The Concorde That Lost Its Rudder | The Super Sonic Breakup | Concorde 102
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- Опубликовано: 8 май 2020
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This is the story of Concorde 102. We had it.For about 26 years we had a passenger plane that shattered the sound barrier. No longer was the supersonic realm only for the military jets. The general flying public was now able to zoom past the sound barrier. Albeit the rich and famous flying public. The concorde was revolutionary, the plane was built in the 1970s but to this day it looks like something straight out of the future.
The last concorde ever built, the concorde with the tail number G-BOAF was chartered to fly 100 people around the world visiting cities like new york london, sydney christchurch honolulu oakland and the list goes on.On the 12th of august at about 1 pm local time the plane lifted off from christchurch for sydney. The climb was uneventful, the copilot was the one at the controls.
The plane departed Christchurch and then it climbed to about 28000 feet. It maintained 28000 feet till it entered the supersonic corridor that was about 100 NM west of christchurch. The Concorde had special supersonic corridors that it had to use to minimise the effects of the sonic boom. Once in these supersonic corridors the concorde was allowed to stretch its legs.
The plane in question entered the corridor at about .95 mach or about 600 knots. Once in the corridor the plane started its climb to its cruising altitude of about 57000 feet.
The concorde turned on her afterburners and she gained speed, they were aiming to hit mach 2 or 1200 knots. Can we take a moment to appreciate the insanity of that sentence? The concorde, a passenger plane, was capable of hitting 1200 knots that is just insane.
As they pushed through mach 1.7 the afterburners were turned off and a thud was heard. The thud felt like a surge or a bird strike. Their cockpit instrumentation showed nothing was out of the ordinary. The plane even felt normal to fly. Thinking that they just had the surge the captain elected to fly onto sydney. Returning to christchurch would mean that they had to drop out of supersonic speeds and turn back and stay subsonic till they reached christchurch. It was easier to get to Sydney and Sydney had better maintenance facilities.
So they pushed onto Sydney as they approached Sydney, they had to slow down and as they passed through 1.3 Mach and 40000 feet the whole plane began to vibrate. Something was indeed wrong with the plane. The vibration was a lot worse in the back of the plane. They turned off engine number 4 to see if it had any effect on the vibrations. it didn't. They idled all four engines to slow down and the plane slipped below mach 1. But this made no difference,
The vibrations continued as the plane passed throught 20000 feet.
As the plane approached sydney they were cleared in for an ILS approach onto runway 34 and at 2:34 pm the plane made a safe landing, on the ground the controllers in the tower saw what had happened, the plane was missing a significant chunk of its upper rudder. The rudder had disintegrated over the ocean.
But first let's talk a bit about the rudders, rudders help control the Yaw of the plane. Rudders usually are made with a honeycomb structure in the core and then it is layered with other
My grandfather was on this round-the-world flight, he was sitting in the back of the plane with the mechanics when the thud noise occurred. Needless to say the mechanics had a “surprised” look on their faces, they knew something abnormal occurred, but no one knew what it was until they landed. As I recall they were grounded for days until new parts were flown in & installed for the flight to continue. Thank you for this video. 🙏
I was onboard this flight.We(the passengers) were not informed at all about this or any problems whatsoever.The vibration you speak of was not noticeable in the cabin and we knew nothing about it.Also,it was 34L we landed on and whilst haveing a coffee in the lounge afterwards I became aware of a problem.Anyway thanks for the uploads.
Concorde was NOT "An answer to the TU-144". The TU-144 was the answer to Concorde. The development proposals and research of Concorde had been ongoing for 6 or 7 years before the TU-144 had even been conceived. Concorde may not have been the first to fly, but she was designed, built and tested properly, whereas the TU-144 was a bodged design, rushed into production and service with many of her parts (the wing for example) built from stolen blueprints which were "planted" by the British and French, intentionally giving the Russians bad and flawed designs under the guise of them actually being what was being built for Concorde. TU-144 was a flying deathtrap, one of the reasons it was retired and only flew a handful of times.
I was driving by Dulles Airport IAD outside Washington one day in the late 1980s and the AirFrance Concorde buzzed my car on takeoff. I thought I had been aerosolized! It was great, something I'll never forget. I have a friend whose wealthy mother was being dialyzed in DC and wanted to go to her house in France. So she got her morning treatment in Washington, buzzed Concorde over to Paris and had her afternoon treatment there. Seamlessly!
Your history is inverted -- the Tu-144 was the Soviets' answer to the Concorde, not the reverse!
Sorry about the background noise, Since im in quarantine I had to record this from my bedroom
That flight was 12th April 1989, not 12th August. When they lost the rudder, they felt a thud around M1.7. The vibrations started to appear when they throttled back as they approached Sydney at M1.3. The vibrations vanished again but re-appeared intermittently during the descent and slow down. The crew never realized that a section of the rudder was gone. Captain Dave Leney was interviewed shortly after the landing.
I remember this flight and it was actually widely reported at the time as anything to do with Concorde was in the UK because she was the darling of the nation, your videos are very informative but you must give the subjects you cover the respect they deserve….the TU-144 was nothing but a russian knock off riddled with problems because the British and French VERY successfully fed them false designs in one of the best examples of counter espionage in the Cold War years.
And THAT is the story of Concord 102
I really appreciate how the videos always have subtitles, just as someone who has a hard time picking out words its really nice to have accurate subtitles if I'm listening somewhere loud
Great once again ❤️ what a sad loss the Concord was - my childhood home lay under the flight path of Heathrow Airport and I used to see and hear this wonderful aircraft regularly- great animation with the old liveries too
The most magnificent machine that ever flew. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Concorde is one of the most interesting airplanes in history. Did you know it cost over $10,000 for a ticket?
I have been fortunate enough to fly in that very aircraft when it was in service, in the 1980's when it was on a private charter visit to Teesside Airport. A truly remarkable machine.
To fly on Concord was on my bucket list 😢. I remember the sonic booms as a child in the 60's in Chicago. I always asked my parents what that loud noise was and they told me a "sonic boom". But I didnt understand what a sonic boom was!
Your research is very thorough. I'm a composite manufacturing engineer and I am familiar with those problems. Truth is, sandwich structures are very structurally efficient but quality assurance is difficult and water often finds a way in, in the long run. Airbus had the same kind of rudder problems with water ingressing through fasteners on the A320.
You said "the Concorde was the answer to the Soviets TU-144". Didn't you know that the TU144 was a copy of the Concorde? Soviet espionage was responsible for stealing the design for the British/French Concorde.
The honeycomb core of composite construction airfoils provides very little strength. Due to the way materials behave when flexed, the outer sections take almost all of the loading while the center section takes almost none. The honeycomb core serves to, effectively, keep the entire construct as a single piece by transferring load and not much else.
No aircraft ever built has not had some faults.
Ive been on Concorde 002 a few times. Its based at Yeovil Air Museum in UK. Great place to visit.