12 hours ago, Andreas Stangenes said:

I think I read somewhere that there USED to be a sub-sonic speedlimit in game, but it has since been lifted. I'm afraid I remember where I read it, or attest to how credible the source was. I doubt any developer will develop anything supersonic if such a limitation actually exists... 

I mean there is an easy way to find out, edit an existing aircraft's performance values to break mach 1 and test it.

Edited September 7, 20205 yr by Tuskin38

14 minutes ago, MatthewS said:

Yes, I think it was FSL in FSX.... I get it, it has complex systems, I remember.

I'm talking about an "eye candy" lite version, for the 95% of the XBox and PC gamers that want eye candy at $5 and don't care about a study sim.

With respect, I guess you just don't get it.

That was the ultimate version. I guess I don’t get it, sadly.

  

41 minutes ago, Luke said:

So why are you repeating information of such dubious validity and credibility?

That FSX f-18 someone ported can go over 800Knots at 2000 feet, that's higher than Mach 1. So it is possible.

Edited September 7, 20205 yr by Tuskin38

On 9/6/2020 at 12:29 PM, tangofox said:

It's no different than wanting to fly a P-51 study level sim, or any other type of aircraft. You don't want it to fly like an RC aircraft, you want it to be as real as it gets - because that's why we sim.

Except a P-51 was designed to be flown by one person.  A Concorde was designed to be flown by three.  

Even Glass cockpits are harder to fly in this sim because of the fact that many buttons and knobs have very small activation points.  Simply entering a direct to flight plan takes WAY longer that it would in real life if you had and actual G1000 you could manipulate.  And don't get me started about the nested multifunction knobs.

There's something to be said for 2D panels that either pop up, or are "simplified" to provide all your vital functions without having to pan and scan.  While they may not be 100% accurate, they do make it easier to "fly the plane"

And for those of you who think VR is going to be the answer, VR is not granular enough yet to allow you to grab virtual knobs in the air, or flip virtual switches with the degree of accuracy necessary.

Don't get me wrong.  I love this sim.  But a lot of the difficulties we have flying these planes has less to do with dynamics and more to do with the difficulties we have just turning our heads to flick a switch or turn a knob.  Something that might take a couple seconds IRL which now takes 5 times as long after we've moved our head, mouselooked, "grabbed" a dial with our fingers (the right one) and then manipulate that dial and hit enter for the next field.  

I find it amusing that aircraft manufacturers and flight safety agencies are always looking to reduce pilot workload while simmers always look to increase it....(lol)

Concorde was far ahead of it’s time. More than 40 years later, no commercial aircraft has come close to it in terms of performance or sleek looks. It is also one of the safest aircraft ever made. Given the stresses it was subjected to, pretty amazing. After an entire operation life cycle, it has a better safety record than almost any other aircraft ever made, including the brand new Boeing 737 Max.
 

 

13 hours ago, MatthewS said:

These devs are their own worse enemies... dump FSX/P3D and just focus on MSFS.

As an FSX:SE user who cannot afford a new PC for the new sim (even if I could, I'd be waiting a few months at least to see the progress on ironing the bugs out), I might be offended at that statement.. 

8 hours ago, RaptyrOne said:

After an entire operation life cycle, it has a better safety record than almost any other aircraft ever made, including the brand new Boeing 737 Max.

Not quite a fair comparison.  The concorde had a fatal flaw that existed in it's design for it's entire life cycle.  It just took years of operation and a bit of bad luck to discover it.  But when it did show up, there was little if anything pilots could do to recover.

The issues with the 737 Max are primarily training issues.  With the new engines the CG of the plane itself had shifted.  This gave the aircraft a tendency to pitch up that earlier models did nto have.  This alone should have required pilots to retrain.  But because of the stiff competition with Airbus, Boeing wanted a plane they could claim didn't require extensive retraining.  Thus they could keep their customer base and prevent buyers from switching to Airbus.

Instead of recertification, they tried to put in a system that would correct a pilot who over rotated due to the changed flight dynamics over previous models.  It "suggested" pilot training in the 737 max but didn't require it.  .  Pilots assumed that it would be just like driving the old one.  That would be akin to me expecting that I could drive a Mustang Shelby GT 500 the same way I drive My Mustang Ecoboost convertible. Sure the instruments are in the same place, but the difference becomes evident the second I touch the accelerator.  .

Yes, relying on one single AOA sensor is not good, but well trained pilots would have recognized the problem and could have recovered.  The best trained pilots in the world (which Concorde pilots arguably were) couldn't save that bird.

