Concorde Hard-points?

Concorde’s Military Provenance

Morien Morgan (MM) was (Head/GW)/RAE, 1948-54, then Deputy Director: he was Father of UK/GW, especially of stand-off bombs (to be ASMs). RAE perceived supersonic cruise as best on stainless steel, so Blue Steel ASM (deployed 1964, Mk.2 V-Bombers) and Mach 3 Avro 730 recce-bomber: that was axed 4/57 as inoperable/unaffordable. On 5/11/56 MoS Supersonic Transport Aircraft Committee (STAC) had met under MM Chair. RAE moved on to M.2.2/alloy/slender delta wing: MoS placed Study contracts 9/3/59 with HSAL (“thick wing”) and Bristol (“thin”). MM then moved as Scientific Advisor to the Air Minister, as the link between boffin – novel notions -and User. He advised CAS ACM Pike (1/1/60-1/9/63) and Air Minister J.Amery (28/10/60-16/7/62: he was PM Macmillan’s son-in-law). MoA placed a $1Mn. SST Feasibility Study contract with BAC on the day of its formation, 1/3/60.

CDG 3/60 Approved a Force de Frappe starting with Mirage IVA (50 contracted 29/5/62, 12 more 4/11/62). No payload – any one of Bomb, range, ECM kit. Like RAE, ONERA then settled on M.2.2/alloy/ogee. With Sud they presented an Empire-binder/ASM carrier and won Study funds.

US deployed (upto 593) GAM-77 Hound Dog ASMs, 500 nm range, on B-52C-G. 102 B-52H, 185 supersonic B-58B and maybe many B-70A Valkyrie were to have a 1,000 nm Air Launched Ballistic Missile: won by Douglas GAM-87 Skybolt, Joint with UK wef 6/6/60 for 2 Wings, 48 Vulcan B.2 (1 or 2 each), then for 60 VC10. Though DoD had axed B-58B, 7/59 (and would axe XB-70 28/3/61) CAS Pike saw a supersonic ALBM-carrier as Required and so notified Ministers 1/61: the SIOP Task of Bomber Command was to waypave (today: SEADS) ahead of USAF/SAC, so…do keep up at the back! PM Mac wobbled on the cost of the Deterrent, judged any Skybolt successor to be “questionable” and 10/61 foresaw lapse of the Deterrent c.1970. Separately, he changed his mind on EEC and applied to join it, 10/8/61. Through 1961/62 much discussion. The outcome was determined by France.

MM guided the melding of Super Caravelle and BAC T.223, so is noted as Father of Concorde. Mac commended to Cabinet, 10/62 that UK “ought to cater for this profitable modern eccentricity”, funded on a civil budget, though “British Leaders, regarding (UK supersonics) as more advanced (than France’s thought by 29/11/62 SST MoU to make) a gesture (to aid CDG’s) ambitions to construct a potent strike force(, hoping he) would be grateful (re. EEC)”.

Skybolt was chopped 11/12/62. Mac declined US’ Offer that UK take it over, and secured SSBN/FBM. JFK then offered those to CDG, who declined but secured 12 C-135F: he uttered his Non, 14/1/63. UK would then have exercised the MoU’s Break Clause and terminated its sponsorship…except that J.Amery, Minister of Aviation wef 16/7/62, had deliberately excluded such a thing, to prevent CDG vacuuming UK’s “advanced supersonic data”, then himself exercising it.

France lost interest in any military Concorde, holding QRA wef 1/10/64 with upto 36 Mirage IVA, tanked by C-135FR, accompanied by EW/Mirage IVAs. So, why did she not welcome new UK Ministers’ wef 16/10/64 wish to chop? Because France was afflicted by the same supremacy urge that had caused Attlee’s Cabinet to fund Brabazon Types when UK was broke and cold. So we got on with a wholly-civil SST. CAS Pike tried to resurrect BAC X-12 and other ASM schemes to hang on the Tactical Canberra replacement as a surreptitious Deterrent platform, thus boosting its cost and hastening its demise.

(Sources include: www.concordesst.com/history/historyindex accessed 20/5/15;
R.Moore, Nuclear Illusion, Nuclear Reality, Palgrave, 2010,Pp.139/161/218-222/252;
J.R.Walker, Br. Nuclear Weapons and the Test Ban, 1954-73, Ashgate,2010,P199;
I.Clark,Nuclear Diplomacy & the Special Relationship,OUP,1994,Pp303/319/321/399/397;
C.Williams, Harold Macmillan,Weidenfeldfeld,2009,P375;
R.Jenkins,Life at the Centre,Macmillan,1991,P166; D.Healey,The Time of My Life,1990,P328;
K.Owen,(Ed),ICBH Concorde Witness Seminar 19/11/98, pub.2002,P54).

(BAC 221 flew with bonkers. Demise of Skybolt preceded Concorde wing detailed design by Sud Avn.: hardpoints thus improbable. What about drag? Ingress: subsonic unto SAM-belt, then supersonic dash; egress, supersonic unto safe airspace.
Why is this military episode not widely known? Same reason as DH.106 Comet being first funded as a Mosquito-successor. When Defence was under abnormal budget pressure, Ministers chose to put them on Civil Votes.)

