26 minutes ago, HighBypass said:

At least one comment on that article said the visual model looked terrible - like freeware, to which a certain Mr. Proudfoot mentioned that the more important thing is how it flies. 😎  If the eye candy takes a hit in favour of systems modelling then that's the right way to go for such a complex bird. To be fair it doesn't look half bad to me - perhaps get rid of Captain BA and put a couple more polygons into the wheel design.. 😜

I thought the model looked great. Not sure why that person thought it wasn’t. In fairness all the Concorde models I’ve seen look great. That presumably is the relatively easy bit. It’s the system modelling that needs the expertise plus access to real-world pilots for an accurate flight model.

That’s where FSL possibly have the advantage as 3 generations of Concorde have been created by Andrew Wilson - their lead programmer on Concorde. Hopefully they are planning a fourth.

2 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

plus access to real-world pilots for an accurate flight model.

This is the bit that is getting more difficult as time goes on, and even the ones that are around don't always remember details. 

15 minutes ago, trumpetfrazz1 said:

This is the bit that is getting more difficult as time goes on, and even the ones that are around don't always remember details. 

How old is Les Brodie? He was first officer on the 1996 ITVV DVD and looked pretty young. 24 years on he will be around early 60s I would have thought. Just remembering could be the issue as you say. Hopefully it would like riding a bike. You never forget!

25 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

How old is Les Brodie? He was first officer on the 1996 ITVV DVD and looked pretty young. 24 years on he will be around early 60s I would have thought. Just remembering could be the issue as you say. Hopefully it would like riding a bike. You never forget!

He'll be into his 70's now I think but don't quote me on that.  If not he'll be close because he retired with the last flight of 'AF in 2003 as Concorde Flight Training Manager, so second on fleet only to Mr Bannister.   Other captains that were within a year of retirement weren't given early retirement and had to convert to other types, however with him being management he was maybe able to go a little early, but not much.  Those that went onto other types had to learn new sets of numbers and work with different feel, so a combination of time and age isn't doing good to this aspect. 

I also suspect there is an element of forgetting for the sake of self-preservation - people handle things in different ways, and some former crew love talking about it and others faded into the back ground.  I once asked an SEO who had been retired for many years at the time if he missed working on the aircraft, and his answer was "oh I left a long time ago" and after a long pause he said "don't really want to go there."  It was still too delicate for him to talk about.  Incidentally, he was one of the most experienced having been on the fleet from the very early days for around 20 years. 

Also, some (understandably) haven't got experience of the simulation world and probably don't really want to go there either - they flew the real thing so why downgrade! 

So, it isn't just a case a phoning them up and saying "oy, come help us model a Concorde". 

Really, the bit where a former pilot would be useful is in beta testing, where they could find the technical bugs or whether it "felt" like the real thing or not.  In many ways it would be better to have an SEO for the technical stuff and really all the data is in print somewhere and in my experience, print is more reliable. 

To finish off this rather long post that wasn't meant to be...I watched an interview with a captain who said "I haven't flown Concorde in 25 years now, but I still dream about it," I think that sums up a lot.....

Frazz, Given Andrew supplied the software for the Brooklands Concorde simulator and the packages available include lunch with former Concorde pilots I’m sure there are some who would be willing to help. That place should be a goldmine of knowledge.

I think you’ve been on those tours haven’t you? I’m shocked Les Brodie is that old. Crikey! The years pass so quickly. 

1 hour ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Frazz, Given Andrew supplied the software for the Brooklands Concorde simulator and the packages available include lunch with former Concorde pilots I’m sure there are some who would be willing to help. That place should be a goldmine of knowledge.

I think you’ve been on those tours haven’t you? I’m shocked Les Brodie is that old. Crikey! The years pass so quickly. 

Yes, every few years I go down and book the sim for an hour and have fun with some of the great bunch that operate it.  A combination of lack of available slots followed by the current situation has meant I won't get down this year.  If I lived closer I would be there an awful lot more just to be around the guys as they are all very senior and experienced people the like of which we won't see again.  I've already said the reasons it is becoming harder and I mentioned that really most of the data required is in document form. 

What kind of help would you envisage them giving exactly?

I had regular contact with a former SEO until he sadly became ill and passed away, and I learnt a lot from him but most of it not necessary or applicable to a simulator product.   

3 hours ago, trumpetfrazz1 said:

What kind of help would you envisage them giving exactly?

Anything they consider relevant that would make the final product as accurate as possible.

18 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Anything they consider relevant that would make the final product as accurate as possible.

Accuracy is the first thing that suffers with time, hence the rules of recency.  

10 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Indeed it should. I’ll merge it with the existing DC Design Concorde topic. That’s assuming I can work out how! 😁

Ray, I’d suggest leaving topics like this where they’re posted. It was specifically about the concorde in p3d, as per the title.

