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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."
able to power a supersonic jet just with grapes.
I've been wanting to ride the Concorde for as long as I can remember... With only a few years before I could afford it, they are no more. I guess I'll have to be happy with consumer-grade space travel. Now hurry up before my kids take my cash and waste it on an education!
Whelp, now that the concorde is gone, the only quick way to Europe is to wait till we have Ballistic travel options...
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
Hopefully there is a concorde II with the following improvements:
1. A glass cockpit instead of the analog crap in the old concorde
2. More efficient turbofan engines instead of the gas-guzzling turbojets on the Concorde.
3. A more roomy cabin
The Concorde really wasn't ready for prime time. With tickets starting at around $6000, fast travel to Europe was only affordable by the rich and by those whose employers would pay for it. Not to mention that you could only fly out of New York and Washington, DC to London and Paris. The technology was impressive for its time though, and I hope another attempt is made at high-speed air travel, knowing the problems with the Concorde.
US businesses that currently accept chip and PIN/signature
Just what we need... another reason not to fly to Europe.
Life in Orange County
Everybody saw the burning Concorde via this crappy home video from this people in their car.
I guess the sole reason for shutting the concorde down were these pictures burned in the public memory.
Anyone 'remembers' the Hindenburg pictures? The first 8 of 12 pictures are showing the Zeppelin rather than the politician.
concorde is "only" 4 out of 12.
eh.. where did you get the idea that she thought it was unsafe. Here's a quote from the site: "As far as I knew Concorde was a rock-steady aircraft," says Mary, describing her feelings about the fatal Concorde crash outside Paris in July 2000, which killed 113 people. "I hadn't expected it. I really hadn't."
You can find more information here.
George II -- Spreading Freedom and American values, one bomb at a time.
The Concorde is a beautiful thing, both aesthetically pleasing and impressive in its use of (for the time) advanced technology. It's a shame to see it go, even if the likes of me couldn't afford it.
I don't know which is more impressive: that it was done with slide rules, or that the English and French stopped squabbling long enough to agree on which units of measurement to use :-)
Using HTML in email is like putting sound effects on your phone calls. Just say <strong>no</strong>.
What, you think you're special just because you maintain your hedge?
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Mary Goldring sounds like a fun, upbeat person. I think I'll invite her to my Halloween party.
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
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
That was the problem, the Concorde did not fare well. One problem with it is that early on in its career, it was determined that supersonic travel over populated land could shatter windows, upset livestock and generally annoy people. Thus limiting travel to continent to continent travel. If only it could have made a space in the New York to LA slot, London to Moscow (over land) or even LA to Montreal it could have allowed more funding to be developed into making the travel more efficient, cleaner environmentally, and lower prices. They introduced a Supersonic Limo into a world that wanted a Supersonic Bus. That being said, the Concorde is still a breathtaking aircraft to behold and 30 some odd years later still looks more modern than anything current from Boeing or Airbus. It is sad to see it gone.
You call a gas guzzling, loud sonic booming, able to carry only 144 passengers in a tight cabin airplane excellent? Safer than a Boeing? Extremely doubtful. The only thing that the Condore had going for it was that it was the only one. Period. There was a similarly styled Russion super-sonic , the TU-144 "Concordski", that crashed at a French airshow and was quickly retired and never got to show it's stuff. CD
The retirement of the Concorde is a rare example of technological regression. If our children ask us why airplanes don't fly faster, we can tell them we used to have supersonic commercial jets, but now we don't.
This isn't necessarily bad since the Concordes lost money throughout their existence.
What are some other example of technology regression, I wonder?
My supervisor (the Network Admin) is all into planes, particularly concordes. I'm sure he'd appreciate a link to this article.
But then he might know i'm reading slashdot at work!!
What's the operator precedence of brownie points again?
do() || do_not();
Get it right! You would all get indignant when people say "Spiderman" rather than "Spider-Man", right?
Technology Regressions aren't really that rare.
A. Rightmann
The TU-144 was a direct copy of the Concorde, made from stolen plans of the UK/FR aeroplane. Unfortunately (for the Russians) the plans they stole had been "doctored" by the British to not work - hence the crash. That's why they had to add canards to the Tupolev.
Troc
Troc's dubious podcast and blog: http://www.trocnet.net
Didn't you all see the fireball that baby made?
I can't say that I don't give a fuck. I've just run out of fuck to give.
Concorde passes over my house regularly, and it will be greatly missed after Friday. Hopefully the path taken for one of the three incoming concordes will be this way so I can bid it farewall.
It's a huge pity that I never managed to fly on it as it's possible I'll now ever get to move faster than the speed of sound (relative to the earth!).
It's pretty rare that any industry manages to combine such technical feats with such beauty (the only other airplane I can think of that managed it was the blackbird), and it will be a huge loss to the skies.
For the records, public safety worries were the least of it's problems. It's rarely, if ever been a profitable plane to fly for the two airlines, and as soon as Air France had an excuse they wanted to ground it.
As soon as an American company builds one, the US will drop all objections to supersonic overflight.
