Flight 4590 Didn't Kill the Concorde; Costs Did

pigrabbitbear writes "If the plane were around today — which some still fantasize about — it'd be like powering a stretch Hummer with dolphin blood. The airlines couldn't sell enough tickets on the small plane to even make up for the amount of fuel it needed to guzzle on its journeys, let alone cover maintenance for the technological marvel. (A Concorde's taxi to the end of a runway used as much fuel as a 737's flight from London to Amsterdam.) Customers were fine with ordinary travel times for a fraction of the airfare and the plane only took transatlantic journeys, because going over land was too disturbing. Too much noise."

Comments

Re:Oh Boeing...

[Anonymous Coward]

Too noisy was not just a Boeing claim. Early flights were not required to decelerate below mach 1 before reaching land and they sent sonic booms up and down the coast.

Yeah, and?

An occasional boom from a few flights a day is hardly a big deal. I haven't heard Concorde at supersonic speeds, but the space shuttle went subsonic only a minute or two before landing, and the boom I heard from the KSC runway was far less annoying than a light plane droning over my house.

Re:Don't remember it as noisy, the food was fine

[GameboyRMH]

Whoa a hyper-rich dude said it was the luxury ride of his life. Concorde tickets were unholy-expensive. If you wouldn't fly first-class in a conventional airliner, don't even think about it.