No, CVA doesn't fly the Concorde. Yes, I got the new PSS Concorde and yes, I like it...

Question for RW ATC. (Especially you Ken) The PSS Concorde tutorial perports to be based on an actual Concorde flight plan from Paris to JFK. This brought the "land-fall" leg over St. John's NFLD, across to Sydney NS and down the length of Nova Scotia. Flying the tutorial as published, I crossed YYT at FL540 and M2.0, YQY at roughly FL410 and M1.7 and Yarmouth at around FL 370, M1.1 or so.

So, did the real planes fly a similiar route? And where they supersonic over Canadian landmasses?

I was under the impression that it was illegal to be supersonic over land...

Hiya Keith,

*** Disclaimer: I am not now, nor have I ever been, a Concorde pilot. ***

Speaking militarily, supersonic flight over land is common enough, and there are places set aside to make the booms. I can still hear the thuds and hear the windows shaking from the all Voodoos, Starfighters and CF18s I've heard go super.

Civil aviation, though, doesn't generally enjoy places set aside for creating shockwaves and can't thumb its collective nose at a whining public. You're right Keith: Supersonic flight over land is proscribed except under specified circumstances and the Concorde flying to JFK wasn't one of them.

The westbound Concorde came in on a northern track and the closest point of approach (CPA) to Canadian land was approximately 30NM south of the Avalon peninsula (I just eyeballed it on the maps I'll add down below, so if someone has their dividers out in order to correct me, just piss off, OK?

Interestingly (if you're a geek like me!) the deceleration point on eastbound flights changed with the season (temperature, actually) due to the boom bothering people in the winter. I think they only backed it up a little bit (10NM? 20NM? Anyone?) but it was enough to stop the whining.

OK, here are a few pictures/maps. The first one is of the Great Circle route (straight line on a globe, and therefore the shortest distance) between London, Heathrow (EGLL) and New York, John F Kennedy (KJFK):



Notice that this Great Circle route, which is what would be drawn by a GPS or any graphical flight planner, is pretty much exactly what you described, Keith.

The second is a plot of the actual oceanic route of westbound Concorde flights (they operated on fixed tracks):



The third is a zoomed-in portion of the same route near Canada. The CPA waypoint is #6, just south of The Town:



And finally, another zoom of the same route, showing a closeup of waypoint #6 and where it gets close to Newfoundland.



Please don't ask any questions about program used to diplay the routes or ask for copies: I would happily provide, but I am truly not allowed to.

Cheers!

Gary

Sweet stuff Gary.

No questions asked (wink-wink-nudge-nudge-say no more), but I will tell:

"FalconView is a multimedia mapping package for personal computers that displays various types of maps and geographically referenced overlays. Developed to support flight planning for the U.S. Air Force, Navy and Special Forces, FalconView is now employed by more than 16,000 users in every branch of the armed forces. The mapping package's low cost and portability allows pilots to complete their flight planning almost anywhere by retrieving and displaying maps on their computer screens.

Researchers at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) have enhanced the original, text-based planning program by writing the software used to display the maps, imagery, digital terrain elevation data and a variety of aeronautical flight information. Pilots can now develop flight plans by pointing and clicking on terrain features and navigational aids along the way. FalconView users can view overlays with live intelligence data, airspace boundaries and possible flight hazards; they also may use GPS tracking information while airborne to increase situational awareness.

As part of this work, the Department of Defense was also provided components with associated software and technical support, including software maintenance and the handling of software problem reports. GTRI researchers addressed these applied research challenges by incorporating advanced rapid-prototype techniques into the software development lifecycle with significant user feedback throughout the development process.

FalconView was a finalist in the 1997 World Windows Open, a worldwide software competition.

Read more about FalconView.

For more information, contact:

Terry N. Hilderbrand
Computer Science and Information Technology Division
Information Technology and Telecommunications Laboratory
Georgia Tech Research Institute
Atlanta, GA 30332-0832
Phone: 404-894-3523
Fax: 404-894-9081
Email: falconview@gtri.gatech.edu"

Thanks a TON, Gary. Didn't think the boys on the rock would want to be awakened from their screech-induced slumber by a huge boom. Might think that the still had exploded!