Then we'll have supersonic travel again.
We could have had it first time around, but the Americans knifed the baby.
That was classic intercourse!
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.
Are you for real?
It's 2003, not 1803.
That was classic intercourse!
Ahhhhh, the Concord. We'll never forget you!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
my uncle's cousin, or something - I can confirm she is a humourless old bag. (although I've never actually met her)
=#= Man, you are such a loser! Why can't you be an individual, like the rest of us?
Will Europe still fly the Concorde as an R&D vehicle? It seems a shame to just scrap them.
an ill wind that blows no good
I would seem that the big lesson to learn out of the history of the Concorde is that you still can't buy your way up a learning curve. If the overall technical infrastructure of the society is only marginally up to the task, you can throw a lot of money at it, and it may work even passably well, but it will be expensive at best, and dangerous at worst. I honestly wonder what would happen if the Concorde was launched even 10 years later.
As what? Target drones? ;-)
--- Ban humanity.
Documentary on BBC 2 last night..
40 of their frequent flyers where killed in the WTC. Not only that, those 40 also authorised Concorde flights for their company's staff, so in that single day they lost a huge number of customers.
It was one of my dreams to fly on Concorde, but by the time I had the cash to allow me a special trip I had a family to support, so my priorities are now elsewhere.
.
This may interest some of you:
The Russian Tu-144 "Charger" was actually the first SST. It first flew in 1968 about a year before the Concorde. In its later revisions it had a longer range than Concorde and was more fuel economic. However, for various reasons, the Soviets never really used the Tupolev 144. Its interesting to also note that NASA picked this aircraft over Concorde for various tests done in the late '90s.
They didn't agree, the original drawings were in French and English, measurements in centimeters and inches. :)
The yank plane was shot down by environmentalists, then America did everything to stop Concorde because you can't have better tech coming out of other countries.
I believe that several companies are working on morphing wing designs which eliminate the sonic boom altogether, which was one of the nails in the coffin of the Concorde. According to this article Boeing might have a super sonic plane in service around 2008. Couple the new wing design with high effeciency engines and you'll have an environmentally (noise and pollution wise) and cost-effective means of breaking the sound barrier.
slashdot, news for crazed liberal socialist zealots
What are you talking about "hedge"?
There are a lot of excellent women engineers I know that also enjoy "working with people, children and cooking". In fact, I prefer working with and strive to hire engineers who enjoy things other than "calculating stresses or thermo problems". Companies they are actually looking for more female engineers as often times they work very hard due to remove the impressions like yours that they are "having to do a man's job" (and the fact they can pay them less).
I think you want to read this...e ets/FS-06 2-DFRC.html
http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Newsroom/FactSh
"It's better to regret something you have done, than to regret something you haven't done" - Orbital
Nice pics of Mary. She looks like she's been eating lemons. Could it be because it took 30 years to prove her right? I mean, imagine how you might look after thirty years of going "Any minute now. I know I'm right. You'll see. Any minute now, and this will fail..."
psmylie's dictionary: Godzillion (noun) Any number large enough to destroy Tokyo
It turned out the Concorde actually generated less noise than the presidental 707 of the time, the denial of landing rights was pure politics and jealousy, later on after a game of catch-up Boeing didn't get past a wooden mock-up.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Heh. Just poking fun. Here you go:
privet.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
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
With the loss of high-speed trans-atlantic travel it feels like we're going backwards. It's 2003 and we have nothing to replace it.
I reflect your pompous signature back upon you.
When the Concorde killed all of those people, you have to ask yourself who can afford a six thousand dollar ticket?
Rich... very, very rich people. Their families can hire very, very, very expensive lawyers to make a corporation pay very, very, dearly for their mistake. Think of the lawyers for the families that they can afford. Add that to the cost of running a supersonic, high-end aviation service. It just isn't possible anymore.
Yeah, if one of the regular world dies in a plane crash, we can probably get a class action settlement for burial expenses and some change from the airline. You can bet your sweet tail that when a group of people that wealthy die in a plane crash, that there will be an entire nation of lawyers after your corporation. The Concorde was getting expensive. I guarantee after all of the rich people died it got outrageously expensive to operate.
Long-range supersonic bombers were a hot item back then.
errrr.... howzabout looking at fatalities / passenger-miles? They flew a lot more 737s than Concords.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
no, instead they are responding to Bushes blackmail attempts....
Some people are banking on a more extreme version of the idea. Economic justifications of the X prize have included the development of suborbital rocket courier and passenger services, when you (or your package) absolutely has to get to Tokyo in two hours from New York. Of course you would be paying five or six figures for the privilege, which makes Concorde seem like taking the bus.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
I could have sworn that they were afterburning turbofans. I wouldn't imagine old turbojets would have the power to push a plane as big as that through the sound barrier.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
It is absolutely precious.
She looks like a female Scrooge.
>Mary Goldring who was opposing Concordes from >the start." How about "Mary Goldring, who opposed Concordes from the start."
