Is Concorde fit???

RE: Is Concorde fit???

An Air France Concorde, stranded at JFK since July, is likely to make a ferry flight to CDG during the next few days. The French authorities are currently arranging the necessary overflight clearances on a special ferry certificate.

RE: Is Concorde fit???

What Bennie says it’s ok, but I think B747 cannot be campared with the Concorde.Concorde is supersonic and aged. Even if it is aged, a aircraft can fly more but it all depends on the airlines management of the aircraft. The Concorde is perfect.

RE: Is Concorde fit???

does anyone know if the french govt will release the tech details on maintenance of tyres,pressure guages and tyre wear. Also what is to be gained politically for uk to stay grounded as BA safety regime seems to be in a different league

RE: Is Concorde fit???

I’m sorry : mistake. It ALMOST crashed on the 21 of July in 1983, when it had the same problems (two engines felt out). I informed again and i made a huge mistake. Sorry

RE: Is Concorde fit???

Having spent much of the last two days looking at videos and photographs available in the media and listening to everything coming out of the investigation, the following is an analysis of what looks to have happened to the Air France Concorde:

Burst tyre on take off (possibly due to foreign object damage).
Wheel fragments pierce wing causing breaks in hydraulic lines and possible fire with fuel fire following. Fragments ingested into both engines through the air intake ramps on the bottom of the nacelle which would be open for take off. Engines fail (No2) and falter (No1) but at rotation are not on fire.

Fire burns through hydraulic system on left wing causing control failure resulting in elevons either neutralising or “dumping” to fully down, either of which, with assymetric thrust would cause a stall and roll.

Evidence for the above:

1. Photo evidence of aircraft prior to and at rotation clearly shows seat of fire INBOARD of the engines aft of the undercarriage leg. At rotation no visible fire in either engine.

2. French authorities report Captain advised that #1 faltered twice, #2 failed. Highly indicative of foreign object ingestion.
COULD also be catastrophic failure of one engine leading to damage to the other but, if so, why is the only visible fire firmly established on the wing, not from the engine nacelle?

3. Latest news at 21.00 BST reports that undecarriage fragments were found on the runway.

RE: Is Concorde fit???

Which Concorde crashed in 1983? Date, location, airline, a/c identity and c/n please as you obviously know something the rest of the world doesn’t.

RE: Is Concorde fit???

There is a video clip on www.cnn.com which shows the last few seconds of the flight. The engine is on fire, streaming smoke & flame, then there appears to be an explosion in the area of the engine, then the plane starts to bank.

It is quite sobering to watch.

David

RE: Is Concorde fit???

Keep in mind : there is not much news to tell, so the media will make news by spreading this kind of things around. I don’t know much about the concorde, but two airlines like BA ad AF can’t afford to fly with unsafe airplanes. If this happened in North-Korea or Africa, this would not suprise me, but AF has good educated pilots, maintenance of airplanes …
I don’t believe in this ##### : it’s the second time that a concorde crashes (also in 1983), which would make it an unsafe airplane? Every airplane is safe, i think (Boeing, Airbus, Tupolev, Antonov), but the only thing that matters “who keeps them fit and are the pilots good educated”.

RE: Is Concorde fit???

The concorde one of the safest airplanes? Ofcourse, they’re are only 13 of them. I think it’s not safer than f.eg a 747, but how many of them crashed? I don’t think the point is : “is the airplane fit”, ofcourse it is, but there are always some problems. Don’t forget this is a 25 year old airplane …
But if somebody asks me tomorrow if i would fly with his concorde, i wouldn’t refuse.

RE: Is Concorde fit???

Given today’s news re repair to the thrust reverser, the media are now focussing on that repair BUT this may be a red herring. Wing cracks IT WAS NOT. The aircraft concerned had been checked and did not have cracks.

A “simple” fire in one engine would not spread to the adjacent engine due to the firewall. IF both engines were on fire, this would be because something very hot had penetrated the firewall at a high velocity (e.g. a turbine blade).

Brian Trubshaw maintains that even two engines out should not have crippled the aircraft and implies other major damage must have been caused by the event that caused the fire.

