Between the cockpit and your seat, technical visit. Part 1.

"Welcome aboard the SA",

We offer you this technical visit in three parts of this area which was a compulsory passage, where we were greeted by hostesses and stewards and where we could still walk to the cockpit to greet the technical crew, before going to your seat.

Here, we will make you discover the one of the SA.

When entering the SA, our visitors are often surprised to no longer see the left side, the equipment bay and the tunnel, just in front of the cockpit.

In this place where were housed initially: circuit breakers, transformers, rectifiers, control equipment, navigation radios, HF and VHF communication, all computers, and batteries. This area so particular to the Concorde that we no longer meet on current planes because they are located in the lower part of the fuselage in the electronic compartment.

The explanation is simple, when the plane was fitted out for ADP guided tours by Air France in 1976, this part of the cabin was sacrificed a little to better allow visitors to get closer to the cockpit.

The entire equipment bay was dismantled, all wiring cut and a plexiglass bulkhead replaced the aft bulkhead of the cockpit where some of the circuit breakers were also housed directly accessible to the crew.

At the end of the work, the cabin wall was covered with 5mm plywood, the entire floor from the door replaced by a marine plywood floor and placed on the dismantled part, all covered with grey linoleum.

Here is the difference compared to the Concorde 01 G-AXDN kept at Duxford, and above the SA.

In 2018 it is a stiletto heel that will reveal by sinking deep into the floor near the door that the plywood suffered significant degradation during the closure of the museum between 2012 and 2015 by water infiltration.

Taking advantage of a few days of closure the linoleum is raised and we discover that the plywood is seriously degraded and requires rapid repair.

Fortunately, despite the slow degradation of the plywood and thanks to the seals, very little water has infiltrated under the floor.

No degradation was observed and the slight traces of corrosion could be treated quickly before the replacement of the floor.

By removing the floor to be replaced we discovered the passage of an electrical wiring (white), wiring that was used for flight tests (orange) and at the top of the image the hydraulic tubes (aluminium) in the form of U inverted which allowed their lengthening during the expansion of the fuselage during supersonic flight.

After the repair work on the floor, Richard repainted the walls and the ceiling.

On the photo above we can currently see on the location of the left bay (shown by the black band) a showcase where are exposed plates and photos installed by Air France in 1976 and new parts printed by our Hungarian friend Tamas and which will serve to complete the position of the flight engineer.

Its size is slightly smaller than the actual width of the tunnel to allow the passage of visitors with restricted mobility.

We will talk about equipment bay in part 2, and electricity generation and battery housing in part 3.