FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1976
1976 - 0089.PDF
CONCORDE NOW ARRIVING F-104, with its small 3*2 per cent wing, together with the outstand ing straight-winged North Ameri can X-15, which in 1967 exceeded 4,500 m.p.h. (7,000 km/far), left the aerodynamicists far from sure of the way ahead. In 1956 the British set up a Supersonic Transport Aircraft Com mittee to narrow the choice. No body in Europe was under-rating the American challenge. Fighters like the F-100 and F-104 were in service and there were reports of projects for a titanium Mach 3 bomber and a similarly fast US fighter—both deltas. These were to materialise into the North American XB-70 and the Lockheed A-ll (YF-12A) interceptor and its reconnaissance version, the SR-71 Blackbird. The A-ll was flying in 1961— just when the British and French were coming together on Con corde. Cool technical judgment was needed to decide, under the pressure of such impressive trans atlantic sonic banging, to go for the conservative "knowns"—alu minium structure and Mach 2 speed—in a supersonic transport. The Anglo-French decision was certainly based on plenty of data. The French in the mid-fifties put all their military bets on the judg ment that the delta was the right supersonic formula. A curious mis carriage of British technical policy was the failure to follow through the success of the FD.2, which was almost a prototype Mirage. The French went on to sell 1,500 Mirage Ills, and all that wealth of experience has gone into Concorde. ft 11 There was more behind Con corde still, in the shape of the RAF's great Hawker Siddeley (Avro) Vulcan delta bomber. Though it was not supersonic in level flight, its bequests to Con corde were low-speed, high inertia control and stability, and engine testing. The Vulcan proved to be an ideal subsonic flying test bed for the engine chosen for the Con corde, the Rolls-Royce Bristol/ Snecma Olympus 593. This engine was airborne many hours before Concorde flew and would have had supersonic air time behind it but for the decision not only to cancel TSR.2 production but to ground the test aircraft. Nevertheless, just as Concorde aerodynamics can be traced back through various air frames, so can its propulsion. Turbojets bearing the name Olym pus, all related to the engines of Concorde, were flying in British V- bombers in the early fifties. Many and varied have been the machines and engines which have winged supersonic man through and beyond the speed of sound, mainly for military ends. All those supersonic years may be said to have endowed, directly or in directly, the technical success of the Concorde civil supersonic air liner. The first supersonic fare- paying passenger service is the climax, even the redemption, of all this work. J.M.R.
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