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
Opposition to Concorde in the US also had a lot to do with it. The 'not-invented-here' lobby can be pretty powerful.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
You know, everyone who is complaining (rightly so) that we don't have anything cool in the aerospace industry anymore needs to stop buying cheap airline tickets. We are all the reason why airline industry is so damn boring...we all want that $68 fare. If we would be willing to spend more per ticket, then perhaps airlines wouldn't be the awful cattlecars they have become.
According to this article Boeing might have a super sonic plane in service around 2008
.98.
With current technology you can not eliminate the sonic boom (you can make is slightly weaker...).
The way the sonic cruiser does it is to not be supersonic, it says right in the article you link that it flies at mach
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
Why can't we just make gigantic tubes, suck the air out of them, and propel magnetically-levitated trains through the vacuum at mach 10?
At the very least, the catastrophic accidents would be a blast when caught on videotape!
So? The Concorde crash was caused by parts falling off another plane on the runway, shreding the tires & sending debris into the fuel storage tanks.
The other aircraft was from another airline and another aircraft manufacturer. It could happen to any aircraft. I'd doubt a legal case would result in BA/Air France losing out.
It was also hit very badly by the WTC hit. They reportedly lost quite a few of their most regular fliers.
As others have said, it's the business plan. It took the Europeans 26 years to realize it wasn't a viable business plan. The Americans realized it before it was built.
It is on its tour of the Uk and i was there to greet it at its last flight into my home city of birmingham, i took some pics but alas not digital so will have to wait for developing - may link to them scanned in my journal. :-D
Its a magnificent and loud aircraft, also have a few videos (avi) of it flying overhead / taxying from today
Slashdot - The one stop shop for procrastination
" The Americans realized it before it was built."
Is that why both Boeing and Lockheed Martin built prototypes, then? The Boeing SST jet was an engineering fiasco - that's why the Americans never built one. The LM 'plane was, by all accounts, a very elegant design. Very much like Concorde, in fact...
That was classic intercourse!
According to the article you referenced, though, that plane only travels at Mach 0.96 or so, and won't have a shock wave (since you shouldn't have those below Mach 1.0 - there might be some exceptions with trans-sonic phenomena) and so of course you won't have a sonic boom...
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
I fell for that Mac-modding no warranty troll as well...
That was classic intercourse!
This plane was only for the rich. It may be a symbol of human progress, but if it has to come at the cost of so much, then no way. Travel should be for everyone, no matter the speed.
-Seriv
Number of Concordes to have crashed in their entire history: 1. Number of Boeings to have crashed in their entire history:........?
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Moreover, "secret" tests were made in France while the plan was under development: Concorde went across the country in supersonic and no one complained. AFAIK, no one in the USA said anything when the SR-71 crossed the country at supersonic speed for it's last flight.
I was standing under RWY33 departure path at Birmingham International along with maybe a thousand others as we watched Concorde depart at 4:15.
:D
The last thing on our minds was efficiency as she passed over our heads on re-heat, shaking us to the bone, plumes of dark smoke behind her four Rolls-Royce engines.
Concorde was Concorde because she inspired awe in people and the ability to set off a couple of hundred car alarms at 'MotorNation' in Mackadown Lane Garretts Green.
If any replacement were to be all efficient and waste-not want not with quiet(!) take-off and landing, it would simply be mundane.
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
My second cousin-once removed (or some relationship like that) received $5 million apiece for his wife and daughter's death in the 1996 Valujet crash, and he wasn't particularly rich. Less, perhaps, than a Concorde survivor might get, but hardly "change."
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
They couldn't hear it over the TV.
That was classic intercourse!
"Brave, brave Concorde, you shall not have died in vain!" ... Yeah."
"Uh... I'm not quite dead, sir!"
"Well...you shall not have been *mortally wounded* in vain!"
"I think I could pull through, sir."
"No no, sweet Concorde, stay here. I will send help as soon as I've accomplished a daring and heroic economic recovery of the airline industry in my own particular..."
"Idiom, sir?"
"Idiom!"
"No, I feel fine, actually..."
"Farewell, sweet Concorde!!"
"I'll just stay here, then, shall I, sir?
"The State is that great fiction by which everyone lives at the expense of everyone else." -Frederic Bastiat.
I noted the comments earlier about old-fashioned cockpits and non-turbofan engines - well, just remember that Concorde was essentially designed with slide-rules. Computer simulations just were not up to it in those days. Certainly, computing was not at the stage where a glass-cockpit was even conceivable. Let alone practical. As for turbo-fan engines, do they really work at 60,000 feet?
As for being cost effective, for the airlines BA and Air France, it actually was. It only becomes a loss maker if you insist on taking into account all the R&D. That loss was picked up by the consortium that built the planes, not BA or Air France.
The thing that killed the aircraft was purely and simply American sour grapes when Boeing finally admitted that their own late entry into supersonic air travel was over budget, overdue and over weight and would never fly. There were plenty of American airline with options to buy, but they all pulled out when the American government then decided to ban overland commercial supersonic flight, making the aircraft practically useless to American airlines. Of course, many military aircraft continue to fly supersonic over the American mainland, and cows still give uncurdled milk, children are not thrown from their beds by the sonic shock-wave, and there are not hoards of angry sleep-deprived and shell-shocked American citizens beating at the doors of congress to limit this evil.
