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.

Comments

"It would likely cost quite a lot of money ..."

[cardpuncher]

It used to be around 5K USD for a one-way trip across the atlantic, so it was already a lot of money then, and the only reason the cost wasn't higher was that the planes were gifted to the airlines.

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.

Re:Wasn't the noise an issue?

[Zocalo]

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.