My trip to Toulouse over the Hillary Term Vac was amazing. I saw a beautiful French city, met fun people working at Loft Orbital and Airbus, and saw 2 more Concordes! (Other 2 were in Paris, France and 1 at Aerospace Bristol, UK)
Below are images of the Concordes at the Musée Aeroscopia in Toulouse.
For information on why the Concorde is so epic see Real Engineering's video on 'The Insane Engineering of the Concorde'!
My personal favourite part is that they had to use a special aluminium alloy called Hiduminium RR58 (developed in Britain during WW2) that consisted of Cu, Mg, Si, Fe, Ni, Ti, and Al with a special cold rolling process to maximise the grain size to reduce creep (elongation under constant load), extending the lifetime of the aircraft! [1]
Having just studied creep from Professor Roger C. Reed this was a real treat to see! [2]
P.S Try French Tacos, it made me go supersonic...
References:
[1] Doyle, W.M. (1969), "The Development of Hiduminium‐RR.58 Aluminium Alloy: The background to the choice of the main structural material for Concorde", Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, Vol. 41 No. 11, pp. 11-14. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb034573
[2] Professor Roger C. Reed - https://www.materials.ox.ac.uk/peoplepages/reed.html
