WEBVTT - TechStuff Flies on the Concorde 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:07.160 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:14.600 stuff Works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:14.640 --> 0:00:18.560 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with 0:00:18.640 --> 0:00:21.680 how Stuff Works in I heart radio and I love 0:00:22.040 --> 0:00:27.280 all things tech and guys. I travel a decent amount, 0:00:27.720 --> 0:00:31.360 but I do not hold any special frequent flyer status 0:00:31.400 --> 0:00:36.320 with any airline. I have had the amazingly good fortune 0:00:36.360 --> 0:00:39.159 to sit up in business class a dozen times or so, 0:00:39.560 --> 0:00:44.000 even on international flights, which is amazing. But I've never 0:00:44.680 --> 0:00:49.680 ever flown on one of the most prestigious aircraft to 0:00:50.400 --> 0:00:53.479 have graced the skies. I never had the chance to 0:00:53.600 --> 0:01:00.400 do it on the Concorde. The Concorde took its first 0:01:00.440 --> 0:01:04.560 flight way back in nineteen sixty nine. It was a 0:01:04.600 --> 0:01:08.400 test flight. It would be several more years before it 0:01:08.440 --> 0:01:11.000 would go into passenger service. It would even be a 0:01:11.040 --> 0:01:14.319 few years before we make its first transatlantic flight. But 0:01:15.200 --> 0:01:18.920 if we take the date of its first flight as 0:01:18.959 --> 0:01:22.000 the Concord's birthday, which I would argue is a pretty 0:01:22.120 --> 0:01:27.160 arbitrary thing, but go with me. The famous aircraft celebrated 0:01:27.319 --> 0:01:31.280 turning fifty on March second, two thousand nineteen. Because March 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:34.240 second nineteen sixty nine is when it first took flight, 0:01:35.040 --> 0:01:37.600 But then the aircraft has also been out of service 0:01:37.760 --> 0:01:42.119 for more than a decade. So in this episode, we're 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:46.240 going to learn about the Concorde aircraft, what made it special, 0:01:46.560 --> 0:01:50.000 how it worked, and why they aren't zipping all over 0:01:50.040 --> 0:01:54.600 the place today. Now you all know I am physically 0:01:54.880 --> 0:01:59.840 incapable of doing an episode without a history lesson being involved, 0:02:00.360 --> 0:02:04.320 and this episode is no different. So to understand the 0:02:04.400 --> 0:02:08.200 story around the Concorde, we actually have to go back 0:02:08.480 --> 0:02:12.239 two decades before the Concorde ever took to the skies, 0:02:12.639 --> 0:02:17.800 to a very special day. That day would be October nineteen. 0:02:19.360 --> 0:02:23.680 That's when Captain Charles E. Chuck Yeager took controls of 0:02:23.720 --> 0:02:28.560 an experimental aircraft, the Bell X one, a B twenty 0:02:28.639 --> 0:02:33.240 nine bomber carried the X one up to twenty thousand 0:02:33.280 --> 0:02:38.000 feet of altitude before releasing the jet from the bombay doors, 0:02:38.600 --> 0:02:43.440 and that is when Yeager made history. Now, Yeager he 0:02:43.680 --> 0:02:47.200 wasn't in tip top shape because he had been in 0:02:47.280 --> 0:02:51.480 a horseback riding accident and he neglected to tell anyone 0:02:51.520 --> 0:02:54.200 about it because he didn't want to get taken off 0:02:54.240 --> 0:02:57.800 the test flight. He probably suffered a tiny bit of 0:02:57.840 --> 0:03:02.040 discomfort during this flight because two of his ribs were broken. 0:03:02.520 --> 0:03:06.400 So imagine not only being the first pilot to try 0:03:06.520 --> 0:03:11.079 and control a rocket powered aircraft capable of going at 0:03:11.280 --> 0:03:16.320 unprecedented speeds, but also doing so with your torso screaming 0:03:16.400 --> 0:03:20.240 at you in pain. The X one's engine was a 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:25.640 Reaction Motors x l R eleven rocket engine. Before long, 0:03:25.960 --> 0:03:30.679 Yeager was passing mock zero point eight five that represented 0:03:30.840 --> 0:03:35.160 the fastest speeds that engineers could simulate in wind tunnels. 