In 1970, Jean Calmon was appointed director at Snecma of all activities related to developing the engine for Concorde. He later became senior vice-president for engineering and production and after his retirement became president in 1999 and 2000 of the French Academy for Air & Space.
Developing Concorde's powerplant was a difficult task as we had to constantly upgrade its performance - the power of the Olympus 593 grew 14% before Concorde first flew. We had to make technological leaps in the materials used and the manufacturing processes, the combustion, the aerodynamics of the exhaust nozzles and the electronic control systems. The result of our efforts was the satisfactory in-service performance of the Olympus 593-14-28.
Concorde was Snecma's first large-scale civilian project so we had to learn new work methods and learn to be rigorous when writing our justification documents, preparing and executing the tests and trials necessary to meet all the requirements set out by the UK, French and US certification authorities. The Olympus was also Snecma's first experience in supplying aftersales services to airlines.
Between 1968 and 1975, nearly 1,000 people in Snecma worked on the Concorde engine. From the outset Bristol Siddeley Engines (later Rolls-Royce Bristol) and Snecma put exceptional people into key management posts and they were able to instil a remarkable sprit of respect and confidence between the two companies' teams. To paraphrase Sir Stanley Hooker: "We had the happiest partnership with Bristol Siddeley."
Certain aspects of the programme were very frustrating, and the inefficiency of the programme's overall management was tiresome. In 1969, the Concorde project was extremely complicated. There were too many involved, with up to 50 or 60 people attending meetings, directors drowning in technical details, major decisions uncontrolled, incomplete or simply just not taken. Everyone was blaming everyone else for delays, with economic aspects taking a back seat. Things improved hugely with the nomination of programme directors and, meanwhile, we had learned our lesson of how not to work in co-operation.
Our inability to reduce the engine noise was a major disappointment although the best UK and French acoustics specialists were mobilised from 1967. In 1970, Snecma initiated technical exchanges with General Electric, which was developing the engine for the US supersonic project. Numerous configurations of silencer were tested but we never managed to tame the noise of the jet.
The biggest frustration was being powerless to prevent the collapse of the aircraft's commercial potential amid the successive oil price hikes from 1970. Airlines' options to buy Concorde stagnated and Snecma adopted a worse-case scenario of 35 aircraft. Even this was optimistic.
For Snecma, Concorde was an indispensable and decisive stage in its move to civilian aerospace and prepared the ground for the successful CFM56 programme developed with GE.
Source: Flight International
