I was reading about the Concorde and found something I hadn’t known. The criticality of fuel movement for trimming the plane for takeoff, supersonic flight and landing. I didn’t know that they used fuel to change the balance and the angle of attack for landing since it didn’t have flaps. That is why it had such a non-usual angle during landing. This was also the big reason for the articulating nose; so pilots could see forward during landing. Interesting engineering solution, but one that leaves me feeling wary.


https://www.heritageconcorde.com/fuel-transfer#!


Very interesting site if you poke around it some.

Yep interesting,

They also used the fuel to cool the skin of the aircraft at supersonic speeds.

There is a full set of Concorde manuals on Avialogs http://www.avialogs.com/index.php/en/aircraft/europe-and-consortiums/concorde.html

Concorde and the Tu-144 saga is one of the most interesting avaition stories ever for me. It would make a great mini series if done right. The whole supersonic airliner race is an amazing tale of up and downs and massive feats of engineering.Incredible stuff.

I thought this was an interesting video on the Tu-144:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFWbuKr5-I8

Interesting indeed. I used to watch them land, almost daily, since I worked right near their usual runway at Dulles Airport, in Virginia. It was quite something to see.

The concorde required very careful fuel and weight planning for those reasons.

During supersonic flight the center of lift changed and thus necessitated a different AoA. You could change the AoA by trimming or just using the yoke, but this reduced the range of the aircraft due to drag.

So all flights were carefully calculated under the assumption that the CG of the aircraft would be within about 1% of the designated limit during cruise. Any time the CG went out of the band (IIRC it was about 1.5%) a chime would sound and a CG warning light would show up on several panels.

While the concorde was an extreme case, as improper CG handling could have meant not being able to reach the destination, especially in the case of an engine failure, I'm not sure many people know that most airliners also do something similar these days, though it is all automated on routine flights now.

The MD-11 has the LSAS system which pumps fuel in and out of a tail tank during cruise to optimize CG and fuel economy. The 747 series has a similar system though it operates pretty differently from the MD.

The concorde was weird also in that its tank layout was not symmetrical. They had some pretty funky shapes and quantities. And there were a LOT of tanks. The fuel control panel at the engineers station was a nightmare compared to a normal aircraft. Logical enough once you get used to it, but way more complicated than the usual stuff you'd encounter in the 70's or 80's.

I did as well. My house as a kid was right along the landing pattern for JFK, which was approximately 3 miles away. I watched pretty much all of aviation from the early 70's into the early 90's from that backyard. The Concord was a favorite of mine. I finally got to be up close and touch her when I worked on the ramp at JFK briefly, and then as a young adult I got to fly to Paris aboard her when working for a French bank (Credit Lyonnais). Soon after that, I started to work at another Technology company and got to meet and work with one of the lead systems engineers on the Concord, who was now the CTO of my company at the time. Unfortunately, he was killed on 9/11 when the South Tower fell. Our company was housed on the 86th floor.

-Skater

for anyone who is interested, there is an unbelievably detailed concorde simulation product made by FSLabs out there for P3D, and there's talk of it being updated and overhauled to work with the most recent incarnations (v4 etc).

includes a very, very functional engineers panel which if set to full manual mode will keep you busy 100% of your flight. not that that is too bad, as most flights are under 3 or 4 hours anyway.

the fuel balancing and temperature management are some of the most challenging aspects of the concorde. flight engineers really don't get the credit they're due, they were absolute professionals.