0:03:35.200 --> 0:03:38.600 At that time. It was the literal truth that no 0:03:38.640 --> 0:03:42.880 one was really sure what might happen next. Mock speed, 0:03:42.920 --> 0:03:46.000 by the way, refers to the ratio of the speed 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:49.080 of a body like a jet, to the speed of 0:03:49.240 --> 0:03:53.400 sound in the undisturbed medium through which the body is traveling. 0:03:53.520 --> 0:03:56.600 So if a body a jet is going at the 0:03:56.640 --> 0:04:00.400 same speed that sound travels through that medium, this being 0:04:00.440 --> 0:04:03.560 the air, you would say it was traveling at mock one, 0:04:03.720 --> 0:04:06.040 it's traveling at the same speed as the speed of 0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:10.360 sound through that medium. Any number greater than one indicates 0:04:10.600 --> 0:04:14.880 that the body the jet is traveling faster than sound 0:04:14.920 --> 0:04:19.400 through that particular medium. So Yeager pushed the X one 0:04:19.720 --> 0:04:24.680 past Mock one, reaching Mock one point zero six at 0:04:24.760 --> 0:04:28.640 forty three thousand feet of altitude. As his top speed 0:04:29.200 --> 0:04:33.080 and interesting stuff was starting to happen, shock waves formed 0:04:33.160 --> 0:04:36.799 over the top surface of his wings and just ahead 0:04:36.920 --> 0:04:39.840 of the nose of the jet. The shock wave is 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:43.240 an important component of this story because it relates to 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:46.400 sonic booms, something the Concorde would have to deal with 0:04:46.680 --> 0:04:49.400 decades later, and it means we have to talk a 0:04:49.440 --> 0:04:53.800 bit more about sound. So sound propagates through the air 0:04:54.240 --> 0:04:59.200 as changes in air pressure, fluctuations in air pressure rapid fluctuations. 0:04:59.800 --> 0:05:03.000 As the Mock one description tells us, sound travels at 0:05:03.000 --> 0:05:06.680 a fixed speed depending upon the medium it's traveling through. 0:05:06.880 --> 0:05:10.720 So sound travels at different speeds through different types of media. 0:05:11.080 --> 0:05:14.200 Sound traveling through water will move at a different rate 0:05:14.320 --> 0:05:17.799 than sound traveling through air, but within a single medium 0:05:18.000 --> 0:05:22.520 under similar conditions, it will always travel at a fixed speed. Now, 0:05:22.800 --> 0:05:26.120 this means a body moving through a medium can actually 0:05:26.200 --> 0:05:29.719 catch up to the sound waves it is producing as 0:05:29.720 --> 0:05:33.279 it moves. So let's say you are running down the 0:05:33.360 --> 0:05:36.920 road at an incredible speed and you're singing a song 0:05:37.040 --> 0:05:39.480 at the top of your lungs, and let's say for 0:05:39.520 --> 0:05:42.320 the purposes of this example, the song is bird House 0:05:42.320 --> 0:05:44.800 in your Soul, by they might be giants. The faster 0:05:44.960 --> 0:05:47.920 you run, the more you catch up to the sound 0:05:47.920 --> 0:05:51.520 waves of your singing. And if you run fast enough, 0:05:52.080 --> 0:05:55.320 like at around seven hundred seventy miles per hour at 0:05:55.360 --> 0:05:59.560 sea level under normal atmospheric conditions, you are moving at 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:03.080 the same speed as those sound waves. They're just building 0:06:03.160 --> 0:06:06.120 up right in front of you, and you're keeping speed 0:06:06.160 --> 0:06:09.320 with them. A person ahead of you wouldn't hear you 0:06:09.400 --> 0:06:12.040 singing until you were right next to them, and then 0:06:12.040 --> 0:06:14.320 the sound waves would hit them. Even if they saw 0:06:14.360 --> 0:06:17.279 you running toward them from really far away, they wouldn't 0:06:17.279 --> 0:06:19.400 hear you till you were right there. The sound can't 0:06:19.520 --> 0:06:23.839 travel faster than seven seventy miles per hour. So there 0:06:23.880 --> 0:06:27.040 you are, You're Berry Allen, and you're singing your heart 0:06:27.040 --> 0:06:29.640 out while you're running as fast as you can. But 0:06:29.680 --> 0:06:31.839 then you realize, oh, I think I could actually run 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:34.960 a little faster. Heck with it, I'm I'm gonna really 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:37.719 turn up the speed, So you pour it on, you 0:06:37.920 --> 0:06:43.239 crank it up beyond mock one. Now you're actually out 0:06:43.480 --> 0:06:47.239 running the sound waves that you are making the song 0:06:47.360 --> 0:06:51.480 you're singing is literally trailing behind you, and as you 0:06:51.560 --> 0:06:55.560 break through those sound waves, you're actually breaking the sound 0:06:55.560 --> 0:07:00.680 barrier itself. You're breaking through a pressure wall of air pressure. 