Learning to fly Concorde

[Sam Kharey]

Captains,

I've been eagerly anticipating the arrival of Concorde. Easily my favourite aircraft, flying her will be the pinnacle of flight simulation for me (check out bookshelf).

I'm experienced flying modern airliners from the 80s onward but only have a superficial understanding of Concorde operations. For you seasoned Concorde captains -- how best to learn this great aircraft? How would you structure "ground school" for the new Concorde pilot? I really want to learn how to operate this bird as realistically as possible.

Welcome your thoughts while we wait for this monumental release.

Sam Kharey

[Maxime Guy]

I would imagine there being a very comprehensive guide/manual in the release of this title. Considering how complex an aircraft it was, I would imagine the team paid special attention to that. 

[Ray Proudfoot]

Sam, I’m no expert on flying Concorde - there are plenty here who are - but using my own experience I would say it’s all about pitch control.

Once airborne use pitch to maintain 250kts both before and after reheats are cancelled. Once you’re above 3000ft I suggest you turn on the autopilot / autothrottle  functions and observe very carefully how the aircraft responds.

Engage MAX CLB up to FL280 / Mach 0.95. Turn on all the options available to the Virtual Flight Engineer (VFE) to ease your workload. Get used to flying her subsonic before learning supersonic flight.

Maybe load minimal fuel and fly a few circuits. Landing is very different to Boeing / Airbus as Concorde had no flaps. You slow her down by pitching up to cause the huge delta wing to act as a speed brake. Plenty of power required to prevent a stall. Around 87% N2. When landing you need to pitch up to 10.5° with nose / visor down.

The FSX version came with an excellent tutorial on flying EGLL-KJFK. I imagine that tutorial will be included in the forthcoming version.

[Will Fibich]

There's going to be a substantial amount of documentation (and videos too, hopefully) included in the new title. I think some of the most helpful videos for beginners are from our very own @Ramón Cutanda.  Also linked is a video regarding the fuel panel operation. 

Obviously, these are related to the older title and the newer version will be fairly different. These videos are to help you get a good understanding of the checklist operation, become familiar with the cockpit, and learn the general profile of the aircraft. 

 

[Milton Kuser]

When it comes to the fuel panel, my recommendation is sit on the ramp with a partial fuel load and get used to moving fuel from tank to tank in any combination that you can think of.  With the exception of the 5A and 7A tanks, which only let fuel out, you can move fuel into or out of every tank on the aircraft.  Once you learn how to move fuel to any tank you need, and get used to all the valves and the load limit controllers, then you can concentrate on moving it from tank to tank in the proper order for what phase of flight you are in.  

 

There have been several good posts over the years on the forums that will give you a detailed explanation on how to move fuel from which tank to which tank as needed depending on your phase of flight.  A quick search should find them.  Also, you can't beat the ITVV Concorde video for learning about the systems and what was done in real life.  Disc 2 definitely gets into the engineer's panel and is great to watch.  

[Sam Kharey]

Really appreciate the depth and quality of the feedback.

The FSLabs manual will be a primary learning tool, Maxime. I've also been parsing through the real BA Flying Manual found online.

Will plan to rewatch the ITVV Disc 2 to get up to speed on the flight engineering flows, thanks Milton. And I've started watch watching the videos by @Ramón Cutanda -- thanks Will, I can see why these come highly recommended.

Ray, great comments on primacy of pitch/speed control. This has given me something of a paradigm or frame reference for flying Concorde. Managing the speed/pitch relationship seems key. Is it pretty easy to trim the bird in manual flight? Is there a trim tab on the elevons?

Sam Kharey

 

 

[Andrew Wilson]

Pitch trim will require some learning on the new title. We’ve simulated the elevons and pitch trim systems in detail (Mach trim, incidence trim, superstab). The elevons actually produce drag if they deviate from the optimum position. It’s quite interesting to watch the Mach trim control law at work as the aircraft accelerates - you can hear the bell on the pitch trim wheel dinging away as the system compensates for the changes in aerodynamics.

Trimming the aircraft is very easy, however, with the autostab system helping.

[Ray Proudfoot]

@Sam Kharey, my reply posted last night doesn't appear to have made it. This morning I found the topic discussing pitch datum for the FSX/P3D 32-bit version. Andrew can probably confirm if this still applies to the forthcoming version.

Here's what I did using a registered version of FSUIPC. And here's the full discussion.

I assigned those two commands to the up/down buttons on my Logitech throttle quadrant. Works perfectly.

