Dear friends and followers, welcome back to my channel for the follow-up video about my previous
Concord videos here at the Brooklands Museum of British motorsport and Aviation History.
In today's video we'll be taking a closer look at the approach and landing
phase of Concorde, the passengers who traveled with her, and what made Concorde so special from all other Airliners.
So let's get right to it for this final Concorde episode.
As the pilots reduced their descent speed below
270 Knots and prepared for the Instrument Landing System
The pilot flying requested nose and visor down to 5 degrees...
The visor or heat shield would then retract and slide into the nose cone and the entire nose
tilted downwards by five degrees...
Gradually reducing to the intermediate approach speed of 210 Knots, the pilot flying
selects 210 Knots on the autothrottle window where after the autothrottle system
electrically adjusts the levers to the correct position to maintain the selected speed. And as you might not have known, Concorde had
no flaps to reduce the airspeed, neither speed breaks. So speed was reduced by flying at a high angle of attack
creating a lot of drag with the delta wing
reducing the speed but maintaining the altitude required by a lot of thrust output. Once fully
established on the Instrument Landing System, the approach speed was slowly reduced down to
190 Knots;
gear down at about 2,000 Feet; and here comes another
call-out, ever so different from all other Airliners. Now in most Airliners the call is "Gear Down -
- Three Green" meaning three lights next to the gear lever
indicating the nose wheel and both main landing gears are fully down and locked. Concorde's call-out is "Gear Down -
- Four Green"
Where's the fourth gear?
It's the little tail bumper wheel at the rear of the tail
preventing the engine nacelle or tail strike in case of a high pitch landing. And after the gear is down, the airspeed gets slower again
increasing the angle of attack and again the nose blocks the view onto the runway. The pilot flying then again
requests nose fully down and the pilot
monitoring sets the lever into the fully down position moving the nose into 12.5 degrees tilted downwards
position giving a clear view onto the runway. At 800 feet, the pilot monitoring selects the touchdown speed of
158 Knots to 160 Knots you would then adjust the pitch from eight degrees to eleven and a half
degrees to slow down the Aircraft
reaching 500 feet as you were then fully stabilized with the right pitch altitude and speed for landing. The pilot
monitoring would read out the altimeter to aid the pilot flying on his judgement when to break the descent rate and
start the flare. On touchdown Concorde would greet everyone with her famous delta wing swirl and the pilot flying
immediately applies full reverse thrust and the eight rear buckets close together and forced the engine output into the opposite direction
slowing down the Aircraft. At the same time you can see the Elavons going into the fully down position as the pilot flying
requests to put the stick fully forward to get some
aerodynamical braking, and to get the nose wheel down onto the Runway. And as they exit the runway the pilots cut the outer
engines for fuel saving and retracted a nose up to into five degrees down position
so it doesn't get damaged during
taxi. And once they've reached a gay position
the nose and visor were put into the fully up position and the inner engines cut once the
electrical ground power was connected. Okay let's talk about a few more facts which made her so special.
For instance the inputs given on the Yoke were converted into electrical signals so
Concorde was one of the first planes to have the Fly-by-Wire System
Where control inputs on the flight control column are
converted Into electrical signals and is then sent by wire to the flight control actuators
mechanically moving the rudders and she would also land all by herself
meaning she had an Auto Land System which came in handy when approaching London in dense fog.
Please keep in mind this plane was built in the 1960s and all pilots agree that she was so easy to fly, she
handled so well. Just listen to the statement of Captain Norris. "We certainly all very much enjoy flying the airplane
we look upon it as
being paid to enjoy ourselves
although don't tell British Airways that." Well if that's no statement I don't know what is.
Half of the loaded fuel on the flight from
London to New York was just used to get Concorde to Mach-2 and its respective altitude which
immediately tells you she uses less fuel during High-speed Cruise than during takeoff and approach.
And New York
ATC controllers knew that. New York was very proud to be the airport with the most Concord movements in the world so
were the ATC controllers handling the Concorde's approach.
And former Concorde pilots tell this story with a grin on their face
once in a while concorde had to enter a holding near JFK due to broy thunderstorm which just had to pull through and
there a lot of traffic was queuing up in the holding.
And ATC knew that Concorde couldn't last very long in the holding due to the immense increase of fuel consumption at subsonic speeds
They then contacted Concorde and advised the pilots to switch to another
Radio Frequency so they could communicate with the pilots on a private channel.