Over it's 30 year lifespan, Concorde logged over 900,000 flight hours.  In it's first year alone, 737 Max had logged over 120,00 flight hours.  Boeing's problems have been magnified by a sensationalized press who negatively portrayed the plane as a flying death trap, conveniently ignoring that Airbus had similar issues with pilots crashing A300's because they were not familiar with the automated systems in play.  

The debate regarding just how much control should a computer have will rage forever.  But the Miracle on the Hudson should highlight that all the electronics in the world can't replace an experienced pilot.

 

Edited September 8, 20205 yr by wthomas33065

1 hour ago, wthomas33065 said:

Not quite a fair comparison.  The concorde had a fatal flaw that existed in it's design for it's entire life cycle.  It just took years of operation and a bit of bad luck to discover it.  But when it did show up, there was little if anything pilots could do to recover.

The issues with the 737 Max are primarily training issues.  With the new engines the CG of the plane itself had shifted.

Concorde didn't have a 'fatal flaw' which caused AF4590 to crash. That accident (allegedly) occurred as a result of some bits falling off a DC-10 (the engine nacelle's fan blade rubbing strip) which the AF Concorde subsequently hit on the runway when it was taking off. Supposedly the high speed of the wheel flicked it and some shed rubber tread up into the underside, penetrating the fuel tank and the leaking fuel trail, then the vapour ignited.

But this alone, whilst spectacular in appearance, was not the cause of the crash, there is quite a bit of evidence to suggest that was more to do with the fuel tanks being over-filled, putting the aircraft beyond its correct trim settings and making it difficult to control whilst dealing with the fire and engine shutdown. It was allegedly overfilled with fuel and bags because the passengers were flying out to meet a cruise ship and the dispatcher thought not onloading the bags would be a logistical forwarding problem. Call me picky, but whenever I've supervised the loading of an airliner in a similar circumstance, I have told that dispatcher that it was 'tough sh**' and not loaded the bags. Logistical problems are infinitely preferable to over one hundred people dead.

This was made worse by the fact that the crew expected to do a long taxi to the runway but instead they got a short route, making their MTOW and balance even worse than they expected it to be because they hadn't burned off much fuel. Either way, and whichever story you believe as to the main cause, hitting a piece which has fallen off another aeroplane and is on the runway is hardly a design flaw, unless you want to say it is a design flaw of the DC-10 which that bit fell off.

There had been previous incidents of AF Concordes shedding rubber on tire blowouts, but this was mostly as a result of AF having a tire replacement schedule which was not as strict as that at BA, including Air France using re-treaded tires on their Concordes. The only other notable incidents with Concordes was a couple of occasions where some parts of the upper rudder broke away owing to poor maintenance. In neither incident was there anything other than a thump noise and a bit of vibration, and both aeroplanes which suffered this were easily repaired.

Conversely, the 737 MAX was and is a disaster waiting to happen. It's an airframe which is well over fifty years old (it has the same cockpit profile as the Boeing 707), yet Boeing have insisted on strapping new bits onto the 737 just to stop it requiring a new type designation. This instead of making a much better new aeroplane which, if they did, the airlines would buy even if it required a new type designation and additional training, simply because it was better.

This is after all what Airbus did in 1987 when they made their A320, taking 737 customers in the process, and airlines had no problem with requiring training if it meant they were flying a better and more economical new type. Instead the MAX was all about Boeing doing things on the cheap in the least costly way that would let them retain customers. Boeing employees of old have made no secret of their disappointment with Boeing in this regard.

The thrust line of the 737 MAX's new engines is so far out of line with the centre of lift as a result of trying to fit them onto an old airframe that it's an aerodynamic nightmare, and this is on an aeroplane in its NG variant, where it already had to have CFM 56 engines shoehorned onto it which only just fitted, making it more prone to FOD damage.

Similarly, it had to have a dorsal fillet put on the classics so they wouldn't need to make the tailfin taller to improve stability of the longer variants, and this was at the insistence of Southwestern because a taller 737 tail wouldn't fit in their existing 737 hangars. You don't design shoes based on the box you have available to fit them in, but this is akin to what happened with the 737 300, 400 and 500, 600, 700, 800, 900 and even more so on the MAX.

If the 737 MAX's problems were largely training issues, it would not have been mandatorily grounded worldwide for over a year. It's a bad design, the equivalent of putting a 5.7 litre V8 Hemi Engine into a model T Ford, then wondering why it goes out of control on those thin spoked wheels.