Everyone wants a fast answer and is expecting one. That may happen but a I would bet that it will be some months before we get to the bottom of this.

Anyway, good for BA (my least favourite airline) for having the guts to fly Concorde today and to the passengers who stayed with it. Followed BAW001 on HF from 10 West to 50 West and it was good to know that there is still faith in an excellent aircraft.

RE: Is Concorde fit???

From the footage I’ve seen I have a hard time believing a wing crack unzipped causing this one. One report I heard said parts were recovered from on or near the departure runway. Any confirmation on this?

RE: Is Concorde fit???

Again, this is just going on early information, but a fully loaded aircraft, with half it’s engines so close, suffering a fire on T/O would surely almost instantanoeusly take out the adjacent engine? Wich means that you have a fully loaded concorde trying to take off on half it’s thrust. It appaers to me that the aircraft in question stalled, and, as it had not achieved any kind of altitude, crashed, as borne out by witnesses. SO the question is why was there an engine fire?

As for your cynisism, let me reply with my own cynisism: If it was a 737 or 320, would anyone have noticed?

RE: Is Concorde fit???

Indeed, sorry for that.
When you look at the time they’re already flying, the Concordes have always been well taken care of, I think.
Maybe 25+ years is enough time for such aircraft which fly under those circumstances on a regular base.

RE: Is Concorde fit???

Some initial thoughts:

The wing cracks are unlikely to have anything to do with this accident as BA’s machines are “older”, i.e. have more hours than the somewhat underused Air France machines and in any case are no more major than cracks found on other types. That’s what preventative engineering is about.

Engine failure/fire on rotation should be able to be overcome BUT an “uncontained” blade failure (there hasn’t been a “contained” one yet on any type of engine), which damaged the adjacent engine, would make life very difficult unless the afterburners were shut off on the “good” side immediately. Concorde can take off without afterburners (seen it done many
times on training) but on a fully loaded aircraft the performance
deteriorates and, with two engines out as well, is probably an almost irrecoverable situation.

It will be interesting to see the results of the simulator flight when the investigators fly the profile as shown on the FDR.

One cynical question:

BA have cancelled both tonight’s Concorde flights. If Air France had lost a B737 or A320 today would there now be thousands of stranded BA passengers around Europe. I somehow doubt it

RE: Is Concorde fit???

Precisely right Phil,

The big question is how come an engine fire on take off developed into the terrible events that transpired.

Isnt the standard procedure in such an event to ditch the fuel, apply full opposite rudder, modify the power to the equivalent opposite engine and try for a go-round and emergency landing?

A former Concorde Capt. was interviewed on BBC and he stated quite clearly that the type has a lot of available thrust and that the engine out on t/o, whilst being one of the most severe calamaties that can befall an aircraft, possibly was a recoverable situation.

It will be interesting to see what the air data recorders and ATC transcripts come back with.

RE: Is Concorde fit???

Precisely right Phil,

The big question is how come an engine fire on take off developed into the terrible events that transpired.

Isnt the standard procedure in such an event to ditch the fuel, apply full opposite rudder, modify the power to the equivalent opposite engine and try for a go-round and emergency landing?

A former Concorde Capt. was interviewed on BBC and he stated quite clearly that the type has a lot of available thrust and that the engine out on t/o, whilst being one of the most severe calamaties that can befall an aircraft, possibly was a recoverable situation.

It will be interesting to see what the air data recorders and ATC transcripts come back with.

RE: Is Concorde fit???

Please justify that remark in the context of all the other aircraft types which have had accidents and are still flying on a daily basis, including the B737 which still has rudder control problems.

RE: Is Concorde fit???

Appantly not….

RE: Is Concorde fit???

Latest Developments:
Concorde Crashes After Take-Off From Paris

Since we are on this topic, thought this might be interesting…

see news at:
www.yahoo.com

RE: Is Concorde fit???

In light of the recent announcement over cracks, I would imagine doubtful if it makes another 5 years let alone 25 years.

No longer fill the desire to fly concorde 🙁