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Farewell To The Concorde
mstamat writes "BBC has a number of features on the Concorde airplanes, the timeline of their existence and their retirement. Among else, there is a virtual tour of Concorde's cockpit and a few words from journalist Mary Goldring who was opposing Concordes from the start."
Concorde's engines are actually the most efficient of their type in the world.
And although you think of all the analogue crap in Concorde it had fly by wire when designed, the bulk of it's instrumentation was digital and the brake design is only now being adopted by other larger aircraft.
Concorde, despite being 26 years old in full service and even older by design, is still leading the way in terms of aircraft design.
Matt Thompson - Actuality - Insert product here.
Concorde, although it cost a bomb to fly on it, was always a moneypit for BA and Air France. The only reason why it came into being was for all the prestige it generated. It was always utterly impractical - and any massive engineering project based more on style than substance is doomed from the start. I'm surprised it lasted so long.
Besides - the bloody thing was as noisy as Hell, as anyone who's ever lived in London will tell you. There weren't many cities in the world prepared to tolerate it - London only did because the UK government never let us have a say.
When the Concord was being developed, the US did have a SST program. However, it was cancelled because it did NOT make economic sense. Read Mary Goldring's article. The problems she mentions are the same ones that killed the US program.
It figures that someone with a bible verse in thier sig would have a post titled "Right, get a woman to comment on engineering". Bastard.
Bigger than the Concorde even, but the hippies all rallied together (they must have been out of marijuana) and had enough protests that Boeing decided it wasn't a good business move.
A. Rightmann
Last I saw it, some ten years ago, parts of the fuselage (NASA's version?) were sitting in a junkyard on route 50, just East of Orlando.
2. More efficient turbofan engines instead of the gas-guzzling turbojets on the Concorde.
Ummm...
A low bypass turbofan (read lower efficiency) or a turbojet would do better than a high bypass (modern) engine at those speeds.
You have competing effects that you have to optimize. Fuel spent because engine is inefficient (to varying degrees), and fuel spent overcoming drag. High bypass turbofans, the efficient ones, have HUGE frontal areas, and the induced drag because of this at supersonic speeds severely outweighs the efficiency benefits gained.
From memory the bypass on the 777 varies from about 5-9 (depends on engine manufacturer, and version of aircraft), the only supersonic jet in the world that doesn't need an afterburner to go supersonic is the F-22, it's bypass ratio is under 2 (again from memory). If I had my way, a future supersonic transport would have a low bypass turbofan or turbojet (same as a bypass 1 turbofan) sized such that an augmenter is not needed.
BTW, the Concorde engines aren't guzzlers because they are turbojets, it is because it is augmented for the duration of supersonic flight.
(yes I am an aerospace engineer at a jet engine company...)
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
In 1990, a SR-71 set the following records over the Continental U.S. - I dont recall any massive blast damage from these runs:
West Coast to East Coast of USA (National Record-Speed Over a Recognized Course): Coast to Coast Distance: 2,404.05 statute miles...Time: 1 hr 07 min 53.69 secs...Average Speed: 2,124.51 mph
Los Angeles To Washington D.C. (World Record): Distance: 2,299.67 statute miles...Time: 1 hr 04 min 19.89 secs...Average Speed: 2,144.83 mph
St Louis To Cincinnati (World Record): Distance: 311.44 statute miles...Time: 8 mins 31.97 secs...Average Speed: 2,189.94 mph
Kansas City To Washington D.C. (World Record): Distance: 942.08 statute miles...Time: 25 mins 58.53 secs...Average Speed: 2176.08 mph
Bush Lies On the Record.
It was possible to buy a "one way on Concorde, one way on 747" return flight to New York (from London) for under 2000 pounds, even up to about July of this year (one of my friends did just that and got his flight a couple of weeks ago). Compare that with the usual first class fares from London to New York, which I just checked at www.ba.com, flying tomorrow and returning the day after would be 6,596.70 POUNDS (that's the better part of 10k dollars). When you compare first class fares, Concorde was moderately priced! And since it effectively gave an extra day of work during a trip, yes, some businesses decided it was worth while (my company is the other way around, cheapest possible flights but we can spend an extra day getting unjetlagged when we get there).
