[Tech1] Another fly-away story

[Nick Ware]

Two different versions of the fuel incident seems a bit puzzling, given that the version I related came from a reliable source. I shall check it out.
For those interested, I can’t recommend strongly enough: “The Concorde Story” by Christopher Orlebar (book). Full of information, diagrams, and fabulous pictures. I bought my copy in Foyles Ocean Bookshop onboard the QE 2 (as you do - [cid:01CF1331-CE1E-47F2-BF72-5CBE57005703] just saying!).
Cheers,
Nick.
Nick Ware - Sent from my iPad mini 5

On 8 Nov 2020, at 14:41, Puddifoot(Doug) <doug at puddifoot.me> wrote:

I know the story, and had it confirmed by a couple of BA staff on various visits when we went there for interviews. But my version is a little different. It was the same pilot as my flight. My impression was he was rather autocratic, so I can believe this. While waiting for take-off, I was asked to leave the cockpit while he castigated the loadmaster about a problem with freight distribution. I could hear the shouting from the other side of the door. I heard that Concorde had problems after take off from New York, so had to fly sub sonic most of the way. This uses more fuel, so he was ordered to stop at Shannon to refuel. I suppose that being Concorde Division chief exec, he thought he knew better and carried on to Heathrow. When they arrived, authorities were so concerned about how much fuel was left they dipped the tanks. He would not have had enough to do a fly around if there had been an emergency landing abort. As you say, never made public, but he did leave BA shortly after.

Doug



-----Original Message----- From: Nick Ware via Tech1
Sent: Sunday, November 8, 2020 11:20 AM
To: tech1 at tech-ops.co.uk
Subject: Re: [Tech1] Another fly-away story

Two interesting things in this story.......
I never got to fly on Concorde, but did work over several months on a documentary about its design and development up to the time of 002’s maiden flight. On that flight, the whole fuselage was so full of computer equipment that there was no room for us and our 35mm camera gear, so we flew alongside in a DC10.
Moving all the passengers forward was probably because weight distribution was crucial in Concorde in order to stop it going into an uncontrollable climb as it burnt off fuel. An elderly local Churchwarden friend of mine led the team who developed an automated system whereby fuel was constantly moved around the aircraft during flight to trim balance, etc. This was the secret that the Russians never got hold of and why Concordski crashed in rather spectacular fashion.
And..... I’m wondering if you might have unwittingly been on the flight back to Heathrow that had to declare a fuel emergency, and ran out of fuel as it touched down. It had been refuelled in New York in US gallons which are smaller than UK gallons. A story that was never to my knowledge made public at the time. No fuel = no hydraulics!
Cheers,
Nick.

Nick Ware - Sent from my iPad mini 5



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