The plane "Concorde" - Aérospatiale - BAC Concorde

Concord (orig. Aérospatiale-BAC Concorde) - British-French supersonic passenger aircraft. Together with the Soviet Tu-144 it belongs to the category of supersonic aircraft operated for commercial purposes.

The history of the "Concorde" is dated 1962 year, when there was a merger of the two programs, the design of the passenger supersonic aircraft. The French side was represented by the company Sud Aviation, English - the company BAC. Jet engines for aircraft propulsion system created jointly by the French firm SNECMA and the British Rolls-Royce. In the entire history we have been released such models 20, 9 of them sold in the ownership of Air France and British Airways, even 5 machines transmitted by this airline company for a symbolic price.

The first prototype of the "Concorde" was raised in the air in the city of 1969 and 1976 since it was already exploited in the passenger transportation.

Registered of Air France and British Airways aircraft including the 7. Their operation was long 27 years for which were transported by regular and charter flights over 3 million passengers.

25.07.2000, the crash occurred when departing aircraft "Concorde" airport "Charles de Gaulle" (Paris). As a result, the crash killed 113 people. Market supersonic passenger airliner air travel has declined significantly since 11 September 2001 years. These two events were the reasons that "Concord" in 2013 was completely removed from service.

Winemaking

Production of "Concord" was completely divided between the English and French sides. It was as follows:

• BAC (eng.) - manufacture of the front part of the fuselage together with the lowering nose fairing, the tail part of the fuselage together with the vertical tail, the production of external elevons, engine air intakes, electrical systems, oxygen equipment, fuel system, engine control systems and their control equipment, fire fighting system , air ducts of the pressurization and air conditioning system, anti-icing systems.

• Sud Aviation (fr.) - manufacture of the central part of the fuselage, the main part of the wing, the wing edge, internal elevons, hydraulic system, control system, navigation system, autopilot, radio equipment, pressurization and air conditioning units.

• Rolls-Royce (eng.) - engine production.

• SNECMA (fr.) - manufacture of afterburners, engine nozzles and thrust reverse systems.

• Hispano-Suiza (Spanish) - production of the main landing gear.

• Dassault (fr.) - production of wingtips.

• Messier (fr.) - the release of the nose landing gear.

Final assembly of the "Concord" were engaged simultaneously in two factories - at Filton and Toulouse.

The first production aircraft of this model was taken off on December 6.12.1973, 14.02.1974 in Toulouse. The English production version took off for the first time on 16, except for prototypes and pre-production versions, 201 Concordes were included in the series. The first two machines, No. 202 and 20, were not put into commercial operation, they were used for testing and certification. If we count together with the prototypes, a total of 10 copies of the aircraft were produced (9.06.1980 per plant), as well as a number of spare parts for them. After that, production was curtailed. The last plane left the Filton plant on June XNUMX, XNUMX.

Aircraft design

"Concord" is made on a "tailless", is located low delta wing. The plane is created for long cruise at supersonic speeds. The main construction material used in the article "Concorde" - an alloy of aluminum RR58. Also used in the construction of nickel alloys, titanium and steel.

Planer

The fuselage is made of semi-monocoque type. The cross section of irregular oval shape with an extended upper part. The fuselage is made of heat-resistant aluminum alloy. Its length in the prior art was 56, 24 m in pre-production versions - 58,84 m, production models - 61,66 m. The width of the fuselage "Concorde" has reached the maximum 2,9 m.

The fuselage front section can be identified with a glazed cockpit, a middle section made along the central part of the wing and the tail section of the conical shape, made with the keel. The front and middle sections are sealed. The tail section is balancing the fuel tank, the luggage compartment and the compartment with the oxygen system equipment and air conditioning.

During the flight, due to thermal heating of the surface, the fuselage could lengthen by 24 cm.

The nose section of the fuselage is occupied by a cone-shaped fairing, which deflected downward to provide pilots with better visibility during landing and takeoff while taxiing. In the fairing there is an additional movable glazing, which covers the control cabin during supersonic flight.

Management fairing and additional glazing was carried out from the cockpit by hydraulic drive. In case of failure of this equipment cabin was equipped with a periscope to perform an emergency landing.

Wing

Wing in the "Concord" oval, triangular sweep angle continuously varies along the wing span. At the wing tip sweep angle is about 60 °, a wing root - 80 °. Wing with a strong geometric twist endings.

Its design caisson type mnogolonzheronnaya. The wing consists mainly of heat-resistant aluminum alloys. Also, here we used the highly dimensional milled panel. Casing has a thickness 1,5 mm.