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:05.000 And since sound through the air is all about air pressure, 0:07:05.720 --> 0:07:10.240 a really interesting thing happens. There's a pressure collapse, Air 0:07:10.360 --> 0:07:13.200 rushes in to fill a sudden low pressure, and there 0:07:13.320 --> 0:07:17.120 is a sonic boom. It's essentially the sound of an 0:07:17.160 --> 0:07:22.440 explosion allowed cracking noise. So you're running and you're singing, 0:07:22.680 --> 0:07:25.320 you are the flash. People standing on the road up 0:07:25.360 --> 0:07:27.840 ahead of you can see you there, see that you're 0:07:27.960 --> 0:07:31.080 zooming towards them at an incredible speed, but they don't 0:07:31.120 --> 0:07:34.160 hear you, and they don't even hear you when you're 0:07:34.240 --> 0:07:37.280 right next to them. If you could take a snapshot 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:40.280 of the instant you run right next to these people, 0:07:40.520 --> 0:07:43.720 they wouldn't have heard anything yet. It's only after you 0:07:43.840 --> 0:07:46.840 have passed, when the sound waves you've emitted catch up 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:50.440 and that pressure disturbance wave hits the bystanders that they 0:07:50.480 --> 0:07:54.560 experience the boom. And at that distance it is probably 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:57.800 a really bad thing to experience. It would probably mess 0:07:57.840 --> 0:08:01.200 up your internal organs. To be honest, it's not that 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:05.440 pleasant when a supersonic aircraft passes thousands of feet overhead, 0:08:05.800 --> 0:08:08.880 If it's low enough, it could possibly even cause a 0:08:08.920 --> 0:08:13.160 disturbance strong enough to break windows. And that's another important 0:08:13.160 --> 0:08:17.920 thing to remember. The sonic boom actually travels with the object, 0:08:17.920 --> 0:08:21.760 it doesn't just happen when the object breaks the sound barrier. 0:08:22.000 --> 0:08:26.320 Those disturbance waves trail behind the aircraft, creating a sonic 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:30.200 boom that follows along with the jet. So if a 0:08:30.240 --> 0:08:34.880 supersonic aircraft travels directly over a populated area and maintains 0:08:34.920 --> 0:08:37.920 that high speed, people in one town will hear the 0:08:37.960 --> 0:08:43.000 boom shortly after the aircraft passes overhead. People three towns 0:08:43.120 --> 0:08:46.199 over will hear a boom as the aircraft passes them, 0:08:46.240 --> 0:08:50.240 So it's a traveling boom. More importantly, for this story, 0:08:50.720 --> 0:08:53.560 Yeager made it back to the ground safely and was 0:08:53.679 --> 0:08:56.000 no worse coming out of the experience than he was 0:08:56.080 --> 0:08:59.880 going into it, though I imagine it did aggravate his 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:05.400 broken ribs. And Yeager's flight opened up interesting possibilities. Traveling 0:09:05.400 --> 0:09:08.319 at such high speeds could allow for much shorter flights 0:09:08.440 --> 0:09:12.679 across great distances. I'll explain why that was important in 0:09:12.720 --> 0:09:15.600 just a second, but first, let's take a quick break. 0:09:23.240 --> 0:09:27.040 So traveling at high speeds allows for shorter flights across 0:09:27.120 --> 0:09:30.320 great distances. The only problem was companies would have to 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:33.800 figure out how to design and build a passenger aircraft 0:09:33.960 --> 0:09:37.960 capable of supersonic flight to take advantage of it. Numerous 0:09:38.000 --> 0:09:41.840 airlines and aviation companies began to consider the possibilities, and 0:09:42.200 --> 0:09:44.720 some of them started to spit ball some design ideas. 