Innovate. Design. Test. Repeat.
We did it again! Brookland Concorde became the third Concorde in the world with a functioning “droop nose”, two of which were in the UK, with Hydraulics Online designing and supplying the hydraulic systems to power both of them…
The first UK-based meeting to discuss Concorde took place at the Brooklands aerodrome, and more than 30% of every Concorde airframe, British and French, was subsequently manufactured there.
G-BBDG (known as Delta Golf, pictured) was the British pre-production Concorde built to finalise the Concorde design and to allow the Concorde fleet to receive certification before the other aircraft entered passenger service. She first flew on 13th February 1974, and was the first aircraft to ever carry 100 people at twice the speed of sound – Mach 2 – 1,350mph. Painted in British Airways’ livery, Delta Golf flew a total of 1282 hours, 9 minutes.
On 24th December 1981, not long after this picture was taken with the “Red Arrows”, G-BBDG made her final flight and was retired and stored at Filton. She never entered service again and was instead used for spare parts, allowing the airline to operate a fleet of seven aircraft.
As well as its nose and tail, other parts were taken including its engines, landing gear and the majority of the components from the hydraulic system. The original nose was later repaired at Brooklands and returned to G-BBDG.
The Rebuild
When British Airways and Air France retired their fleets in 2003, Brooklands Museum at Weybridge in Surrey accepted Concorde G-BBDG as a museum exhibit. She was dismantled as far as possible, but still had to be cut up into five major sections to enable transportation to Brooklands Museum; the task of structurally disassembling and reassembling the aircraft was undertaken by Air Salvage International.
Delta Golf was then restored by a team of over 100 volunteers from the museum, assisted by students from the University of Surrey.
Three years, and many thousands of man-hours work later, on 26th July 2006, the Brooklands Concorde was opened to the public with the “Concorde Experience” allowing visitors to enter the aircraft and experience a virtual flight at speeds up to Mach 2.
In 2014, having approached Hydraulics Online for assistance two years earlier, a team of fellow enthusiasts and former Concorde engineers – the Heritage Concorde team – successfully restored power to another Concorde’s nose and visor. On display at the Imperial War Museum, Duxford, G-AXDN then became the first UK Concorde to droop her nose since 2003 using a bespoke hydraulic system designed and supplied by Hydraulics Online. (You can read more about this project, Project Salute, here.)
The Unveiling…
The unveiling of Concorde G-AXDN and her droop nose made the headlines and was featured on the BBC News and ITV News as well as being reported on by local and regional press. Restoring the iconic droop nose and visor on G-BBDG was then an obvious further restoration project for the Brooklands Concorde team (pictured) to undertake.
Hydraulics Online designed an external hydraulic system, a bespoke hydraulic power pack, that could be neatly housed within the aircraft and be connected to G-BBDG’s existing nose hydraulic systems… allowing the visor and nose to be lowered and raised at any time from within the cockpit.
Model, racing driver and TV personality, Jodie Kidd was on the final flight of Concorde from New York to London in October 2003, and regularly flew to and from America on the supersonic airliner. It was therefore fitting that she was chosen to unveil the now equally glamorous Brooklands Concorde G-BBDG and her iconic droop nose and visor on 26th July 2016, exactly ten years on from the opening of the Concorde Experience at Brooklands.
So, we’d done it again; brought an idea to life… made a dream come true! And we couldn’t be prouder. James Cullingham, who led the nose project for the Brooklands Concorde team, thanked Hydraulics Online after the 10th anniversary celebrations succinctly saying: “You supplied exactly what I wanted.”
Whether you have a new idea that you want to prototype, or an existing hydraulic system design that needs improving – we have the knowledge you need. Our hydraulic engineers always relish a challenge, and don’t shy away from fault-finding, diagnostics and solving problems where others may have failed to; it’s all in a day’s work for us.
“You reeled off figures and technical data that were way above my understanding, but explained things very well. You don’t just shift boxes; you know your business inside and out. A very big “thank you” from the whole team – I hope we can continue the great work.”
More of our work with Heritage Concorde…
The Concorde Story
Truly one of the most iconic aircraft in the history of aviation, the world’s first supersonic airliner, Concorde entered service in 1976 and continued commercial operations for British Airways and Air France until 2003.
Concorde landed and took-off with a very high angle of attack. A fixed, streamlined nose, whilst necessary to achieve bullet-like supersonic speeds, would have completely obscured the pilot’s view of the runway to about 5 degrees on take-off and landing. And so her “droop nose” was invented…
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Concorde G-AXDN
Duxford Aviation Society, owners of the British Airliner Collection, were keen to improve their display of Concorde 101 G-AXDN at the Imperial War Museum, Duxford.
In response, Heritage Concorde proposed making her the first UK Concorde since 2003 to be able to “droop” her nose. The hydraulic systems on Concorde 101 G-AXDN had not been used since she was retired in 1977 and so the team approached Hydraulics Online asking if we could help on “Project Salute”.
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Concorde G-BOAC
Concorde G-BOAC, aka “Alpha Charlie”, located at the Manchester Airport Runway Visitor Park, is the third Concorde in the country with a restored moving nose and visor, expertly engineered by our Cheshire-based engineers and the Heritage Concorde team.
The restoration coincided with the celebrations for Concorde’s golden jubilee on 2nd March 2019 – marking 50 years, to the minute, since the first Concorde flight which took off from Toulouse at 13:30 GMT on 2nd March 1969.
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