Category: Science

By Hudson Ebach

The Concorde was a supersonic jet airliner, manufactured by Aérospatiale, British Aircraft Corporation, Sud Aviation, and British Aerospace. It was made in 1976 and was retired in 2003.

About The Concorde.

The Concorde went speeds up to Mach 2 (over 1500 MPH), making it the fastest airliner to have ever been built. It was so fast that if you left London in the afternoon and flew to New York, the passengers would see the sun rising again! It flew faster than the earth’s rotation!

The engines, Rolls-Royce/Snecma Olympus 593 (Thanks google!) were turbojet engines. These engines (turbojet type) would eject a high energy gas stream from the engines exhaust nozzle. They were placed on the back of the Concorde’s wings.

The Concorde’s wings were different from the ones you would see today. Most airliner wings don’t connect through the whole fuselage, however “…the Concorde’s wings were triangular. And there was no space between the fuselage and the wing of the Concorde as there was in a standard passenger airliner. The Concorde’s wing was called a ‘delta-wing’ design and did the following: Reduces drag by being thin and swept back (55 degrees with the fuselage) [and] provides sufficient lift for takeoff and landing at subsonic speeds.” (courtesy of HowStuffWorks). So, just like any other plane, while unique, the Delta Wings were an important part of the Concorde.

Another thing that made the Concorde unique was its landing gear. The landing gear was standard, similar to other airliners which only have three landing gear parts that come down. However, on the Concorde, there were four separate parts, two on the side, one on the front,  and one on the tail. The reason for the “Bumper” landing gear was because the Concorde landed at an 11-degree angle, caused by the Delta Wings.

With the Concorde landing at an 11-degree angle, the pilots couldn’t see the runway while taking off and landing. To fix this issue, the nose of the Concorde would move down at a 5-degree angle during takeoff and a 12.5-degree angle while landing. This movable nose (Called the Droop Snoot) was one of the most well-known things about the Concorde. The Droop Snoot is one of the things that make Concorde one of the most well-known airliners today.

The Downfall of the Concorde.

Remember how I said, “the Concorde went to speeds up to Mach 2.”? Well, a plane that goes Mach 2 is expensive. Not that expensive, only about ONE BILLION DOLLARS. A standard A320 Is only about $10,000,000. But not this beast, you could probably fill a whole Olympic swimming pool full of Peanut Butter with One Billion Dollars. Maybe 2 pools. But the big whammy was a thing that would guarantee it shutting down.

The End of the Concorde (and Hôtelissimo Les Relais Bleus)

It’s July 25, 2000 and Air France flight 4590 is about to taxi onto Runway 26 from Paris Charles de Gaulle airport. Just before that, a Continental jet had just taken off or landed, and during that process it lost a titanium alloy strip, leaving it on the tarmac. Flight 4590 lined up on the runway with 2645.55 pounds of taxi fuel left, which was supposed to be burned off before takeoff. At this point, there were lots of red flags but ATC gave Flight 4590 the clearance for takeoff and started taking off. Everything was going fine, until one of the Concorde’s tires ran over the titanium alloy strip. The tire then exploded, shooting a piece of rubber into a fuel tank. Unfortunately at this point the leftover taxi fuel exploded in a fiery mess. The landing gear got stuck and being past the takeoff bail mark, the pilots had to take off with a fireball on the rear of the plane.

So, at this point the flight is in bad shape and unfortunately it is going to get worse. Flight 4590 then tried to get to a high enough altitude to land the plane. They only got so high and then started descending, right into Hôtelissimo Les Relais Bleus. 103 people died in the plane. Four died in the hotel. This was a major cause of the downfall of the Concorde.

The Concorde had its last flight on November 26, 2003.

Should they bring back the Concorde?

In my opinion as an Avgeek, yes. But as a person who thinks “normally”, no.

The Concorde cost way too much and was a ticking time bomb. Any plane that needs a nose that moves to see the runway seems like a bad idea.

With that said, the Concorde was just a glimpse of what aviation is. Just to show what humans can do. In closing, I, Hudson, want to state, bring it back! We can make it safer and better! 

by Olive Pea

“Life need not be easy, provided only that it is not empty” stated Lise Meitner. Despite being at a disadvantage in many ways, Lise Meitner earned the impressive title “Mother of the Atomic Bomb”. She was a determined physicist who made many discoveries such as the radioactive element protactinium, and nuclear fission. She has paved the way for women in all science research fields.

Lise Meitner has a captivating life story. She was born the year 1878 to a well-off family in Vienna, Austria. Lise got a tutor for school in physics, and at the age of 27 in the year 1906 she earned a PHD in physics at the University of Vienna. Lise was the second woman to do so. In 1907 she moved to Germany to work with chemist Otto Hahn. Her laboratory was at the University of Berlin, and since she was a woman she received no pay for her work. Not to mention her workspace was a damp, converted carpenter’s shop! Since she could not get a paying job, she lived off of a small allowance from her parents.Together, Lise and Otto Hahn discovered many Beta emitters. In 1914, she helped wounded soldiers of WWI by taking their X-Rays. In the same year, Otto Hahn started working on developing chemical weaponry for Germany. 

When Lise concluded helping with the wounded soldiers and Otto finished working on Germany’s chemical weapons, they both went back to studying physics. They discovered the highly radioactive element, protactinium (element 91), while studying the mineral pitchblende in the years 1917-1918.

In the summer of 1938, Lise had to flee Nazi Germany because she was Jewish. Otto tried to get her a passport, but it was rejected. She packed only two suitcases, and had to leave her life’s work behind. Dirk Coster, a friend of Lise, assisted with her escape to Sweden. Lise could now only secretly communicate with Otto Hahn via letter, which slowed everything down in their research. During Christmas in 1938, Lise and her nephew, Otto Robert Frisch, discovered nuclear fission. Nephew Frisch later wrote, “We took a walk up and down in the snow, I on skis, and she on foot, and gradually, the idea took shape.” In 1942, Lise was invited to work on the Manhattan Project, and rejected. She said, “I will have nothing to do with a bomb!”. 

In 1939, Otto Hahn took all credit for the discovery of nuclear fission, even though he and his collaborator, chemist Fritz Strassmann, only provided the evidence for it. He stated, “In all our work, we absolutely never touched on Physics. Instead, we only did chemical separations, over and over again.” In 1944, he won the Nobel Prize and at the time, most of the credit for Lise’s discovery. He probably did this due to political danger in Germany, with Lise being a Jewish exile, and his illegal communication with her. This put a lot of strain in their friendship, but they still remained friends somehow. She did not speak against him publicly, but she would express her view to him in letters. Lise once wrote to Otto, “You all worked for Nazi Germany, and you did not even try passive resistance. And millions of innocent people were murdered, and there was no protest. You first betrayed your friends, then your men, and your children, in that you let them give their lives in a criminal war, and you betrayed Germany itself. Perhaps you will remember that while I was still in Germany, I often said to you, as long as only we have sleepless nights, and not you, things will not get better in Germany. But you had no sleepless nights. You did not want to see. It was too uncomfortable.” Lise settled in England and remained there till the end of her days.

Lise Meitner’s hard work, determination, and discoveries have greatly impacted science today. Her fascinating, even empowering against-the-odds story has inspired and paved the way for many scientists, especially women, to this day. In fact, element 109, first discovered in Germany the year 1982, was named Meitnerium in her honor.