Slashdot Mirror
Club Concorde Wants To Put a Concorde Back In the Air
The Verge (relying on The Telegraph) reports that the Concorde, grounded since just a few years after the disastrous loss of flight 4590 in 2000, may yet fly again, with the help of a private coalition of Concorde enthusiasts that's already managed to raise $160 million. ("A massive war chest," says Jalopnik.)
The Verge explains that Club Concorde ("a club for all things Concorde, run by ex-Captains, ex-charterers and people passionate about Concorde") would like to buy two of the existing but idle Concordes, turning one of them into a ground-based tourist attraction for gawking and for dining on Concorde-style meals. But as for the second? The more ambitious initiative is to purchase the second plane, have it restored, and get it in the air once more. Concorde Club president Paul James is aiming to resume flights by 2019, while the tourist attraction would be opened around 2017 if all goes according to plan. British Airways and Air France have no plans to resume commercial Concorde flights, meaning it would likely cost quite a lot of money to grab a private ticket if and when the plane gets off the ground again.
And despite the trappings of luxury, that money bought you speed but no real comfort. The seats were narrow, the aisle was narrow, you were relieved of coats and other encumberances because there was no room in the cabin for them. There were fewer catering options than 1st class owing to space limitations. The extinguishing and relighting of the afterburners as part of noise control procedures was rather disconcerting for infrequent travellers, as was the temperature of the inner skin of the aircraft. And you had to sit next to the incurably self-important.
I've only flown Concord by accident (when the 747 service was cancelled) and while it was a novel experience, the plane was a technical curiosity rather than a practical form of transport - and well past its sell-by date by the time it was taken out of service.
I'd be surprised it's an issue given that the UK has seen many such projects over the years, one which has had a succesful view years and is now at it's end is the Vulcan to the Sky project.
I imagine if they can get permission to dick around in a cold war era nuclear V-bomber that first flew in 1952, then the slightly more modern Concorde wouldn't exactly be too big a deal.
The Civil Aviation Authority in the UK is fairly pragmatic about this sort of thing, and if there are concerns usually deals with it with restrictions rather than a blanket ban. For example, the Vulcan was allowed to fly with the stipulation that it could only be flown by RAF/ex-RAF personnel who had flown it as part of their service in the RAF - i.e. no one previously untrained in handling it was allowed to fly it. If there is a concern about it going supersonic for example, they'll just stipulate that it can fly, but not break the sound barrier.
Who said anything about commercial flights? As stated in the article, this is more about airshow appearances and potentially private charters, most likely for things like prolonged viewing of eclipses or short jaunts for special occassions and the like, so the noise of take off and supersonic flights over populated areas are probably not going to be all that much of an issue. They just need to make it clear that if you want to go from the UK to mainland Europe and back for the day, then you can't realistically expect to go supersonic, but if you just want to loop out over the Atlantic and back then that could well be an option.
They've certainly timed the announcement well, anyway. The UK's current publically funded historic display aircraft is doing its farewell flights over the next few weeks, so there's every liklihood that they'll be able to pick up a lot of the donors who supported the Vulcan over the last decade or so for another historic example of UK aviation engineering.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Anything within the limits of physics is possible if you have enough money.
When BA/AF said there was essentially no way to get parts to maintain the aircraft, what they meant was that there was no *economical* way to get those parts. Anything can be fabricated as a one-off part, it will just cost several hundred or thousands of dollars more than a mass-produced part. Send a drawing with the proper specifications and GDT to a well operated machine shop and they'll turn out nearly any part you need. Something more complicated simply takes more time and setup. It is possible you could have to pay to construct an entire facility to make a custom set of turbine blades, make ten, test 8, and have only two for spares? Sure. Again - it's only money.
Whether they will be able to make such a venture possible given schedules and maintenance requirements of modern aircraft is simply an exercise in capital funding and cash flow. If Virgin can take you to space for $200k, you can probably rehabilitate the Concord and offer seats on a flight for no more than half that.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Americans hate the Concorde, because it was better than anything the USA managed to build. Admit it.