As far as reliability goes, one fatal crash in 30 years of operation is actually pretty good. Admittedly, the somewhat spectacular film of the doomed flight didn't help.
I was actually lucky enough to make a concorde flight once, London to Washington DC. That really IS the way to make that trip, and it could have been commonplace now... Unfortunately, Boeing had its way, and its failure to be able to copy the Concorde was mitigated by its friends in Congress making it a moot point.
Remember to thank those people who represent you next time you are sitting on an 11 hour flight from London to LA.
You might also rememember that the faster you go, the narrower the angle of the shock wave. so, the real problem is that the Concord did not go fast enough!
OK. Now consider that the Concorde is a premium flying experience. So, it's maintenance will be top notch. Secondly, b/c of its sonic booms, it is restricted to a very limited number of airports. Those airports tends to be the better equipped ones. Any other Boeing, even the 777 and 747, are not quite in the same class. The Boeing's have flown many many many more miles, and, they are owned by airlines all over the world. Each airline has their own type of maintenance schedule, which is sometimes not the most rigorous. Also, of the Boeing crashes, how many were due to human error? The legendary Canary Islands disaster of 2 747s had nothing to do with the 747s being bad. It was all a mis-communication between the runway tower and the pilots. Even 2 Concordes could not have avoided that. If the Concorde was exposed to the same type of conditions as the Boeings, I doubt that it's crash record would be so stellar. CD
They did (sort of). Look up XB-70. Then realize why there are none.
Except that tire pieces shouldn't be puncturing fuel tanks. That wasn't the first time that happened either. A Concord flight out of the US (I think) had one of its tires come apart the same way, which then punctured the fuel tank. The fuel didn't ignite though.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The successor to the Concorde is likely to be a quiet supersonic business jet. Dassault, Sukhoi and Boeing are working together on a design.
The sonic boom problem seems to be mostly solvable. The primary remaining problem is designing an engine that will last a reasonable time.
Cost is not believed to be a problem. If it could be built for $100,000,000, NetJets would immediately place an order for 50 to 100 aircraft.
Concorde flew at Mach 2.0 for the duration of the flight that I was on WITHOUT afterburner.
I was mistaken, the afterburners are off... They are still responsible for a large portion of the fuel burn though...
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
And it's really quite a shame, because so many of us would like to see more fireworks displays fueled by the ultra-rich.
A Good Intro to NetBS
I was fortunate enough to fly Concorde twice in July and it was the best flight I have ever done. Yes the cabin is small and it is lounder than your average jet! but the service is second to none and 'jumping time zones' is something different that the old 747 cannot beat. The only gripe is no in-flight entertainment (though the food is good and the wine list better than nearly all the resturants I have eaten in) but at least now laptops can give decent in-flight entertainment anyway.
My dad, a former aerospace electronics engineer, still spits fire at the mention of Goldring. It was something to do in the long, dark Scottish winter evenings.
What, you think Boeing and Lockheed Martin can't build a supersonic aircraft? :)
I live in London, and I love to see it roar over, even today people still look up to it. I'm going to be sad to see it go.
Comment: Yes I realise the username 'fuckfuck101' makes me sound intelligent, no you cannot buy it from me.
Mary Goldring article at bottom left
I've always disliked people who take it upon themselves to crusade against technology. This nasty person not only tried to hamper the Concorde but she also has the gall to dance on the grave plot for this mighty jet. She looks as nasty and she behaves.
Why atleast one isn't kept in permanent usage either by Tony Blair or the Queen, both frequently travel around the world.
That'd sure put Bush in his place when he HEARS Blair comming.
Concorde > Air Force One.
Comment: Yes I realise the username 'fuckfuck101' makes me sound intelligent, no you cannot buy it from me.
"They're rather small up close..."
:). The cabin is pretty narrow, for obvious reasons.
They're even smaller inside
The US could have had it, but it couldn't build it, simple as that, the US has no claim over this. The US is notably jealous of this, especially as it's
Comment: Yes I realise the username 'fuckfuck101' makes me sound intelligent, no you cannot buy it from me.
Consider youself luckly, my class of 25 has only 1 female it it. And at the start of every class all the guys try to sit around her cause shes damn good looking to be in an engeinerring class. (And yes I try to get a seat next to her as well :)
Technology, the cause of and solution to all of life's problems.
The concorde has an amazing record for reliability, if you search for "concorde crash" you'll find next to nothing relative to BA(who also held the most).
The coolest thing about flying concorde is knowing that the only people higher up than you are in the international space station.
Comment: Yes I realise the username 'fuckfuck101' makes me sound intelligent, no you cannot buy it from me.
Indeed. I remember the first air show held here in Southend (now an annual event); as well as the Red Arrows and all sorts of other aircraft, Concorde made an appearance. Everyone just stood up! It was jaw-droppingly beautiful. And powerful. And noisy! But standing there with my hands clamped over my ears didn't spoil the occasion. It made a second pass, too, though by the time it had turned around that was a while later :)
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
How many /.'ers, or anyone with a salary for that matter, ever flew on the concord? .....