If you look at the P3D forum right now, we’re actively discussing about five other aircraft that are also all available in FSX. It makes no sense to randomly move discussion of one particular type to hangar chat!

I mention this as I’ve seen a number of threads getting moved lately from the P3D forum that don’t really need to be, and this has been a well-discussed quirk of Avsim in the past that seemed to have been a bit better lately.

My respectful suggestion is that If a post is even somewhat relevant to P3D and was posted in that forum, that’s where it belongs, as it allows disussion of the topic by that community (and people who only use that forum will see it). If it has zero relevance to P3D then sure, move it here if necessary, but i’d suggest having a high threshold for doing so.

Cheers!

4 minutes ago, OzWhitey said:

Ray, I’d suggest leaving topics like this where they’re posted. It was specifically about the concorde in p3d, as per the title.

If you look at the P3D forum right now, we’re actively discussing about five other aircraft that are also all available in FSX. It makes no sense to randomly move discussion of one particular type to hangar chat!

I mention this as I’ve seen a number of threads getting moved lately from the P3D forum that don’t really need to be, and this has been a well-discussed quirk of Avsim in the past that seemed to have been a bit better lately.

My respectful suggestion is that If a post is even somewhat relevant to P3D and was posted in that forum, that’s where it belongs, as it allows disussion of the topic by that community (and people who only use that forum will see it). If it has zero relevance to P3D then sure, move it here if necessary, but i’d suggest having a high threshold for doing so.

Cheers!

Rob, As DC Design stated their Concorde is for all platforms including FSX, Steam, P3D and MFS it made sense to move it to Hangar as the aircraft can then be discussed irrespective of the user’s chosen sim.

Suppose a FSX user started a similar thread in the FSX forum and another in the MFS forum. The same things might get discussed there. It made more sense to me to have all Concorde discussion in one place.

We mods are only human and do what we think is best.

@OzWhitey, Rob, if you want to create a Concorde for P3D topic in the P3D forum I’m sure that would be fine. Just put something at the start asking for it not to be moved.

1 hour ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

@OzWhitey, Rob, if you want to create a Concorde for P3D topic in the P3D forum I’m sure that would be fine. Just put something at the start asking for it not to be moved.

Just my quick thoughts, not a big drama. Keep up the good work, Ray. 😊

Edited May 20, 20206 yr by OzWhitey

Does anyone know who is currently the youngest former BA Concorde pilot?  Mike Bannister was the youngest pilot to have started flying this airplane in the late 70s, but I wonder if there is a young first officer who may have started flying before Concorde's retirement...

I have once been to the Brooklands museum to have lunch and fly in the simulator with Ian Smith, and to my knowledge, the simulator still uses FS2004 to this day, which is quite outdated. I hope that the simulator will be updated at some point in the future to the newest version.

2 hours ago, Afterburner said:

Does anyone know who is currently the youngest former BA Concorde pilot?  Mike Bannister was the youngest pilot to have started flying this airplane in the late 70s, but I wonder if there is a young first officer who may have started flying before Concorde's retirement...

I have once been to the Brooklands museum to have lunch and fly in the simulator with Ian Smith, and to my knowledge, the simulator still uses FS2004 to this day, which is quite outdated. I hope that the simulator will be updated at some point in the future to the newest version.

That's a difficult one to work out...mainly because being rank of first officer doesn't mean you are young!  There are a lot of claims to youngest/longest/brightest/most senior now and without official records it is difficult to say.  I believe that Jock Lowe was actually the longest serving Concorde pilot because he was one of the very few (in fact may have been the only one) who got his command on the fleet, transitioning from SFO to Captain, having been made Chief pilot 747/Concorde.  I have seen in print that Bannister was longest serving, however if you take the fact that Lowe was on the initial group of pilots at the very start and didn't change fleets to gain command, retiring around 2001, it adds up that he was longest serving.  Bannister left the fleet for several years to gain command and returned as a management captain. 

With all these claims it is difficult to tell.  I think the last Concorde course to complete would have been in 1999 with the likes of John Tye as first officer and he is now a 777 training captain and is involved with Brooklands.  There were others I could name who I think are still flying but I'm not sure what you want to know from your question...?

The reason I say the last course to complete is because there was a course running in 2000 when the grounding happened - I think they had completed ground school and most of the sim training before the course was discontinued and they had to return to their original fleets.  All that work and they never got to fly it - I think this is correct but I was told a long time ago!

Ian Smith former SFO or Ian F Smith former SEO?  Both great guys who I've also flown the sim with.

Edited May 21, 20206 yr by trumpetfrazz1

Beatrice Vialle perhaps? She's 58..