0:09:45.160 --> 0:09:49.520 It would take a while because this was super early days. 0:09:49.640 --> 0:09:52.320 Most of the early supersonic jets were really just men 0:09:52.360 --> 0:09:55.800 as research vehicles. A few were military vehicles, and none 0:09:55.840 --> 0:09:58.640 of them could travel at those high speeds for very long, 0:09:59.000 --> 0:10:01.880 nor could they really you the typical types of maneuvers 0:10:01.880 --> 0:10:04.880 that a passenger jet would have to do routinely. So 0:10:04.920 --> 0:10:09.920 what was needed was a commercial supersonic transport aircraft, or 0:10:10.200 --> 0:10:14.000 an S s T as they were known. On November 0:10:14.040 --> 0:10:17.320 twenty nine, nineteen sixty two, the governments of Britain and 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:20.559 France came together to propose a joint effort to develop 0:10:20.720 --> 0:10:25.080 such a passenger aircraft. It was a Concord Agreement, which 0:10:25.120 --> 0:10:27.760 is where the name for the aircraft came from. The 0:10:27.840 --> 0:10:31.200 treaty the two governments signed meant that both countries would 0:10:31.240 --> 0:10:34.840 share the costs and the risks of such an endeavor, 0:10:35.240 --> 0:10:38.240 and they weren't the only countries interested in developing an 0:10:38.400 --> 0:10:41.880 s s T. Both the then Soviet Union and the 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:46.559 United States were exploring the possibility as well. Boeing even 0:10:46.640 --> 0:10:50.240 received a contract in the United States to build a prototype, 0:10:50.559 --> 0:10:54.120 but that program ended in nineteen seventy one after a 0:10:54.200 --> 0:10:58.599 federal analysis concluded that the program would be too expensive 0:10:58.920 --> 0:11:02.120 with two uncertain to payoff to justify funding it, so 0:11:02.720 --> 0:11:05.600 that was put on the shelf. The Soviets actually saw 0:11:05.679 --> 0:11:09.400 their program through to completion. They built an s ST 0:11:09.840 --> 0:11:14.520 called the Tupa Love or the TU one four. It 0:11:14.640 --> 0:11:21.000 got the nickname the Concorde SKI, somewhat uh narrow minded 0:11:22.040 --> 0:11:26.040 nickname for a supersonic passenger jet, but I find it 0:11:26.080 --> 0:11:30.680 particularly amusing because the TU one four had its first 0:11:30.720 --> 0:11:34.000 flight a couple of months before the Concorde would in 0:11:34.080 --> 0:11:39.520 nineteen sixty nine, and they even had their first supersonic 0:11:39.559 --> 0:11:43.800 flight before the Concorde did. However, the Concorde would beat 0:11:43.880 --> 0:11:47.000 the t U one when it came to entering into 0:11:47.040 --> 0:11:51.440 commercial service to actually carrying passengers, and the Soviets would 0:11:51.520 --> 0:11:54.480 end up shutting their passenger program down after less than 0:11:54.520 --> 0:11:57.839 a year of being in service. But more on that later. 0:11:58.240 --> 0:12:02.480 Let's get back to Concorde. The French and British governments 0:12:02.480 --> 0:12:07.239 contracted various companies to develop the components for the aircraft. 0:12:07.520 --> 0:12:10.280 One of the two companies responsible for developing the body 0:12:10.400 --> 0:12:14.280 of the aircraft was the British Aircraft Corporation or b 0:12:14.520 --> 0:12:19.160 a C. That was a pretty complicated story in itself. 0:12:19.200 --> 0:12:22.440 That company was the result of the merger of several 0:12:22.520 --> 0:12:26.760 other British aviation companies, and it could merit its own podcast. 0:12:27.520 --> 0:12:30.400 B a C itself would later end up merging with 0:12:30.520 --> 0:12:34.280 other aviation companies, and these days we know it as 0:12:34.400 --> 0:12:39.040 British Aerospace. The other company responsible for developing the aircraft 0:12:39.080 --> 0:12:44.720 body was France's Aerospecial, which I'm sure I'm butchering. There's 0:12:44.720 --> 0:12:46.920 going to be a lot of butchering of French names 0:12:46.920 --> 0:12:50.600 in this episode. I make apologies for it, but I 0:12:50.880 --> 0:12:55.720 am an ignorant American type anyway. Aerospace cl was a 0:12:55.800 --> 0:13:00.280 state owned aerospace manufacturer, and it also has a any 0:13:00.280 --> 0:13:04.920 complicated history. The state owned companies are a very different 0:13:04.960 --> 0:13:07.520 thing from the types of companies we tend to think about. 