Originally Posted by
Seated in First
Concorde cruised without reheat.
I seem to recall that the average fuel burn on Concorde was 1 ton per passenger (so 100 tons of fuel) across the pond. Additionally, I can't remember where I heard it now (could have been on here, I joined just around the time the retirement was announced) but Concorde burned more fuel taxiing from Terminal 4 to the north runway than an A320 did on a flight to Paris.
Not quite, i believe it burnt the same amount as a short ATP flight, although i cant remember where i heard that one...
Concorde did indeed cruise using non-reheat, however it required reheat for takeoff and also max climb once away from land, this was usually a climb from about 27k feet and pushed the aircraft up to mach 1.7. It actually only produced about 10klbs of thrust per engine at cruise so was highly reliant on its aerodynamics. The engines also required a variable ram intake to reduce the airflow to subsonic speeds which allowed the compressors to work efficiently. Mach 2.0 was achieved by the autopilot adjusting height rather than increasing power, so concorde had a tendancy to go up and down during flight, with an overall increase in height as fuel was burnt and it became lighter.
One of the many quirks of concorde was that the starboard outer engine had to be limited at speeds <60kts due to vibrations on the compressor blades.