Concorde to be Grounded

Goonie writes "This BBC article reports that Concorde flights are to come to an end in October. It may be a noisy and costly anachronism, but it's sad to see the end of perhaps the coolest commercial plane ever to fly." The financial wires carried a story the other day showing how much jet fuel demand has dropped recently.

Comments

Long time to wait

[Organic_Info]

for a replacement. Developing Concord took two government backed companies 13 years (1963-1976?) to develop and put into service.

The process nearly bankrupt both companies and were heavilly bailed out by their respective governments (UK and France). As such I can't see a replacement happening for a long long time. There will have to be some serious incentive (money) for a replacement to be comissioned - until then its a case of what we have will do...

.

Re:Shame

[Nighttime]

Boeing have a rather nice alternative ready for production. It's another delta-wing that looks as cool as concorde, and is rated for mach 0.95. It is almost as fast as concorde, but much cheaper to run.

Almost as fast as Concorde? Concorde does Mach 2.2

Re:Shame

[Zocalo]

is rated for mach 0.95. It is almost as fast as concorde

Concorde is capable of at least mach 2.2 and routinely cruises at that speed on trans-atlantic flights, I'd hardly call mach 0.95 "almost as fast" as mach 2.2. More significant to me is that "mass" commercial supersonic travel is coming to an end, albeit for now at least, unless the copied Russian version is still flying.

Still, at least the plane should find itself with a major entry in the history of aviation as the first supersonic passenger plane.

Re:Shame - how is it "almost" as fast?

[prisonernumber7]

A 747 does mach 0.78, just like all of the commercial jets available today (B737, all Airbus, etc.).

Re:I live......

[boogy nightmare]

For a nice piece of nostaligia

check this

http://www.concordesst.com/history/building/buil di ngfilton.html

bearing in mind directly opposite are the rolls royce factories where plane engines are made :)

S

Re:Shame

[Kombat]

You nailed one of the main points on the head - lifting such a heavy craft vertically would consume an enormous amount of fuel. And of course, fuel is also very heavy, so the amount of thrust needed to lift the craft, the people, and the large amount of fuel would be massive. Burning through so much fuel so fast would require bigger tanks, which would be even heavier ... you see where I'm going with this. The space shuttle has the same problem. The vast majority of the fuel is spent in the first minute of shuttle launch, lifting the rest of the fuel!

Also, safety concerns must be considered. VTOL flight training is very counter-intuitive for pilots. When the USAF started training with Harriers, they lost quite a few pilots and planes. Hovering in a Harrier has been described as "balancing on the blade of a knife." Quite often, even if pilots were able to get the thing up off the ground, they'd try to transition to horizontal flight too quickly, aiming the thrusters directly backward before they had enough forward speed to generate lift over the wings. Surely you've seen numerous videos on the History channel of these things nosing into the ground and exploding? Sometimes the pilot got out, sometimes he didn't. But what chance would passengers have?

Re:Shame

[Hal-9001]

Concorde never flew supersonic where there were people on the ground to complain about the sonic boom.

True, so Concorde only flew transatlantic routes (NYC-London and NYC-Paris) in order to maximize the supersonic flight path. A Concorde flight from New York to Paris takes only 4 hours, compared to almost 8 hours for a Boeing 747. (Source)

Tupolev

[BrokenHalo]

Anybody remember the Tupolev TU-144? Came out much the same sort of time (i.e. sometime in the early 14th century, when I was a kid :-) ) There weren't many commercial flights, but I remember thinking that given the similarities between the two aircraft, it was kind of sad that the Russians never really got it together.

Re:Shame - how is it "almost" as fast?

[spagiola]

Actually, the 747 typically cruises at Mach 0.85. It is in fact quite a bit faster than other subsonic aircraft in service, most of which have been optimized for economy rather than speed.

30 years young

[tmortn]

Concorde still represents a pinnacle in civil aviation design in terms of speed.

Let me repeat... Still a Pinnacle. A top acheivement. There are no incredible leaps in technology since its inception with which to top it. Only some incremetal improovements that might be made.

More efficient engines could be produced but the cost of development versus the improovemnt would not be very economical.

Flight control systems could be updated to modern electronics. might Eliminate a few hundred, perhaps even a few thousand pounds. But its about like the difference between a 30 year old power steering system and a new one. Not much end user difference. Perhaps easier to maintain... more likely the biggest change there would be in reducing easing the pilots workload with modern display systems and computerized system monitoring.

The materials breakthroughs which made the design possible in the first place have only incrementally advanced. Mostly in the area of fabrication, not in terms of strength and thermal tollerences or most importantly in terms of cost which is the biggest issue.

All in all you could could perhaps make a more efficient Concorde. But in terms of pure performance you couldn't really make a better Concorde.

As I said, its design is still a Pinnacle of civil aviation design. Its also noteable in the military realm where supersonic designs have proliferated. Very few Military designs could keep up with a Concorde. The B-1 and Badger being the only two obvious designs currently in service that could keep up with it over the same range. There is also the XB-70 Valkarie mach 3 capable Bomber design that was never adopted which contributed a great deal of knowldege to Concordes Design, and of course the Retired A-12, and SR-71 Blackbird designs which still know no peer in the annals of aviation design.

We have reffined the knowledge pioneered in the late 50's and 60's which make planes like the Concorde, SR-71/A-12, XB-70 and B-1 possible but we have not made any new breathroughs that allow us to go beyond them as yet. We also have never acheived any kind of economy of scale with regards to their production either. I don't belive combining the total production numebrs of all the above listed long range multiple Mach capable designs would reach half the number of Boeing 747's produced.

As much economic sense retiring the Concorde makes... I still hate to see it go. Its one example of a big budget white elephant program I wouldn't mind having my tax dollars go towards. Of course living in the states I have never had my tax dollars go towards this particular white elephant. However, it is at least its something beautiful and tangible which theoretically anyone can get to have "hands on experience" with unlike so many other programs. Its hard to put a price tag on symbols and the Concorde has been a symbolic acheivment since its inception. Its retirment without a replacement is symbolic as well, one which represents something I don't much care to ponder.