The Concorde
To find oneself travelling at a speed greater than that of sound had always been the territory of privileged fighter pilots and crazy men driving jet powered cars in the Nevada desert. Very few on this planet could count themselves as a part of that population. However, in 1969, the first successful test flight of the Concorde promised to extend the possibility of supersonic travel to a broader audience. The story of the Concorde, the plane that ferried passengers over the Atlantic in record time for 27 years, is a rather engrossing one.
In the early 1960s, engineers in France and Britain were separately working on designs of an aircraft which could trample down the sound barrier. Both groups wanted to realise their designs as prototypes but none had the money to do so alone. As a fortunate result, the French and British governments decided to come together and accomplish the development of an SST economically. And so began the work, to bend steel into the first pieces of the Concorde.
Sud Aviation and Bristol Aeroplane Company, the companies that initially began work on the designs, were merged into Aerospatiale and British Aircraft Corporation respectively, as the Concorde evolved from drawings on paper into the first test flights. The name of the plane, in Britain, was trimmed down to just Concord, an English word, and to much anguish of the British pride, back to Concorde again!
The fuselage was adorned with the Concorde’s characteristic delta shaped wings as ornaments, each holding a pair of Rolls Royce SNECMA Olympus 593 Turbojet engines in pods fitted under them. The combined output of these 4 powerhouses would take the 100 or so passengers aboard the aircraft, to twice the speed of sound at 51,000 feet. The fact that speeds of that magnitude would lead to considerable heat generation was understood by designers of the Concorde well in advance. And boy, did they handle it well? The fuel was used as a coolant, the nose was made out of a special alloy and the entire body covered with special paint to reflect most of the heat.
A pair of the engines on one of the wings with complex intake ramps
The intricate design of the air intake ramps took care of critical issues such as moderation of shock waves, drag -in case of engine failure- and generating thrust at supersonic speeds. It is a remarkable observation that at Mach 1.5+ speeds, 63% of the total thrust was provided just by the ramps. Indeed, the engineers did have success with economizing on fuel consumption.
One of the daunting problems encountered by the designers of this marvel was the separation of Centre of Gravity and Centre of Pressure as the jet approached Mach 1. The Centre of Pressure moved rearwards and played a game of catch-me-if-you-can with the Centre of Gravity which tried to keep up with the former’s movement by shifting fuel from one section of the fuel tank to the other. I reckon this solution must have been the result of a very dizzy day dream of one of the designers!
Fuel movement along tanks to shift the Centre Of Gravity
The sound generated by the Concorde was, to put it mildly, tremendous! The principal reason why many of the initially placed orders for the aircraft were cancelled was that it produced decibels that shattered windows and eardrums without a care. The uproar in the US east coast against such noise prodded the technologists and investors to take heed of the environmental angle in any endeavour. In that regard, the Concorde is accredited by many to have altered the corporate culture towards the eco system.
At its Mach 2.02 cruising speed, the nose and the front of the aircraft would get more heated than the rear, leading to an amusing experience for the passengers and the crew. They would find themselves strolling through a temperature gradient as they walked down the aisle. Contrary to the experience in the church, this walk would lead them to feel cooler. Also, passengers at the rear of the cabin often saw the front seats see-sawing as the flexibly designed fuselage twisted and turned to accommodate shear forces when the jet banked from one side to the other at bullet speeds.
From 1976, when it was first pressed into commercial service to 2003, the year it gracefully retired, Concorde had travelled to 6 continents. Despite a short cabin height and less than ample legroom, many businessmen chose to fly aboard this slender beauty for the sheer 50% reduction in travel time it offered. There are stories of whimsical Saudi princes chartering the plane at such short notice that the pilots did not have enough time to put on their uniforms. This, and many other anecdotes scattered across biographies of pilots and first hand accounts of enthusiasts, make up the unusual yet captivating history of this aeronautical masterpiece that we shall remember as the Concorde.
Concorde with the Red Arrows aerobatics team flying over London