Case closed.
While it was a nice technical achievement for its time, it really only catered to the rich and powerful - so I am not sad to see it go.
I spent the obligatory 9 hours in trans-atlantic flight like the rest of the unwashed masses, and am no worse for wear.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
Why is crashes per hour a bad standard? Well, we're talking about super-sonic aircraft here. In my opinion, crashes per mile would be a better standard.
If two planes make the same trip, lets say 10K times, the plane is safer which has fewer crashes period, not the one who happens to make the trip take longer.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
There's no comparison. The XB-70 was intended for high altitude supersonic penetration, attack, and escape. The concept that became the XB-70 goes back to January 1954, but the aircraft did not actually fly until 1964. By then, mainly because the manned bomber program was being deemphasized in favor of intercontinental ballistic missiles, the XB-70 had been reclassified from an operational aircraft to a test and development role. As completed they had no provisions for weapons and only two crew. Despite the loss of the second aircraft in 1966 (through no fault of the XB-70 itself) the test program went on until 1969 when the remaining prototype was retired.
The point is that Concorde was a staggeringly expensive program and was kept alive all these years by the British and French governments for prestige purposes. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but the XB-70 program (as built) was intended for testing of large high performance aircraft at high supersonic speeds. Once the test program was done, the aircraft itself was done. One can't really consider it to be a parallel with Concorde.
"Is it really fair to call it technological regression? There's more to flight than raw speed... You have a similar situation with the SR-71..."
The retirement of the SR-71 only makes sense to me if a newer and more advanced (and secret) spy plane replaced it. With all the advancement in materials sciences since the SR-71 was designed, I think it would be very possible to improve on that design. Of course I could be wrong, and maybe they were telling the truth when they said that spy satellites and U2s fill that role and a fast spy plane isn't needed any more, but I won't be surprised if they declassify the existence of a mach 3+ stealth spyplane or maybe some successor to the F-117 that isn't quite that fast but has very low observability and also does spy missions. I guess we won't know for 10 or 15 years but if I'm right then the retirement of the SR-71 isn't regression at all.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
Initially, it was to have been an operation bomber. The XB-70 was cancelled mainly due to better SAM's and cost overruns, not necessarily a greater reliance on ICBM's. It was singularly limited in flight profile. High altitude, high speed. AS SAMS's got better, it would have been more vulnerable.
But the OP's premise of "fill the back of the Concorde with cruise missiles" still stands well in comparison to an operational B-70. High altitude, high speed penetration. A mission that would have failed in operation.
Tha't why even the B-52 mission profile changed. Too easy to shoot down a high alt flyer. More time to look and acquire.
good fucking riddance.
i have no desire to see a mode of transportation that IS GOVERNEMNT SUBSIDISED kept in operation when, still, only the obscenely rich consiter using it.
Troll, Troll, go away and flame again some other day
Not only was the Sonic Cruiser not a supersonic design, the project has already been shelved.
If I am mistaken I would like to know for sure, but I can't find a link for either of these aircraft that claims suppercruise capability...
Could you please point me towards one?
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
The page linked didn't have a date, but I'm guessing it is a year or two old. Boeing has dropped plans for the sonic cruiser, and is concentrating on building a high-efficiency aircraft instead (airlines showed very little interest in faster aircraft, and far more in cheaper to fly aircraft). If you look at their products page you will notice that they no longer even list the Sonic Cruiser in the product development section (which they used to). Their newest aircraft under development, the 7E7, is expected to enter service in 2008, and it is supposed to be a high-efficiency mid size airliner with a cruise speed of .85 mach.
.98 or so) and don't anymore, so it appears that they have dropped it.
Admittedly this is only what is listed on their website, but IIRC they used to list the soniccruiser (which was designed for mach
There was a very interesting Nova episode about the race between the Concorde, Boeing SST, and TU-144, derisively nicknamed Konkordski by the West.
There is also amazing footage in the episode of a TU-144 crashing at the 1973 Paris Air Show. "Six Soviet crew members and eight French citizens died. One little boy playing in front of his home was decapitated by a piece of flying debris. Two other children were also killed. Sixty people were seriously injured and fifteen houses totally destroyed." A French Mirage jet, secretly following the TU-144 to take photographs, was later blamed for the crash.
Information on the episode http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/supersonic/
How long until I can buy a Concorde on eBay?
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
I had planned to fly Concorde on December 17 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of flight. When BA and AF announced the Concorde's retirement, it became now or never.
.8X to 1.9X.
On April 14, 2003, I caught the Concorde from JFK to CDG.
When you walk up to the ticket counter, you notice a separate queue with velvet ropes and engraved letters. Concorde. The ticket counter personnel were phenom. They could not do enough to ensure a pleasureable journey.
The Concorde Lounge is separate from the rest of the concourse. The champagne was warm and tart, and the food was Euro-trash. The lounge attendants were typically-disinterested.
