Any Tips For Concorde Flights?

[uta2001]

Hey Everyone!!

I was just wondering if anyone had any tips for flying Concorde trans-Atantic? By that I mean climb out, landing, cruise (autopilot stuff) and more? I've never really used Concorde (seeing as how my first time using her, I kinda made a lot of mistakes). I know she's tough to fly, so I am turning to by simming brothers and sisters for advice. Hope ya'll can help!!

Antonio

[johnrico2040]

I don't know much about flying concorde. But one thing, she crashes on landing easily!

[steveross1985]

i'd like to know whats wrong with the concorde autopilot. Over the ocean, at cruising altitude, it'll just randomly start to plumit. i try to get it back on the cross-hairs so the autopilot can catch them, but it trims it away from them.
Anyone have a fix?

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[Aurangzeb]

As surreal as it gets.............

[uta2001]

Hey SteveRoss1985,

Well, I just came back from a test flight with Concorde at
Mach 2.10 at FL520 and never had problems with the autopilot. I did find however during climbout (around FL400) that my airspeed started dropping big time along with my VSI to the point that it eventually started stalling. I couldn't figure it out for the life of me. I thought my CG was off, but I had set it to Auto-Pump (highly recommned using Auto-Pump) and my CG was ok. What I did find though is that the autopilot had set the trim WAY to high!! I disengaged the autopilot and brought the trim back to normal and re-engaged it and worked just fine.

Another thing was that Concorde won't accelerate to supersonic (even with the afterburners) until she is light enough. I don't know if this is true, but it was my observation. If anyone can verify this, by all means, let me know.

If anyone has any more tips, THEY ARE ALWAYS WELCOME :-wave

Antonio

[TornadoWilkes]

Advice first, use afterburners for takeoff, but remember to turn them off for the climb, otherwise you'll reach New York (or may not) sucking fumes. I've landed at JFK after rationing fuel for the last 200 nm to have the engines switch offf the second that the wheels touched. This is pretty tense after 3 hours of flying.

Mine pitches violently at FL500 at M2.0. The FS2000 model didn't show this behaviour.

On the reaching M2.0 question, this has to be done at lower altitudes such as FL290, where the induced drag is reduced due to a lower nose attitude in the denser air. Light the fires and let her climb at 400.

[empacae]

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON Dec-31-01 AT 09:59AM (EDT)[/font][p][font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON Dec-31-01 AT 09:57 AM (EDT)[/font]

Hmmm this is all interesting. I have to make sure 1st that I don't have full fuel tanks. Trim 4 to 6 positive trim for take off with afterburners....set airspeed to 250 kts below 15,000 then 310 to FL290, then I just open it open it up. Once I'm past FL350 the next hand off I acknowledge I don't contact the next ATC center as the course corrections at high mach can cause big BIG problems....This allows you greater freedom with adjusting verticle speed. You can now set VS to under 1000fpm and at FL550 set VS to 100fpm climb...climb to about FL610 about then you may want to start your decent to FL590 using 100fpm decent. This stops the pitching. About 200nm from your destination contact ATC and start slowing your bird down. You're going to get course corrections from ATC and you better have some control of the bird when you start getting the course changes or else she'll just drop from the sky. The fastest I've had her go yet is M 2.07. I've completed 18 hops back and forth from Heathrow to JFK, and one from JFK to Rio de Jenario (Rio was an intended destination for the Concorde, I believe it use to fly there in the 70's or 80's. Also the Concorde used to fly into Toronto once a week. Beautiful site to see, something I hope that continues again in the future). Except that over continental North America the Concorde must fly subsonic (though you probably know this) This will also help ration off the fuel for the supersonic-trans-oceanic-hop.

I don't know if this helps. You may wish to find a better concorde model as well. I got the BA Concorde that said it was converted for FS02, and it's always seemed stable for me.

Definetly one of my more favorite planes to fly. The panel is just awesome. I only wish the visor automatically showed the ridges on the blastscreen rather than having to manually push Shift+2.

emp.

[TornadoWilkes]

And that in itself raises a question.

FS2002 has ATC where you must stay within 300 ft of your assigned cruising level. As this is the case, a 100fpm descent would put you outside your FL610 margin in 3 minutes.

Although I haven't yet tried this workaround, I'm sure that Ive read of a steadily lowering cruising level in the Concorde POH (simulator version). However it seems that the FS2002 constraints will force you to have to decide, break ATC rules to follow agreed operating practice or dont use ATC when flying Concorde trans-oceanic.

Having said all this, the FS2000 model still operated fine at FL500 with no pitch instability, so it seems that the BA FS2002 flight model may need tweaking.

[empacae]

In your flight plan set cruising alt at FL590. as you are doing your decent from FL610 and nearing the FL590 contact ATC and then start slowing the bird down as you are probably over continental NA (assuming you are coming from London or Paris). Once ATC tells you to start decent set your airspeed to 250 to 270 kts and decend at >1500fpm. The engines will idle all the way in and you won't start slowing down until friction starts acting against you.

[TornadoWilkes]

And I guess this works because trans-oceanic, you're actually flying under your own navigation, rather than being directed. Therefore, the ATC isnt there to terminate yout IFR plan?