"Concord" was a special that was made not to separate from the fuselage and wing center section, and a set of cross-sections. One part of the wing meets the relevant part of the fuselage, then jointed sections to each other. This approach helps to alleviate the weight of the structure.

The texture of the wing consisted of six relatively large elevons, the total area of ​​32 m². Other wing mechanization options developers have not been considered. Vertical tail on the aircraft design is similar to the wing. Has a two-piece rudder independently driven lower and upper sections.

Power point

The Concord powertrain consists of four Olympus 593 turbofans, co-produced by Rolls-Royce and SNECMA, which are placed in pairs in the underwing gondolas at a distance of half the size of the wing consoles. The location of the engines is made taking into account the coincidence of the nozzle section with the rear edge of the wing. 

Olympus 593 - This is a highly modified version of the Bristol Siddeley Olympus 301 turbojet engine, which was used on the Avro Vulcan bombers. The engine is two-shaft, single-circuit. Each of the two compressor sections has 7 stages, the engine turbines are single-stage.

The compressor has a compression ratio of 11,7: 1. This high compression at cruising speeds, forcing the last four stage of the compressor to operate in extreme temperature conditions. Because of this, the need has arisen for producing a compressor of nickel alloys, previously only used in turbines. The engine consumes jet fuel A1 brand.

For commercial aviation was the novelty of the use of automatic electronic analog control system engines. Each of the motors is equipped with two identical control systems: main and reserve.

Engines "Concord" differed from those used in other airplanes (except NGK-144A Tu-144) the presence of the afterburner. In the afterburner mode, there was a slight increase in thrust to 10%, which was used for take-off, break the sound barrier and set a cruising speed (M = 1,7). Cruise does not require the inclusion afterburner. This favorably displayed on the fuel economy and range, "Concord."

Each engine was completed with a separate flat air intake with a horizontal adjustable wedge and a rectangular cross section. The air intake was equipped with a discharge system for the boundary layer and complex kinematics for additional flaps. During the cruising mode (M = 2,0), the air penetrating inside the air intakes was inhibited by the system of generated shock waves. Here its speed was about M = 0,45, and the pressure at this time increased by 7 times. Comparing these data, it can be argued that the total degree of pressure increase of the compressor and air intake was 80 to 1. Air intakes have hydraulic mechanization and electronic, automatic, analog control.

The engines are equipped with a reversing traction system and adjustable nozzles. The bucket-type reversing system made it possible to produce reverse traction as a percentage of 40% of the nominal. The flaps of the reversing system also act as adjustable injector secondary engine nozzles. The rear part of each of the engine packages is occupied by vertical heat-reflectors. They are equipped with endings that are deflected inwards. During takeoff, these endings "flatten" the exhaust stream of the motors, which slightly suppresses the noise level. Also, the main nozzles of each engine are equipped with a set of 8 shovel-shaped noise suppressors. They were brought into operation during the flights of densely populated regions at subsonic speed.

Adjustable engine nozzle, noise reduction and reversal are pneumatic mechanization electronically controlled.

For the sake of facilitating the take-off weight engineers "Concord" did not make heavier its auxiliary power unit. It was not necessary, because the aircraft operated on the well-prepared airfields with permanent access external electric and air supply.

Start pneumatic motors. On their land the launch took place from the ground source WSC, in-flight engine restarts by the selection of high-pressure air from the engines running.

Chassis

The chassis of the "Concord" aircraft is three-pedestal, with a nose post. Since the takeoff and landing of the car occurred at large angles of attack, the landing gear made unusually large dimensions - about 3,5 m in height. Due to this feature, the doors were placed approximately at the same height as the large-sized Boeing 747. On the main support of the chassis there were two pairs of wheels, placed one behind the other and turning inside the fuselage by turning. In the front rack there is a hydraulic reversal drive, which allows to control the device on the ground. To the chassis supports are attached composite water-reflectors, which prevent the penetration of water into the air intakes of the motors. The chassis racks are equipped with hydraulic harvesting mechanisms, with one main hydraulic system responsible for chassis cleaning, and a spare one can also be used in the release.

The plane "Concorde" is equipped with disc brakes with hydraulic from two mutually independent hydraulic systems. For the electronic brake control meets the analogue system with anti-lock function. "Concord" - the first airliner in the world, equipped with such a system.

The cooling of the brake discs in the main landing gear is provided by the fan, which are built into the wheel hubs.

To avoid mechanical damage during landing and take-off, the tail section was equipped with an additional inclined tail landing gear with two pneumatics. This rack is cleaned inside the fuselage compartment by turning back. 

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