The Concorde sat facing the waiting area windows. When the pilots checked the droop-snoot's operation, the windows filled with cameras and camcorders.
Once aboard, Concorde was extremely plush. The seats were huge, and new, clean leather. The carpets and paneling were fresh and clean. Everything gave you the impression of pride and attentiveness.
Although there is only "first class" on Concorde, there are two sections. The front section is for politicians, royalty, entertainers, and such. I was in the aft section.
The flight attendants wore suits and were extremely professional, courteous, and attentive. I heard one steward speak five different languages.
The Dom Perignon '94 was good but not great, and all you could drink. The cuisine was world-class.
The flight attendants forcefully encouraged the passengers to use the Bose Noise-Canceling headsets. Since I wanted the full experience, I elected to forgo the headsets. Bad idea: The interior noise from the engines is LOUD.
We taxied out. Since the undercarriage gives the Concorde an exceptional height, the taxi was bumpy.
We had almost no wait at the hold line. The after-burners kicked in. The Concorde began to roll. The take-off became an E-ticket ride.
The undercarriage and the poor condition of JFK's runway made the take-off roll a REALLY bumpy ride. Concorde rattles quite disconcertingly.
The acceleration firmly pushed you back in your seat. [I had placed two books in the pocket on the back of the seat in front. The acceleration caused the books to fall out and race to the back of the Concorde in a futile attempt to stay in NY.]
Once the pilot confirms wheels-up, he snap-rolls the Concorde into a 45-degree bank turn and PULLS. [Okay. He SEEMS to snap-roll. Yes, there was a brief moment of terror. Then, I remembered: noise abatement. Almost all aircraft departing JFK must make a turn towards the water, as soon as practicable.]
Once airborne, the Concorde vibrates and accelerates even more. The take-off and climb-out is one unending sensation of acceleration and vibration.
The vibration stops about 6,000 feet. [Delta wings are great at altitude and not-great at low levels.]
Over the Atlantic, the pilot opened her up. We neither felt nor heard the afterburners kick-in; however, the video mach indicator in the cabin started a steady increase from
At altitude, about 45,000', the ride was smoother than almost every airplane ride I've ever had.
The windows are tiny, but they allow you to see what appears to be the curve of the earth.
The service was superb. [My mother doesn't treat me that well.] The food was incredible. They served more food. More wine. More champagne. More. More. More.
The mach meter continued to increase until it reached and remained at 2.04. [Tech note: The Concorde was designed to cruise at 2.04. Concorde 101 reached its fastest supersonic speed of Mach 2.23 and a maximum altitude of 68,000'. Above about 2.3, aircraft develop a supersonic wobble which is not healthy for aircraft or humans.]
The flight attendant came and gave each passenger a certificate signed by both pilots stating the fact that we had flown the Concorde faster than the speed of sound.
Too soon, the Concorde began its descent into Paris. At
From one of the BBC articles about Concorde development:
At one point, work was halted after the French insisted that the plane should have a Gallic final letter "e" in its name - the British stolidly referred to it as "Concord" during development.The French, of course, got their way.
Wow! If such a trivial issue could cause a work stoppage, it's amazing the thing ever got off the ground at all!
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So what's the break even point? 80% capacity? 90%? How many of those seats were sold at huge discounts or even free as a way to entice travelers from US airlines. Did it work?
I wonder how the break even point between a 747 and a concorde compares.
Then, as the investigation later proved, they had a French military Mirage plane tailing them all the time, trying to gain "intelligence" by taking closeup shots.
However, the Russians had not been warned that they would have someone tailing them and, seeing the Mirage come out of nowhere during a tricky manoeuver, tried to avoid collision by turning the huge plane swiftly, even though it was clearly no designed to widthstand this sort of sudden moves, which resulted in the plane stalling in mid-air. The pilots apparently tried to redress trajectory while the plane was falling down, but were not able to regain control quickly enough to avoid disaster, killing their crew of 5 as well as 8 residents of a nearby village hit by the falling debris.
Software is not supposed to be about how to work around a useability issue. - Ken Barber
I saw a program on tv (Bill Moyars I think) where Virgin airlines founder Richard Branson explained that the reason for concords retirement was that british airways wanted to boost its business class service on its sub-sonic fleet. He also said that he wanted to take over concord and he thought that he could run it at a proffit, he even offered to keep the planes with the same marking as british airlines, so as to not embarras them by making a proffit, but they don't like that idea and are trying to block him. The other thing he mentioned, was that the billions it took to develop concord were paid equally by the UK and France and that british airways only paid a token "british pound" for each airliner, so, in effect, the public owned the planes and sould decide if virgin airlines could take over the service.
The shockwave is continuous; I've been yachting across the English Channel on two occasions as Concorde overflew at maximum pumpage, and on both I nearly cacked my breeks at the sudden double boom. It is (was) rather loud, to say the least.
FYI - The proper way to refer to the planes and service is Concord. Not "The Concorde". It is a small point, but should to speak with anyone that knows anything, or even used the service, you would stand out immediately as uniniatiated by adding a "The".