0:13:07.600 --> 0:13:11.760 In the United States, Aerospacel would have its own complicated 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:15.760 corporate journey, and most of what was Aerospacel is now 0:13:15.840 --> 0:13:21.320 part of the company. Airbus engine design fell to France's 0:13:23.400 --> 0:13:28.280 I really apologize for this Society Nacionale dettude at the 0:13:28.360 --> 0:13:36.840 construction de Motirosa or SNECKMA s n e c M A. 0:13:37.040 --> 0:13:39.880 SNECKMA is way more fun for me to say. And 0:13:39.960 --> 0:13:44.240 it also fell to a British company, Rolls Royce. Yep, 0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:47.599 Rolls Royce wasn't just a super duper fancy car manufacturer. 0:13:47.640 --> 0:13:52.160 They make jet engines too, if you weren't familiar with that. Now, 0:13:52.160 --> 0:13:54.640 I'll talk about the physical design of the aircraft first. 0:13:54.640 --> 0:13:57.400 I'll get to the engines later. Remember when I said 0:13:57.440 --> 0:14:01.199 an object moving about as fast as sound owned uh 0:14:01.520 --> 0:14:04.280 would be catching up to the sound waves that it's 0:14:04.280 --> 0:14:08.040 actually producing. And that the object moves faster than sound, 0:14:08.120 --> 0:14:11.360 it's breaking through the sound barrier. And that sound moving 0:14:11.440 --> 0:14:13.880 through the air is really all about fluctuations and air pressure. 0:14:14.480 --> 0:14:16.280 That means you have to design an aircraft that can 0:14:16.320 --> 0:14:19.600 punch through a wall of air pressure to break through 0:14:19.760 --> 0:14:24.080 that barrier. For that reason, the Concord's physical design featured 0:14:24.120 --> 0:14:27.440 a body shaped sort of like a needle. A Concorde 0:14:27.520 --> 0:14:31.920 jets fuselage measured nine and a half feet wide or 0:14:31.960 --> 0:14:35.920 two point seven meters. A seven forty seven, by comparison, 0:14:36.200 --> 0:14:39.240 would have measured a twenty feet or six point one 0:14:39.360 --> 0:14:42.520 meters wide, But the Concord's length of two d two 0:14:42.520 --> 0:14:46.840 feet or sixty one point seven ms was nearly as 0:14:46.920 --> 0:14:50.040 long as a seven forty seven, so it's much more 0:14:50.120 --> 0:14:54.000 narrow but almost as long as this other aircraft. The 0:14:54.080 --> 0:14:58.080 Concorde could hold a total of one passengers, with two 0:14:58.080 --> 0:15:00.800 seats on either side of a sin troll aisle, so 0:15:01.360 --> 0:15:04.960 you have rows of four, two and two and twenty 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:07.600 five of them. You would never have a middle seat, 0:15:07.600 --> 0:15:09.960 which is pretty awesome. You would only ever have a 0:15:10.000 --> 0:15:13.440 window seat or an aisle seat. The typical flight crew 0:15:13.520 --> 0:15:17.400 on a Concorde flight included a pilot, a co pilot, 0:15:17.600 --> 0:15:21.520 a flight engineer, and six cabin crew members, so a 0:15:21.560 --> 0:15:25.400 full Concord jet with a typical crew would have on 0:15:25.920 --> 0:15:29.040 six people on board. Some flights actually had more crew 0:15:29.080 --> 0:15:32.560 members on it than the typical six, so that wasn't 0:15:32.600 --> 0:15:37.640 always the case. Also, the experience aboard of Concorde was 0:15:38.160 --> 0:15:42.800 pretty darn posh. We're talking caviar and champagne. I'm guessing 0:15:42.840 --> 0:15:46.000 that's where Robin Leach had all those dreams. And if 0:15:46.040 --> 0:15:48.680 you don't know who I'm talking about, you need to 0:15:48.680 --> 0:15:51.080 go over to YouTube and search for lifestyles of the 0:15:51.160 --> 0:15:55.400 rich and famous. Anyway, back to the physical design of 0:15:55.440 --> 0:15:59.000 this aircraft, the nose of the Concorde was really interesting. 