... sigh.
There were other destinations, just not many, as most countries wouldn't allow commercial airlines to produce sonic booms over land and the range was limited due to the amount of fuel used to reach the high speeds.
I'd have loved to have flown on Concorde but another milestone has passed me by
I was fortunate enough to experience a flight in one of these amazing planes several years ago.
:o(.
British Airways used to do a short 'experience concorde' flight that would take off from RAF Manston (South east coast of the UK), fly around the south coast and land again 45 mins later back at manston. The flight was subsonic due to the realitly short distance but even so, you could really feel the power of the plane, especially during take off.
The flight was fully commentated and some of the statistics about concorde are pretty incredible. The engine power rivals that of the entire Daytona starting grid and the plane has to be built to allow for a 6 inch+ stretch during flight.
I had always hope to take a supersonic flight on concorde when I was suitably rich, It is a sad thought to think that this will never happen now
NIH wasn't all of it...probably not even most of it. Luddism was a bigger part of it. Boeing had a supersonic airliner, the 2707, in the works that would've been faster and offered more space than either the Concorde or the Tu-144 (the Russian supersonic airliner, similar in size and speed to the Concorde). The environmentalist wackos of the early '70s shot it down. Once they had the 2707 killed off, it would've only followed that they would seek restrictions on where/how fast the Concorde could fly while in our airspace.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
I know you're joking, but a 55 gallon aquarium is a heavy mass of water. Tempered glass under stress can shatter under low frequency waves.
I have a lot of time and money invested in my fish. I'd be more than a little upset if they were killed by the subsonics from a military jet, and this *DOES* happen.
I don't know whether I would be more upset about my fish or about the mess. But I'm pretty sure insurance would take care of the mess, minus a $250 deductible. I don't know if you'd want to clean up 60 gallons of live water dumped in your house.
I could not simply go to a pet store and replace my fish. Sure I guess I could get baby fish, but these are mature, somewhat rare, creatures with a 25 year lifespan.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
It had a longer range only if it did not go supersonic since it needed afterburners for supersonic cruise. There were several unresolved problems with the Tu144 including inefficient engines and a double-delta wing which was not as good as the ogival wing on Concorde.
The Tu144 was a Kruschev kludge to beat Concorde. The original design with four engines under the belly was the one that made all the early records, but it was not the one that eventually entered service nearly five years later.
The Tu144 also benefitted from enormous amounts of espionage against Britain and France. Amusingly, the French got their own back when they found the KGB was sniffing around Michelin looking for the formula of the rubber used to construct the high-speed tyres of Concorde. French intelligence leaked the 'formula' to the Soviets. What they actually gave them was a rubber with the composition and properties of bubblegum - so imagine if you will a Soviet SST firmly stuck to the runway with a lot of engineers wondering what they had forgotten.
However, for various reasons, the Soviets never really used the Tupolev 144
The terrible crash at Paris was one and there were reports of another crash inside the Soviet Union. Since the plane could not fly Moscow -> New York without refuelling, the Atlantic route was out of the question. It was used briefly for an Aeroflot service between Moscow and the Kazakh capital.
Its interesting to also note that NASA picked this aircraft over Concorde for various tests done in the late '90s.
An easy explanation, all of the Concordes were needed by the British and French. The Tu144 was rusting away in the scrapyeard. The Russians needed cash. NASA had cash.
Best wishes,
Mike.
the only supersonic jet in the world that doesn't need an afterburner to go supersonic is the F-22, it's bypass ratio is under 2
You are mistaken, as the Eurofighter can also go supersonic without burner - and it's dry t/w ratio of >2 allows it to climb vertically without burner too. (It too has a BPR of about 1.5 IIRC.)
On the other hand, at full reheat it can pull some amazing moves - that's where its mostly used, extra reaction thrust for turns.
Beep beep.
It's a language difference: US "afterburner" and "supercruise" are UK "reheat" and "dry power". Try here for instance.