[Andrew Wilson]

Yes new title has this logic still - elevator key commands (default up/down arrow) control the Autopilot datum, Aileron key commands (default left/right arrow keys) control Autopilot Turn datum - and Throttle Inc/Dec (default F3/F2 keys) control Autothrottle datum.

[Ray Proudfoot]

Andrew, with so many people using ChasePlane these days the NumPad keys are more or less out of bounds for Concorde. Looks like the procedure I used for the 32-bit version is still needed.

[John Price]

It’s strange that in Concorde they seemed to refer to the concepts of angle of incidence and angle of attack interchangeably, when they’re actually completely different. Surely it should be called angle of attack trim rather than incidence trim, although admittedly it doesn’t roll of the tongue as well 

[Fraser Gale]

1 hour ago, John Price said:

It’s strange that in Concorde they seemed to refer to the concepts of angle of incidence and angle of attack interchangeably, when they’re actually completely different. Surely it should be called angle of attack trim rather than incidence trim, although admittedly it doesn’t roll of the tongue as well 

She has incidence gauges driven by the ADCs from the incidence vanes on either side of the nose and the trim computers use the same signals so I guess they keep the names consistent. 
 

How do you define the difference between the two terms?

[Andrew Wilson]

20 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Andrew, with so many people using ChasePlane these days the NumPad keys are more or less out of bounds for Concorde. Looks like the procedure I used for the 32-bit version is still needed.

It is the same - where did I mention any NumPad keys? 

[Ray Proudfoot]

1 minute ago, Andrew Wilson said:

It is the same - where did I mention any NumPad keys? 

I seem to remember on the FSX discussion you mentioned using the 2 and 8 keys on the NumPad for pitch trim. Has that now switched to the up / down arrow keys?

[Andrew Wilson]

26 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

I seem to remember on the FSX discussion you mentioned using the 2 and 8 keys on the NumPad for pitch trim. Has that now switched to the up / down arrow keys?

No - my post has nothing to do with pitch trim. I was referring only to the autopilot/auto-throttle datum controls panel, and the key events that control these only when the autopilot/auto-throttle are in use. 

[Ray Proudfoot]

53 minutes ago, Andrew Wilson said:

No - my post has nothing to do with pitch trim. I was referring only to the autopilot/auto-throttle datum controls panel, and the key events that control these only when the autopilot/auto-throttle are in use. 

Understood.

[John Price]

15 hours ago, Fraser Gale said:

She has incidence gauges driven by the ADCs from the incidence vanes on either side of the nose and the trim computers use the same signals so I guess they keep the names consistent. 
 

How do you define the difference between the two terms?

Angle of incidence is the angle between the chord line and the longitudinal axis - no point in having a gauge for that in the flight deck as it’s unchangeable and, to the pilot, basically academic. Angle of attack is the angle between the chord line and the relative airflow, and that’s the biggie for pilots. 

[Fraser Gale]

3 hours ago, John Price said:

Angle of incidence is the angle between the chord line and the longitudinal axis - no point in having a gauge for that in the flight deck as it’s unchangeable and, to the pilot, basically academic. Angle of attack is the angle between the chord line and the relative airflow, and that’s the biggie for pilots. 

The incidence gauge in Concorde shows the pitch attitude you should fly to maintain level flight.   
I could be totally wrong but I seem to remember someone from back in the day telling me that incidence is more a UK term whereas angle of attack was more American. 

[John Price]

Yes I suspect it’s easily confused terminology because I notice Dave on the ITVV video refers to incidence rather than angle of attack, and the manuals refer to high incidence protection rather than high angle of attack protection, but they are technically two completely different things. If you’re referring to that instrument on the outer extremities of the main panel (the one that’s combined with the accelerometer), that’s an angle of attack indicator, not incidence.

[Fraser Gale]

3 hours ago, John Price said:

Yes I suspect it’s easily confused terminology because I notice Dave on the ITVV video refers to incidence rather than angle of attack, and the manuals refer to high incidence protection rather than high angle of attack protection, but they are technically two completely different things. If you’re referring to that instrument on the outer extremities of the main panel (the one that’s combined with the accelerometer), that’s an angle of attack indicator, not incidence.

Well, it’s called an incidence gauge by the folk that flew it so I’ll stick with that. 

[John Price]

Fair dos. It was obviously a common misapprehension. Also, while the manuals do refer to incidence trim etc., they also refer to that instrument as the angle of attack indicator and not the incidence gauge. Even the old Concorde manuals.

[Fraser Gale]

I have a feeling that in the UK the terms were partly interchangeable back in the day if indeed angle of attack was used, even if they are more refined now.  I remember hearing D.P. Davies talking incidence all the time in his interview, never angle of attack.  Might be a generational thing.