0:15:59.040 --> 0:16:02.400 It was actually move a bullet, wasn't fixed or bolted 0:16:02.400 --> 0:16:04.520 into place in the way that you would think of 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:07.040 a normal aircraft. There was a reason for this. It 0:16:07.080 --> 0:16:10.760 was to give pilots more visibility on the ground. Whenever 0:16:10.800 --> 0:16:13.400 they were regg getting raid for takeoff or when they 0:16:13.400 --> 0:16:16.400 were approaching for landing, the nose could actually be tilted 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:20.560 down thirteen degrees and that would provide the pilot's more visibility. Otherwise, 0:16:20.560 --> 0:16:22.920 the nose was up so high that they couldn't really 0:16:22.920 --> 0:16:24.800 see what was kind of in front of them on 0:16:24.840 --> 0:16:28.160 the ground. Once the air pilots could engage the controls 0:16:28.280 --> 0:16:31.480 and the nose would tilt up to its in flight position. 0:16:32.000 --> 0:16:35.440 In addition, the Concorde had a delta wing design. The 0:16:35.480 --> 0:16:39.400 wing swept back into a triangular shape and joined to 0:16:39.440 --> 0:16:42.000 the fuselage of the aircraft all down the length of 0:16:42.000 --> 0:16:43.920 the wing, as opposed to say, the wings of a 0:16:44.000 --> 0:16:47.680 jet like the seven seven, which has rectangular wings that 0:16:47.800 --> 0:16:50.280 stretch out from the sides of the fuselage. It doesn't 0:16:50.880 --> 0:16:53.120 go all the way back the body of the plane. 0:16:53.720 --> 0:16:56.240 It's called a delta wing because the shape resembles the 0:16:56.320 --> 0:16:59.880 Greek upper case letter delta, which is a triangle. The 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:02.960 design allows for a really strong wing that can stand 0:17:03.000 --> 0:17:06.480 up to the rigors of high speed, subsonic and supersonic flight. 0:17:06.800 --> 0:17:09.840 It's a design used in lots of military jets, and 0:17:09.920 --> 0:17:12.520 the Space Shuttle program in the United States used a 0:17:12.560 --> 0:17:16.199 delta wing design as a basis for their orbiter. The 0:17:16.280 --> 0:17:20.359 design reduces drag at supersonic speeds while still allowing for 0:17:20.480 --> 0:17:24.920 sufficient lift for takeoff and landing at subsonic speeds, and 0:17:25.000 --> 0:17:28.840 it also provides stability. It eliminates the necessity for horizontal 0:17:28.840 --> 0:17:32.760 stabilizers on the aircraft's tail. That design also meant the 0:17:32.800 --> 0:17:37.159 Concorde had a steeper angle of attack for takeoffs and landings, 0:17:37.200 --> 0:17:39.360 so I imagined flying on one of these was a 0:17:39.400 --> 0:17:41.800 bit of a thrilling experience. If you've ever had to 0:17:41.840 --> 0:17:44.840 fly in or out of an airport that had specific 0:17:44.920 --> 0:17:48.600 ordinances that required a steeper than normal flight path. You 0:17:48.680 --> 0:17:50.960 might have a hint of what it was like to 0:17:51.240 --> 0:17:53.840 be on a concord. Now, I'm going to talk about 0:17:53.840 --> 0:17:56.199 the engines in just a second, but I figured it 0:17:56.200 --> 0:17:58.040 would be a good time to give you an idea 0:17:58.119 --> 0:18:01.640 of what takeoff was like on a concorde. The jet 0:18:01.680 --> 0:18:06.280 would accelerate from zero to two hundred twenty five miles 0:18:06.280 --> 0:18:09.600 per hour or three hundred sixty two kilometers per hour 0:18:09.800 --> 0:18:14.679 in just three seconds, so that acceleration would push you 0:18:14.760 --> 0:18:17.560 back into your seat all by itself, never mind the 0:18:17.600 --> 0:18:20.200 fact that you would soon be climbing at a steeper 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:24.240 than normal angle. Another thing engineers had to take into 0:18:24.280 --> 0:18:28.280 consideration was the wear and tear that air pressure, friction, 0:18:28.400 --> 0:18:32.440 and heat would have on the concorde. Traveling at supersonic 0:18:32.480 --> 0:18:36.080 speeds meant that the aircraft body would heat up considerably 0:18:36.240 --> 0:18:40.840 as high pressure air moved against the plane's surface. Measurements 0:18:40.880 --> 0:18:45.399 showed that the concord's surface temperature during supersonic flight would 0:18:45.480 --> 0:18:49.359 range from one seven degrees celsius or two hundred sixty 0:18:49.400 --> 0:18:52.480 one fahrenheit at the nose of the plane down to 0:18:52.680 --> 0:18:57.040 ninety one degrees celsius or one six degrees fahrenheit at 0:18:57.080 --> 0:18:59.280 the tail. All that heat was bound to have an 0:18:59.320 --> 0:19:02.280 effect on the lane. In fact, the air frame of 0:19:02.320 --> 