Pilot’s eyes on stalks and hunched down in the cockpit. 😮
Thanks for the story. mmitch.

yes, it did a variety of trials, air sampling being a special task, I was lucky to see it fly in and out of RAF Valley on several occasions during my first tour of duty ,1973. The Aberporth trials would be around 1974/5. Aberporth radar was primarily for the missile range over the bay, we were a lodger unit in a narrow corridor looking out over the big missile launch pads on top of the cliff. managed to see Rapier,Bloodhound and Thunderbird fired. Countdown…zero..boom and a huge cloud of smoke which obscured the moment of launch, then back from the armoured slit window to see the missile track on the radar, what an incredible speed. Even watching Concorde on radar as it accelerated over the bay and the bristol channel was special, the latter being the scheduled pax flights. The demise of the Bloodhound anti aircraft missile was a shame and nothing really to replace it.

Could that have been the Javelin now at Duxford?
mmitch.

Javelin did intercepts over Cardigan bay……head on, while Concorde headed South supersonic the Boscombe Javelin went north guided by Western radar at Aberporth, seperated by height only. When Concorde had passed (must have been a sight)The Javelin then entered the disturbed airspace and collected air samples.Then given priority direct track to RTB as the samples were time sensitive.

Except we didn’t have much that could catch it.

In reply to mmitch
Yes it was used as a practice target for intercepts.

I seem to recall seeing an artists impression of a Concord in a predominantly white variation of the old (lamented!) queens flight colour scheme, anyone recall where?
Thanks for your time and trouble,
Be lucky
David

Interesting petition results there. Fourteen signatures, of which six are from the South Wirral area and another six from the Edgbaston area. Good aviation links in those areas? Beyond that specific petition I’m surprised that even the tabloids seem to run a ‘Concorde to return!’ story every once in a while.

For a bit of light relief. The petitioners sense of reality seems about as developed as his literacy…

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/169186

“We have no heavy bombers just jets and would be cheap as all ready have Airframe and Concorde is a great plane and supersonic .We can develope it to handle all bombs .Great Britain needs to help the RAF get their heavy bomber

Type RAF planes active duty your see no heavy bombers .We can not fight a large ground war without heavy bombers on our own if Europe falls”

I remember that illustration. I never took it seriously. Quite apart from the aerodynamic implications mentioned above, it looks as though the middle missile would interfere with the nose undercarriage. Also, you would be hanging 17,000lb x 3 or about 25 tons well forward of the CG which stretches credibility rather. I was particularly interested in the description “relatively inexpensive deterrent manned bomber”. “Inexpensive” is not a word normally associated with Concordes. Nevertheless, the illustration is a valiant if flawed attempt at suggesting a military configuration for Concordes. So let’s see: underwing, no good; bomb bay, no good; under fuselage, no good. That seems to exhaust the possibilities, unless anyone has another idea.

It did get used as a supersonic ‘target’ a few times I believe. The RAF used several training flights to practice intercepting high speed intruders.
mmitch.

Interesting illustration of the military Concorde! Just my two cents but those three Blue Steel missiles are going to wreak havoc with the airflow going into the engines. At supersonic speeds you will get shockwaves off those missile nosecones, fins and attachment rails, which will bounce off the underside and the other missiles. This will seriously disturb the inlet airflow. I’m sure it was an interesting thought at the time but from an aerodynamic standpoint I would label it as extremely unpractical.

“As has been mentioned above, the performance penalties of such a modification would most likely prohibit supersonic flight or at least knock a very large margin off the fuel economy (if any) of the aircraft.”

Similarly, plans to deploy the Bell GAM-63 Rascal on the Boeing B-47 Stratojet were cancelled in part because the extra drag and weight took away the B-47’s best defense, its speed. Consider this photo:

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The only practical military application for Concorde would probably have been as a VVIP transport* (or Quick reaction SF transport if you suddenly had to get a squad somewhere quickly)

The illustration above came from an article John WR Taylor wrote for the 1967 Yearbook called ‘A Bold Assessment of The Next 50 years’ – I’d love to see the full thing to see how accurate (if at all) his predictions were.

* Plus the high speed target it occasionally found itself used as.

Possibly because the USA had their own supersonic problems.

Thanks for posting that picture Meddle, it seems that my memory is better than I thought! Good to know the full story as well.

Thanks everybody for the responses. Thanks especially to HP111 for going to the effort of covering the limited and unusual ordinance that Concorde did carry.

The original RAF Yearbook image is this:

I asked someone who is closely involved with G-BBDG and he confirms that there is nothing like that in the structure. The Concorde wing was never designed to carry anything. As has been mentioned above, the performance penalties of such a modification would most likely prohibit supersonic flight or at least knock a very large margin off the fuel economy (if any) of the aircraft.

It doesn’t get much better than that! I did think the story had an element of ‘too good to be true’, and this confirms it.

I asked someone who is closely involved with G-BBDG and he confirms that there is nothing like that in the structure. The Concorde wing was never designed to carry anything. As has been mentioned above, the performance penalties of such a modification would most likely prohibit supersonic flight or at least knock a very large margin off the fuel economy (if any) of the aircraft.

I’m sure I’ve seen something, way back when…… I had a decent memory! The mention of an old RAF yearbook does seem to ring a bell though…..