They then gave the Pilots direct approaches into JFK
jumping the queue of all other
airliners in the holding so that Concorde wouldn't have to divert to another Airport due to low fuel warnings. If other
airliners would have found out about that, they
would have been really pissed at Concorde, but a special plane like Concorde deserves special treatment. Who flew with Concorde?
Primarily businesspeople who quickly had to cross the Atlantic to be there in person, signing contracts or important meetings.
World leaders and members of the royal
family were very keen on traveling with Concorde then because as soon as the red carpet was laid out she made an outstanding
appearance compared to her slow flying colleagues parked around her.
And naturally celebrities who enjoyed the first-class service and privacy onboard of Concorde. Only to mention a few regular Concorde flyers
Paul Mccartney
Elton John, George Michael, Hugh Grant, Roger Moore
Michael Jackson, Phil Collins and many many more
British Airways Pilots were lining up to get trained on Concorde. The entire type writing took up to six months Including six weeks of Theory
85 hours in the simulator and takeoff and landing training for a few days at Shannon Airport and
boy did they have a blast. It Was like boy scouts going on an Adventurous trip.
They were so proud to be part of an Elite Group of Pilots who had the Concorde rating in their license. And wherever
Concorde showed up, there were always
spectators waiting for her arrival
looking out for the White Swan with its long neck and try to get as close as possible
to her own departure to feel and hear the roar of the full Rolls-Royce?
Olympus Engines. The fans and supporters were very patriotic about It as she was a National Symbol and
icon and a centerpiece of
celebrations. She represented power and beauty and the courage of the people who made the not imaginable into the
achievable through patience and hard work.
Everyone involved was supporting and cheering for Concorde as many installed parts were
manufactured throughout the country. And what do I think of her? Besides the fact that she is the most beautiful Airliner ever
existed, it
makes me sad that i'll never get to fly her. And if you listen to Jeremy Clarkson's comment on Concorde, I couldn't agree more...
Looking at Concorde as an example of outdated technology, it is still at the cutting edge.
Losing it has been one giant leap backwards
for mankind.
If you think of It the plane was designed in the
Mid-1950s and kept up for half a century. The engineers working on Concorde were geniuses and thought ahead
especially from an Aerodynamic Point of view the characteristics of the delta wing are
amazing, and don't forget at the time it was developed there weren't any computers aiding the engineers. They spent countless hours in
Windtunnel trying to get It right. And it shows that two countries which weren't best friends
beforehand could work in such close relationship with each other and create such a
marvelous piece of Aviation History. And by the way the company who built
Concorde still exists and holy cow do they build nice airplanes.
When i did the research for this video I found out the disconnection sound of the autopilot and the hydraulic system of Concorde is marked
in the same colors as
on today's Airbus Models and that made me smile. I am very thankful that my dear godfather who used to work as an air traffic
controller at London Radar showed me Concorde for the first time. I remember it so clearly
I asked him as i stood in front of his house, "Alistair, what's this roaring sound?"
"Just wait, you'll see in a second" and suddenly Concorde came
roaring over his house. That Speedbird Concorde 001 heading towards JFK.
I'll never forget that sound and shape of that airplane when I first saw it.
So thank you very much for your time I hope I was able to bring you a little closer to an airplane which made Aviation
History and a huge thank you for Brooklands Museum
for inviting me to their site and giving me an exclusive tour around Delta Gulf and their Concorde Flight Simulator wishing you all the best
Your Captain Joe. 3...2...1....
Now
Okay guys this is just a short side note before the video series with Concorde ends I just wanted to let you know that
recording and making a little documentary about
Concorde was one of my life goals, I always wanted to do this. And this little book here is
called "The Joe's Affirmation and Visualizations" book I go through these pictures there's a lot of pictures in here
on a daily basis.
When I get up I look at them and they sort of motivated me throughout the day and one of them goals was
actually to do the recording of the Concorde. So it said what i want to do saying that I want
to have the interview on the 10th of December at 6:00 p.m.
I actually was able to do the video a little earlier and the same goes with the
recording with the Concorde in the background I wanted to show that on the first of december at 8 p.m.
I did that also in advance and
that just shows it I was so pushing forward to get this done I'm proud of myself actually that I thought I made it happen
and i hope you enjoyed the series and I'm sure there'll be more series coming up about historic airplanes maybe. Actually we should
have a vote which
airplane should be the next. I just like doing the research on these planes it's just, the story behind them is just so amazing.
I'm hoping it's in your interest as well so let's go from there.