Please see post 7261081 and others in the major topic heading - Boeing sunk it all by their lonesome, without requiring the help of any hippies. If it doesn't work and won't make money, chances are it won't be made, with or without protest. If it does work and can make money, it will probably be made - our government has not for some time let the interests of our country interfere with the interests of its largest businesses.
I don't think the hippies at the height of their power were able to put a stop to anything in the first place.
Have you got a link, I googled and couldn't find anything about supercruise on aircraft other than the F-22.
(I specifically looked for Eurofighter and Gripen stuff...)
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
All Airbus starting from the 320 have digital fly-by-wire controls. The 320 dates from 1988, long before the 777. Airbus markets aggressively the fact that the fly-by-wire controls are similar on all fly-by-wire Airbus airplanes.
The future A380 and A400M will also be fly-by-wire.
The Concorde had analog fly-by-wire on some commands.
You're making it sound like they just found out the "market" didn't support it (i.e. not enough passengers and thus not enough potential buyers) and so they bailed out in time. While this does happen in the industry, it negates two very important factors relating to the failure of the US SST: the environmental opposition, and the ever increasing problems of building it and especially its related costs.
The US was late in the game for a SST and it contributed to its eventual failure. When Kennedy announced the future SST (this was in the limitless days of the Space Race and planes such as the SR-71 or XB-70), France and Britain had already announced theirs and Juan Trippe, CEO of the very influential Pan Am airline, had already ordered some (later cancelled of course). The Americans, with considerable spending power and technological ability, decided they had to build a better plane than the Europeans and the Russians, also in light of the fact that Concorde had gotten a head-start and would be on the market sooner.
Two designs were considered, a Lockheed design that more or less resembled Concorde, and a more ambitious Boeing design, the 2707, that seemed to meet the desired super-SST specs. It was to be larger, carry more passengers, have a variable geometric wing (it could change shape) and would fly at Mach 3.0 instead of Concorde's 2.2. Concorde's speed was later adjusted to 2.0 and the 2707 reduced to Mach 2.7, but the basic difference remained: Concorde could still be built with conventional aluminium, but the 2707 would have to be made of titanium, a far more complex process.
Boeing really bit off more than they could chew. The unworkable wing was later replaced with a double delta wing, but costs were ever rising and there was precious little to show for it. Concorde hit its snags as well, but it was progressing better and it first flew in 1969, by which time the Russian Tupolev Tu-144 had also graced the skies, though it would not be destined to have a great future.
The late '60s, early '70s saw the beginning of the environmental movement and one of its targets were the SSTs. They claimed the sonic boom would be untolerable and that flying that high would expose passengers to radiation and disturb the ozone layer (I think this was the first time the public became aware of it). The latter two were disproved by Concorde, but the first resulted in a ban on flying SSTs over land, though opposition to SSTs in general continued. This was indeed a great setback and it drastically diminished the potential of the SSTs, but this I think was not the sole reason for the cancellation of the 2707, as prestige and commitments might have kept the plane going if it had been developing well.
This was not the case with the 2707. Costs were rising and this was also the timeframe (early '70s) when big aerospace projects were being scrapped or downsized. Indeed, Britain had seen most of its projects (such as the TSR.2) cancelled in 1965 and Britain would have pulled the plug on Concorde as well, but was bound by international treaty to continue should France not share this desire. Thus it was French prestige that saved the Concorde before it was even born, something which should be remembered now that the French have decided to end the adventure.
The politicians in Congress decided in 1971(?) to put an end to a programme that had produced embarrassingly little in hardware, and was popularly opposed by a well organised movement. Future sales prospects might not have been too rosy, but I think that ultimately it was the first two elements that contributed in equal amounts to the cancellation. The (relative) lack of them in Europe enabled the Concorde to go ahead, despite the lessened appeal for SSTs. Also keep in mind that this was before the oil-crisis which really made operating SSTs more expensive, as Concorde would find out. Regretably, the lack of a US competitor meant that the US was not particularly helpful in enabling foreign SSTs to fly to the US and it took years and two courtc
- Also Sprach Doktor Merkwurdigliebe
They may still have the project on a backburner somewhere, but at the time Boeing simply needed something spectacular to counter the announcement of the upcoming Airbus A380, the largest airliner in the world, which will easily eclips the aging Boeing 747. They found no-one cared and that was it for the project, irrespective of what difficulty they might have encountered in building the plane.
The Boeing 7E7 looks far more promising...
- Also Sprach Doktor Merkwurdigliebe
I was going to post a very sarcastic message, but I reconsidered. Now for our regularly scheduled message.
I do believe that this will not be the last of the super sonic aircraft to be built and flown, though it more than likely will be the last non-profit aircraft of its kind, mark my words.
As some sort of grounds for my opinion I would like to present the case of the space program undertaken by the infamous United States of America. We are all quite well aware that it was a complete and total utter failure in a business sense. Sure jobs were created and a thriving industry arose, yet collapsed almost as fast. It was passed off in the name of science, but little about it was truly scientific, unless they meant social-political science. No profits were sought by our government, the whole ordeal of going up, prancing about beyond the boundaries of what we call home, and coming back to celebrate was nothing more than a lame fuck off.