Concorde was a victim of cheapness too, but not in design, merely in operation and it could cheerfully still be safely flying today had it not been for Air France being cheapskates.

Don't get me wrong. I like the 737, it was a classic brilliant design when first made, but it's way past its sell by date in the same way that strapping jets onto a B-17 would not make it the ideal modern day bomber. The fact that the new BOOM SST looks virtually identical to the Concorde is proof enough that the design was right first time.

Edited September 8, 20205 yr by Chock

It does look nice!!!

Well said Alan. Just to expand on part of your excellent summary. Tank no 5 exploded outwards because of the shockwave generated by the impact of the tyre fragment. That resulted in a fire warning for No 2 Engine but the engine wasn't on fire. The fire sensor picked up the heat from the burning fuel and no 2 was closed down by the co-pilot or possibly FE.

No 1 engine also had the fire alarm initiated and that was also shut down. So no power on the port side. But No 2 engine was still generating power and had it stayed running there is a good chance the aircraft could have made it to Le Bourget.

A one in a million chance of an aircraft having a strip of metal falling off it when the next departure was Concorde. Then Concorde hitting it. Had ATC insisted they used 08L instead of 26R extra fuel would have been burnt off meaning the CG was okay for take-off. And of course the strip would have been missed as Vr would have been reached before reaching that part of the runway.

So many ifs.

16 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

There was a Concorde in Microsoft Flight Sim 2000. The least said about that the better.

I remember it well. It came with two 'adventures' I think, one for BA001 and one for BA002, complete with pretty impressive ATC. I don't think I ever managed BA002 without a CTD and the whole thing was just very broken. But my goodness, flying it was so exciting. My 16 year-old self had hours of fun (and hours of frustration) with that add-on.

I'm very much part of the modern tubeliner brigade. I like to look up flights on FlightRadar 24 and recreate them in the actual aircraft that are flying them. But I'd make an exception for Concorde. Bring it on!

On the subject of the Boom Overture, if you've not see it, link below. JAL and Virgin have it on pre-order and many other airlines have expressed interest too, which you see on this video. XB-1 prototype is nearing completion and is being rolled out this year. It is due to make its maiden flight within 12 months:

https://boom-press-assets.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Series_C_Boom720.mp4

Edited September 8, 20205 yr by Chock

Interesting read. Concord the best looking passenger aircraft ever made, along with the Spitfire as a military aircraft, all else are also rans. I have seen both at EGNX and seeing Concord there take off and land was just another world of beauty and power.

The money they put into the new tiers and the passenger cabin refit was amazing and it should be flying today.

Edited September 8, 20205 yr by Nyxx

the concorde is (was?) a formodable gas guzzler, and could not contend with rising gas prices and the ever aging fleet and the fact that it had a 15mile Sonic boom footprint, due to an airframe failing to stop pressure waves of converging

Prove me wrong. 

Will gladly fly it in MSFS though. 😉

1 hour ago, Kilo60 said:

It does look nice!!!

Sure does. The only similar aircraft that I think looks better is the XB-70 Valkyrie, although military and not civilian. It was developed for a role that was outdated by the time it arrived. What a machine though. I hope we get a good XB-70 model in MSFS eventually to stash in the hangar of planes with amazing engineering that never made it into full use, along with things like the Horton Ho 229 (WW2 German flying wing).

 

11 hours ago, wthomas33065 said:

Even Glass cockpits are harder to fly in this sim because of the fact that many buttons and knobs have very small activation points.  Simply entering a direct to flight plan takes WAY longer that it would in real life if you had and actual G1000 you could manipulate.  And don't get me started about the nested multifunction knobs.

There's something to be said for 2D panels that either pop up, or are "simplified" to provide all your vital functions without having to pan and scan.  While they may not be 100% accurate, they do make it easier to "fly the plane"

I agree about glass cockpits and even analog controls being more difficult in the sim than in real life, due to manipulating pixels instead of grabbing a familiar-feeling physical control. At least for those of us without full SimPits. I have a Saitek Multipanel that at least makes using the autopilot a little easier. Although the trade-off is cognitive dissonance, because the control layout doesn't match what I see in the cockpit. 🙂

I disagree about 2D pop-ups though, because that's so easy to achieve with custom camera views of the 3D cockpit saved for each individual aircraft model. To me, it looks more realistic to swing the view to a closeup of the GPS or anything else, and then swing back to the forward cockpit view. Feels more immersive. A pop-up 2D panel superimposed on the main cockpit view feels more "computery" to me, not like anything you see in real life. Just personal preference of course, and might be a case of what you're used to in a sim.