Great stuff on Falconview too! Did it ever go commercial, or strictly military?

That's the one, Ben.

We (Canadian Military) obtained a DND license by way of the fighter pukes.

It's a DoD only thing, and, being silly Canadians, we're not supposed to talk about it because Uncle Sam might get mad

I've no doubt that I shouldn't be using it to show Concorde tracks on the Internet.... Oops, my bad!

http://www.falconview.org/

Cheers!

Gary

Hiya Keith!

It's basically military only, dude: There are all sorts of toys that John Q Civilian doesn't need, like threat mapping and bomb dropping stuff. From the FAQ:

"Who uses FalconView?

FalconView is primarily used by a large portion of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) aviation community as well as other federal agencies such as the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the U.S. Customs Service, and the Federal Aviation Administration. Several Allied nations are also using a special version of FalconView that has been approved for export. FalconView has approximately 20,000 users."

OOOPS!

Dammit Keith: I said NO questions! lol

(sound of handcuffs clicking shut)

Cheers!

Garu

LOL! Enjoy Christmas at Leavenworth, Gary!

While we're yapping about Concordes, here's one of my oh-so-loved (ahem!) questions for the gang:

Fuel performs 3 functions for the Concorde:

1) Allow the engines to make noise;

2) Trim (there ain't no tailplane, gang: they transfer fuel to trim and to manage C of G); and

3) ??? Guess ???

Hint: (not much of a hint, though!) This relates directly, albeit inversely, to another academic discussion, also involving fuel, we had a while ago.

Ready to answer? Set? GO!

Cheers!

Gary

Cooling? They wouldn't use the low fuel temperature for cooling the skin or wings now would they?



"Leavenworth"? I think, in Canada, we are still using the Diefenbunker for such people.

Yes, Ben. But if it's the US Military that will throw the hissy-fit, they may want to throw the "party" down south as well.

And yes, the fuel is used for cooling, but not the aircraft "skin". As I have the answer in front of me I'll let someone else take it if they like.

The plane is really an engineering marvel! To think they did all this with technology developed in the mid 60's, it's really quite amazing that it ever flew at all, let alone right up until now! I've had alot of fun learning about this amazing aircraft.

Right you are guys: Most of us worry about our fuel getting too cold at altitude but the Concorde has a problem with heating up and they use the fuel to absorb the heat generated by friction. By the way, that's something else that went wrong on my recent Arctic trip: It was SO cold between Thule and Iqaluit that we had to descend 4000 feet in order to get 1 degree below the temperature (TAT, which is much warmer than the still air temperature, remember?) at which our JP8 was freezing. I've no doubt that we had slush in the tanks for a while

Back to the Concorde: Heat's the reason why she's (or was, rather) restricted to Mach 2.2 or so: She's capable of going much faster but would come apart. Obviously, materials and technology are/were avaiable that would withstand the temps involved in faster flight, but they weren't either practical or economical.

(sigh) I guess that question was too easy... Time to think up a nasty IFR one again

Cheers!

Gary

Qute a few high speed birds can go much faster than they are limited too... either airframe heating/stress or in the case of the old '104 the inlet temperature reached a critical point... if you went faster than 2.2 in the single you would start to melt the inlet vanes... in the dual, limited to about 2.0 cause after that the airframe had more lift than the wings and the tail couldn't keep you level!

So my fasted ride, Mach 2.0 in the zipper... fasted at 3,000 feet, Mach 1.2 and not many birds can do that at low altitude.

Cheers Rod

Another cool feature of the Concorde, since we were talking about the fuel, is the De-aeration system. An absolute "must-have" on this (and I'm sure other high-speed, high-altitude aircraft).

Anyone care to venture a guess as to what this system does?

Wild guess - removes any residual air from the fuel/fuel system to prevent expansion/contraction issues while at altitude?

That'd be a pretty good guess!