At first the space race was nothing more than a sizing contest, where both contestants tried to produce a bigger rocket than the other. In the process of producing these bigger and bigger phallic marvels the public got shafted. But we are all quite well aware that as of recent the private sector has been thrusting their greedy fingers deeper and deeper into the tender morsel that has become of the space industry.
Were it not for the publics tax dollars, the publics sweat and blood represented in a universally acceptable form we would not be where we are now. I firmly believe that a similar set of events will follow the decommissioning of Concorde, and shortly thereafter the public will benefit greatly from that sacrifice made by that selfless British and French public. They had to be quite selfless to not have formed a united lynch mob to eradicate all of their politicians after having spent 11bn sterling pounds on Concorde!
-TalHadar a.k.a. drbardo
OM MANI PADME HUM
Ok, publicity, and he'd probably run it at a loss, yada yada, but if anyone can make a profit from Concorde, Branson can. BA (or whoever) not wanting him to have it reeks of schoolyard childish logic - if I can't have it nobody can - and besides, it was the UK and FR *governments* that invested in it, not BA, so it should be the governments that decide if it should go to Branson.
And I don't see why crashes that kill people mean the whole thing has to be decommissioned. Motorbikes kill; they are still legal. Cars kill, and GM haven't been put down. 11/9/01 doesn't mean we all now live and work in bungalows. Smoking kills and it hasn't been banned. So what's the beef with Concorde?
$6000 for a one-way ticket is not cost effective. Concorde burns about 10x as much fuel per passenger-mile as the latest subsonic aircraft. That figure is independent of any R&D. The physics of supersonic flight given the technology at the time simply don't allow you to get much cheaper.
The thing that killed the aircraft was purely and simply American sour grapes when Boeing finally admitted that their own late entry into supersonic air travel was over budget, overdue and over weight and would never fly. There were plenty of American airline with options to buy, but they all pulled out when the American government then decided to ban overland commercial supersonic flight, making the aircraft practically useless to American airlines.
Which of course explains why Concordes were flying all over continental Europe all the time, right?
As far as reliability goes, one fatal crash in 30 years of operation is actually pretty good. Admittedly, the somewhat spectacular film of the doomed flight didn't help.
That one crash turned Concorde from the safest commercial airliner to the most dangerous commercial airliner. Granted airliner crashes are rare enough that there are huge uncertainties in the statistics you compile about them. But its safety record was not "pretty good" by any stretch.
I've seen a lot of anti-US sentiments, some founded, some not. But this is the first time I've seen someone try to blame the limitations of physics and economics on US policy.
In the colonies, we refer to distinct inanimate objects with a "the." "He is in the hospital."
Oxford English speakers refer to indistinct inanimate items without "the." "He is in hospital."
My certificate reads: BROKE THE SOUND BARRIER ON BOARD THE CONCORDE ON [caps theirs]
The Concorde.
Le Concorde.
Concorde.
But "Concord"?
The end of the concorde is really depressing. It, to me, fortells the demise of western culture.
The future itself was embodied in supersonic flight, space, and reaching the planets.
It's all dead now. The united states isn't even a space-faring nation any more.
Perhaps China and India will pick up the ball and carry humanity into the future.
If anyone is interested...
r cr aft_genericsearch=Aerospatiale-BAC%20Concorde&dist inct_entry=true
http://www.airliners.net/search/photo.search?ai
- Jimbob
...It does poorly.
I am repeating myself, but it is still true.
The Concorde program was financed by the European tax-payers, who never got their money back -- despite the grotesque ticket prices. Their paternalistic politians considered it a great idea, because, you see, they were great men with an even greater "vision". Crossing the Atlantic in 4 hours is great, but if it can be crossed in 8 hours for 15 times less money -- well, thanks, but no thanks (rough esitmates).
It was not entirely useless, but the free market would've done much better job...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Rich... very, very rich people. Their families can hire very, very, very expensive lawyers to make a corporation pay very, very, dearly for their mistake.
On a civil case like this, lawyers go on contingency, so no money is out of pocket for the individual. This scenario is very likely since a settlement is virtually guaranteed. Therefore being really rich has no particular bearing on the situation.
Lots of money for lawyers helps on criminal cases (when you're the accused) or when the case does not have a guaranteed settlement, and you wish to use lawyers to irritate someone.
Incidentally, let's say this were the case anyway...and flying really rich people around was a higher insurance risk due to the liabilities if something happened. The insurance companies who underwrite the airline woudl take this into consideration and charge higher premiums. Those higher premiums would translate into higher airfares for those rich individuals, meaning that they were essentially insuring their own expensive asses.
If I could take a automobile to the moon, yes you could make such a comparison (even then, the car would probably still come out ahead, but I don't know the figures). But until I can, it's pretty useless to compare the two. Commercial aircraft (including the Concorde) make tend to make the same flights and are used for the same purpose, making the original comparison valid in the first place.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
All right, apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?