0:19:06.680 the Concorde would expand seven inches or seventeen point eight 0:19:06.720 --> 0:19:11.800 centimeters during flight, so you can imagine that repeated flights 0:19:12.000 --> 0:19:15.639 could cause some serious structural problems if the plane is 0:19:15.680 --> 0:19:20.800 effectively changing shape by the magnitude of seven inches. For 0:19:20.840 --> 0:19:25.320 that reason, engineers used a special aluminum or aluminium if 0:19:25.320 --> 0:19:28.640 you prefer alloy, and that was known to be heat 0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:31.280 tolerant as well as lightweight, so it made a good 0:19:31.400 --> 0:19:35.000 material for the airframe. Another way engineers chose to deal 0:19:35.080 --> 0:19:38.240 with that heat was to coat the Concorde in highly 0:19:38.320 --> 0:19:41.959 reflective white paint. It was paint designed to be about 0:19:42.000 --> 0:19:44.760 twice as reflective as what you would find on other 0:19:44.880 --> 0:19:48.200 jets at the time. So what about the engines. Well, 0:19:48.240 --> 0:19:53.440 the Rolls Royce SNECMA Olympus five nine three turbojet engines 0:19:53.480 --> 0:19:57.800 could each create eighteen point seven tons of thrust or 0:19:57.920 --> 0:20:02.719 one eight kilo Newton's and each Concorde had four of 0:20:02.760 --> 0:20:07.040 those engines. Collectively, they burned six thousand, seven hundred seventy 0:20:07.080 --> 0:20:10.280 one gallons or twenty five thousand, six hundred twenty nine 0:20:10.359 --> 0:20:14.600 liters of jet fuel per hour, and there were seventeen 0:20:14.720 --> 0:20:20.040 of them on each concord. Those seventeen tanks could collectively 0:20:20.160 --> 0:20:24.840 hold thirty one thousand, five hundred sixty nine gallons or 0:20:25.000 --> 0:20:30.159 one hundred nineteen thousand, five hundred liters of kerosene jet fuel, 0:20:30.640 --> 0:20:33.880 and some of that fuel wasn't used to make the 0:20:34.000 --> 0:20:37.879 jet go. It was actually used to help balance the 0:20:37.920 --> 0:20:42.760 plane itself. The Concorde had three auxiliary fuel tanks called 0:20:42.920 --> 0:20:45.959 trim fuel tanks. There were two in the front and 0:20:46.080 --> 0:20:49.080 one in the tail, and their purpose was to help 0:20:49.119 --> 0:20:53.120 with flight stability and orientation. When the Concorde would reach 0:20:53.240 --> 0:20:59.399 supersonic speeds, its aerodynamic center would shift backward. That caused 0:20:59.440 --> 0:21:03.199 the plane's nose to lower and point downward. To counter 0:21:03.320 --> 0:21:07.399 that tendency, the Concorde could pump fuel backward into the 0:21:07.440 --> 0:21:11.480 trim tank near the tail. The redistribution of fuel would 0:21:11.480 --> 0:21:15.399 make the Concord's center of gravity match its center of lift, 0:21:15.440 --> 0:21:18.399 and the plane would level out. As the plane left 0:21:18.440 --> 0:21:21.920 supersonic speeds, the system would pump fuel into the forward 0:21:22.000 --> 0:21:24.840 fuel trim tanks to essentially do the same process, but 0:21:24.920 --> 0:21:29.960 in reverse because the jets nose would start to point upwards, 0:21:30.000 --> 0:21:33.560 so they needed to counteract that action. These engines attached 0:21:33.600 --> 0:21:37.560 directly to the underside of the concord's wings, rather than 0:21:37.680 --> 0:21:41.320 using engine struts as is more typical in jet plane designs. 0:21:41.560 --> 0:21:45.760 So why deviate from the standard, Well, engineers concluded that 0:21:45.880 --> 0:21:48.480 engine struts wouldn't be able to stand up to the 0:21:48.520 --> 0:21:51.679 stresses of supersonic travel, so the jets need to be 0:21:51.760 --> 0:21:55.679 directly integrated into the wing design, and it was collectively 0:21:55.720 --> 0:21:58.640 decided that a supersonic jet having an engine fly off 0:21:58.760 --> 0:22:01.600 due to turbulence would be what is called a bad 0:22:01.840 --> 0:22:06.400 thing in aviation. The jet engines used a technology commonly 0:22:06.480 --> 0:22:11.240 found on military superscient jets after burners, So to understand 0:22:11.280 --> 0:22:14.359 how those work, it helps first to have a refresher 0:22:14.480 --> 0:22:17.960 on how jet engines work in general. So think of 0:22:17.960 --> 0:22:21.400 a jet engine as a machine that takes incoming cold air, 0:22:22.000 --> 0:22:26.680 heats it up tremendously, and jects it as outgoing hot 0:22:26.720 --> 0:22:30.320 air at a high velocity, and this creates forward thrust. 