am I correct in interpreting this photo as showing one thrust reverser engaged, while the other is open? Do the thrust reversers fall into place on a fully powered down Concorde? Could this be caused ...
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If the Concorde had an engine fail at cruise altitude, would they enter the coffin corner?
I know the coffin corner is only meant for subsonic aircraft, but if the Concorde is just cruising at Mach 1 and had an engine failure and also lost that afterburner, would it enter a coffin corner ...
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Why were the windows on the Concorde about the size of a hand?
I just saw a comparison between the 787 and Concorde windows. I could be wrong but it almost seems like a hand could cover the majority of the window.
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Why doesn't Concorde stall when passing Mach 1, where a normal airliner does?
As Jay Carr asked: What is a high speed stall?, Jan Hudec explained:
A difference from normal stall is that after supersonic flow separation the lift remains proportional to angle of attack and so ...
user40208
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What are these hexagonal things under the Concorde's neck?
The Concorde had a pair of dark-coloured hexagons under each of its forward boarding doors, as seen in this picture (showing the hexagons on the left side of the Concorde's neck):
British Airways ...
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Why didn’t the Concorde have flap-canards like the Tu-144?
One of only two ways of which I am aware in which the Tu-144 was “ahead” of the Concorde1 was in its use of retractable flap-canards, which increased the lift on the front of the aircraft at low ...
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What was the speed limitations for droop nose on the Concorde?
Lowering gears or extending flaps comes with limitations. Given the answer of this question I suppose the limit speed for full nose down is about 325 kt. My question is: what were the limit for all ...
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What were the Concorde's emergency procedures for an uncommanded droop-nose extension in flight?
The Concorde had a droop nose, which swung down during taxi, takeoff, and (especially) landing, so that the pilots could see where they were going without the long nose getting in the way. During ...
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Could the Olympus 593 have been windmill-restarted during supersonic flight?
The Rolls-Royce/SNECMA Olympus 593 (which powered the Concorde) used a complex intake-ramp system to improve the engine's efficiency and prevent an engine shutdown or failure during supersonic flight ...
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Did factors specifically related to the concorde design influence the Air france flight 4590 crash?
This youtube video partially attributes the retirement of all concorde fleets to the airfrance flight 4590 crash:
Were the factors in this accident due to the ...
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Why is it common to speak of "Concorde" rather than "the Concorde"?
"Suppose you were researching a book on the history of Boeing B-17."
"Suppose you were researching a book on the history of the Boeing B-17."
Which of those sentences sounds more ...
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Was the transatlantic crossing for Concorde too short to reach optimal cruising altitude?
When listening to Gander/Shannon ATC on shortwave, you could hear Concorde communicate its planned flight levels at longitudes from 20 West till 50 West. What I remember is that it would continue ...
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Why was Concorde never sold as a private business jet?
Airliners like Boeing 747 and even Airbus 380 are at times considered as personal jets for extremely wealthy people. Looking from the side, Concorde was ideal for this role: while not very big, it ...
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What might the business model be for a hypersonic jet? [closed]
According to this video, NASA and Boeing are doing research into a new generation of hypersonic passenger planes that can travel at Mach 5. The designs look really cool and I would love to see them in ...
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Why did the FAA ban all supersonic flights over the United States, rather than only supersonic flight in densely-populated areas?
A major part of why the Concorde was far less of a hit than predicted, and of why the many 1980s and 1990s supersonic transport projects never got off the drawing board, was that the FAA had banned ...
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Would the Concorde have been better off using a tailed delta wing?
In one of the answers to this question about the Concorde's lack of high-lift devices on its wings, it was pointed out that the Concorde, using a tailless delta wing, wouldn't have been able to use ...
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Why did Concorde not have horizontal stabilizers?
The Concorde did not have horizontal stabilizers or elevators. As a result, the pilots have to move fuel around the aircraft to trim it up or down, as sluggish and hazardous move.
Why did the design ...
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Did Concorde's sonic booms affect other air traffic?
Given that Concorde's sonic boom reached the ground, it also must have reached other nearby air traffic.
How was this dealt with? I imagine passengers would not welcome hearing a loud boom during ...
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Why didn't the Concorde have flaps or slats?
It's well known that the Concorde had no flaps or slats. The lack of high-lift devices considerably reduced lift at low speeds, requiring the Concorde to take off and land at higher speeds and angles ...
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Why was the Concorde painted white and not black?
It's well-known that the stated reason the Concorde was painted predominantly white was to mitigate heating problems.
However, given that the source of the Concorde's thermal woes wasn't excessive ...
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What are those things under the Concorde’s cockpit windows?
I’ve noticed there are little bits sticking out under Concorde’s cockpit windows and they’re too small to be canards. Are they some kind of vortex generator or something?
(Source)
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What max Mach number of the blade tips on Concorde's engines? [duplicate]
What was the maximum velocity and Mach speed of blade tips in Concorde's engines?
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Where are elevators located in aircraft with delta wings? [duplicate]
Where were elevators located in aircraft with delta wings, notably the Concorde and the Blackbird SR-71?
If they didn't exist, how did these aircraft perform the nose up maneuver mid-air and at take ...
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What is the maximum speed for regulation of sonic boom noise?
If fuel cost and fuel efficiency were not the issue, what is the maximum speed (air speed and ground speed) that business jets or airliners could travel at without exceeding the maximum noise and ...
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How loud was the Concorde's sonic boom at the ground level? [duplicate]
Before the Concorde was sent into retirement, their supersonic flight paths were restricted to the ocean because of concerns about sonic boom on the ground.
But just how loud was this boom? Was it ...
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What's Concorde's engine fan blade tip speed at full thrust?
I can't find anything on the web about the Concorde's Snecma engine fan blade tip speed at full thrust. Any ideas?
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Should all aircraft have landing gear debris deflectors, following the Concorde disaster?
Since it's certain that debris deflectors would have stopped the piece of tyre that punctured Concorde's fuel tanks in the fateful Air France 4590 disaster and caused an explosion, why are they not ...
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What were the effects of the oil crises on the Concorde ticket prices?
One of the things that is considered to have greatly hampered Concorde's success were the dramatic oil price increases due to the 1973 oil crisis (the 1979 one surely didn't help either, but it was ...
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Why were there passengers allowed on Concorde's route proving flights?
Based on this site, Concorde needed to fly 750 hours to prove its airworthiness and be used in regular service. Air France and British Airways flew two Concords (F-BTSC and G-BOAC respectively) on a ...
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Travelling at faster than mach 1, how sharp could Concorde turn to avoid injury to passengers?
To avoid injury to passengers (too many G's) was there a max 'sharpness' of the turns it made when travelling at certain speeds?
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What protection did the Concorde have against an uncontrolled decompression?
The Concorde's cruising altitude was 60,000 ft. I believe if the cabin ruptured at this altitude, everyone onboard would be almost instantly killed, if not from the Armstrong limit then from hypoxia (...
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Could the Concorde reliably land with all engines out?
The Concorde was designed to fly at supersonic speeds; because of this its delta wings produce more drag at subsonic speeds. My understanding is that delta wings can produce a large amount of lift at ...
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