Very glad to see that Manchester has at last put in place an enhancement to Concorde G-BOAC. They have allowed Heritage Concorde to re-activate the famous drooping nose, a modification that has already been applied to some other museum-based Concordes.
The mod involves installing a mains electricity-powered hydraulic pump to pressurise the nose and visor hydraulic circuits. The nose now operates exactly as it did in airline service, using the original 4-position cockpit selector switch.
Selections are:
1) Visor up, nose up. The position used in flight and while parked on the ground.
2) Visor down, nose in the 'up' position. The visor has to be selected 'down' before the nose can be lowered.
3) Nose lowered to 5 degrees, the position used for taxying and take off.
4) Nose lowered to 12.5 degrees, the position used for landing to give a clear view of the approaching runway despite the aeroplane's considerable nose-high pitch attitude on landing.
Now that the nose can be lowered to 12.5 degrees, the broken windscreen on the P2 side can be replaced. The windscreen failed about ten years ago and was a constant source of embarrassment to us tour guides as we had to explain time after time to flight deck visitors why the two windscreens were not identical.
Thank you Heritage Concorde.
Here is the nose-droop in action:
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