RAF Fairford dedicates Concorde Room

  • Published
  • 420th Air Base Group
RAF FAIRFORD, United Kingdom --  The 420th Air Base Group gathered on December 1 to dedicate the Community Activity Center's main ballroom to the legacy of the men and women of the Concorde Supersonic Transport Flight Test Group.

Colonel Joseph C. Dill, the 420th ABG Commander, formally dedicated the room the "Concorde Room" in honor of RAF Fairford's rich heritage and enormous contribution to the Concorde's testing and development. In attendance from the Concorde Test Flight Association were Roy Radford, former Concorde Chief Test Pilot, with his wife Pauline, and Brian Boulton, the former Concorde Chief of Ground Crew Operation, with his wife Mo.

The idea to dedicate the main ballroom first began to take shape earlier in the year as extensive renovations to the room were completed. The room received heavy damaged in 2007 during severe flooding that paralyzed communities from Gloucester to Oxford. The main ballroom's reopening, reminiscent a new aircraft "roll out", occurred about the same time as the Concorde Flight Test Association held their annual reunion at RAF Fairford. The two events seemed to naturally flow together, sparking the idea that the contributions of these courageous men and women and RAF Fairford's significant involvement with the Concorde mission should be permanently preserved together.

RAF Fairford served as the primary test site for seven Concorde prototype models including both the British and French versions. One model was designed with a heat shield to protect the nosecone from the 230°C (440°F) temperature experienced at top speed, but was later removed. Mr. Boulton recalled there were around 600 ground crew working on the seven aircraft over the eight years of testing carried out at RAF Fairford.

The Concorde SST concept began as separate British and French initiative shortly after the Second World War. Realizing the concepts and designs from both countries were very similar the two countries drafted and signed an international treaty to cooperate on Concorde concept in November 1962, setting forth its development as a joint venture by British Aircraft Corporation and the French based Aérospatiale. Both the British and French governments subsidized the partnership. [Note: The project was not officially named "Concorde" until January of 1963.]

Design of Concorde was a daunting task from the beginning as the concept pushed the edges of engineering limits and required great leaps in operational capability. Achieving the Concorde vision meant doubling the top aircraft speed of the day, from around Mach 1to Mach 2, and increasing the then maximum aircraft ceiling from 40,000 feet to 60,000 feet. [Mach 2 at 60,000 feet is roughly 1350 MPH.]

One of the first hurdles was overcoming explosive decompression, which had earlier destroyed a number of de Havilland Comets due to stress fractures in and subsequent failures of the passenger windows. Additionally, airworthiness certification standards required the aircraft to lose two passenger windows and still land safely. For these reasons the engineers purposely designed the windows on the Concorde very small. However, Mr. Radford said when they brought the design parameters together with the airworthiness requirements the engineers were unsure of how the aircraft would perform, so during the initial test flights aircrew and test engineers wore pressure suits for protection in case of decompression. In addition, the aircraft was fitted with an escape hatch. Whether through design or luck there were no unexpected problems, so they never used the pressure suits or the escape hatch.

Another engineering hurdled was that the aircraft experienced "stretching" during flight. The friction of the aircraft passing through the air caused extreme heat expanded aircraft materials and lengthening the aircraft approximately 7 inches. This required careful design of fittings, gaskets, and other components to prevent damage to the aircraft in flight.

The partnership produced two prototypes: Concorde 001 built by Aérospatiale and Concorde 002 built by British Aircraft Corporation. Concorde 001 first flew from its assembly hall at Toulouse Airport in France in 1967. Concorde 002 was built at a factory in Filton, UK, but the runway was too short for test flights, so when it took off for its maiden flight it landed at RAF Fairford, which became the main Concorde test site.

Mr. Radford remembered his first flight from RAF Fairford to Gander, Newfoundland, Canada; the nearly 2300 mile trip took only 1 hour, 56 minutes. On another test flight he said he departed RAF Fairford at 6:30 a.m., flew to New York and back (6800 miles), and then flew to Gander and back, arriving at RAF Fairford a 9:30 p.m. In fifteen hours he traveled a total of 11,400 miles, the equivalent of flying from RAF Fairford to Auckland, New Zealand.

The ceremony and festivities closed with a photograph of the group holding the new "Concorde Room" sign and a framed set of pictures depicting various stages of work being performed on the legendary Concordes.