0:22:30.400 --> 0:22:34.840 Because every action has an equal but opposite reaction, So 0:22:34.960 --> 0:22:38.320 inside a jet engine are the following components you have 0:22:38.359 --> 0:22:42.119 a compressor, a combustion chamber, and a turbine. And if 0:22:42.119 --> 0:22:45.199 you were to have like a cross section of a 0:22:45.240 --> 0:22:47.640 jet engine and you're looking at it from front to back, 0:22:48.000 --> 0:22:52.320 that's the order you would see them in compressor, combustion chamber, turbine. 0:22:52.680 --> 0:22:54.720 Now I'm going to talk about the compressor and the 0:22:54.720 --> 0:22:59.920 turbine parts first, because the compressor's operation depends upon the turbine. 0:23:00.320 --> 0:23:04.719 So the compressor is essentially a series of bladed fans. So, 0:23:04.800 --> 0:23:08.240 for the purposes of an analogy, imagine you have ten 0:23:08.400 --> 0:23:10.520 fans that you've taken out of box fans, you know, 0:23:10.560 --> 0:23:12.320 the kind of fans that you would put in a 0:23:12.400 --> 0:23:15.800 in a window. So you've taken ten of those, and 0:23:15.840 --> 0:23:18.680 you've taken the fan blades out of all ten, and 0:23:18.760 --> 0:23:23.760 you've mounted them all on the same pole. But the 0:23:23.760 --> 0:23:27.720 fans that are in the odd numbered positions, so one, three, five, seven, 0:23:27.720 --> 0:23:31.159 and nine, those can freely rotate around the pole. But 0:23:31.200 --> 0:23:35.080 the even numbered fans have been bolted in place. The 0:23:35.119 --> 0:23:39.399 poll is going to remain stationary. The fans that are 0:23:39.400 --> 0:23:42.080 bolted to it will remain stationary. The rotating ones can 0:23:42.160 --> 0:23:46.040 freely move, and somehow magically, you've created a method to 0:23:46.280 --> 0:23:48.680 make them rotate in the direction you need them to 0:23:48.720 --> 0:23:51.440 go in. I don't care how you do it. Maybe 0:23:51.440 --> 0:23:54.600 you've got a Wand so the rotating fans are rotors 0:23:54.880 --> 0:23:58.320 and the fixed fans are statters. Now, imagine you've en 0:23:58.359 --> 0:24:01.440 cased this entire thing in a tube, and as air 0:24:01.520 --> 0:24:05.119 moves into the tube, you have these turning fans, and 0:24:05.280 --> 0:24:09.119 it pulls the air in and compresses the air as well. 0:24:09.160 --> 0:24:12.280 As the air continues to move past, both the rotors 0:24:12.320 --> 0:24:15.760 and the statters and the rotating fans add more pressure 0:24:15.840 --> 0:24:17.880 to the air. And as the air pressure goes up, 0:24:17.920 --> 0:24:21.600 so does the air temperature. Now that's what's going on 0:24:21.640 --> 0:24:23.720 in a jet engine, but in a jet engine, it's 0:24:23.720 --> 0:24:27.600 happening on steroids and the turbine on the other end 0:24:27.920 --> 0:24:32.199 of this system is what is providing the rotational force 0:24:32.320 --> 0:24:36.160 to move the compressor rotors. So in between those two 0:24:36.160 --> 0:24:39.919 components is the combustion chamber, and that's where jet fuel 0:24:40.200 --> 0:24:44.480 gets injected and then burned. It's ignited, and that heats 0:24:44.520 --> 0:24:47.240 the air that's passing through the jet engine. The air 0:24:47.320 --> 0:24:50.920 is coming from the compressor through the combustion chamber, it's 0:24:50.920 --> 0:24:54.119 combining with jet fuel. It's getting ignited. That heats the 0:24:54.160 --> 0:24:57.640 air up into super hot gases that then pass through 0:24:57.680 --> 0:25:02.080 the backside of the combustion chamber. The heat causes air 0:25:02.119 --> 0:25:04.760 to expand, and by shaping the end of the jet 0:25:04.760 --> 0:25:07.240 engine so that air can only really escape from a 0:25:07.280 --> 0:25:10.160 relatively narrow exhaust port, you end up getting a lot 0:25:10.160 --> 0:25:13.080 of thrust. You've increased the speed at which the gas 0:25:13.160 --> 0:25:14.840 is going to come out the back of the jet, 0:25:15.320 --> 0:25:18.119 and that increases the thrust on the jet, or a 0:25:18.160 --> 0:25:22.320 forward thrust movement. The hot air has to leave and 0:25:22.320 --> 0:25:24.560