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Baroque Bloke |
Concorde: a technological marvel, an economic disaster. I remember the Aérospatiale advertisements in the glossy magazines: “Soon there will two kinds of airlines – those that have Concorde and those that have not.” “The supersonic airliner that changed the game of long distance travel by reaching extreme speeds and using a drooping nose for takeoff will be celebrated today on the 50th anniversary of its maiden flight. Thousands of aviation enthusiasts will flock to museums and airfields where Concorde is on display, including UK Runway Visitor Park, Manchester, the Museum of Flight near Edinburgh and Aerospace Bristol, where they will have the opportunity to meet Concorde pilots, step on board the aircraft and view footage of the first flight. On March 2 1969 Concorde made its maiden flight from Toulouse Airport where it was flown for 27 minutes by test pilot Andre Turcat…” https://mol.im/a/6763597 Serious about crackers | ||
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| Knows too little about too much  |
A sad loss to the world of aviation. RMD TL Davis: “The Second Amendment is special, not because it protects guns, but because its violation signals a government with the intention to oppress its people…” Remember: After the first one, the rest are free. | |||
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Wait, what? |
A 34 year run cut short after one notable crash, and that being right after takeoff. It had nothing to do with high altitude, supersonic flight. If every platform was removed from service after a catastrophe, we wouldn't be flying anywhere. A sad loss indeed. “Remember to get vaccinated or a vaccinated person might get sick from a virus they got vaccinated against because you’re not vaccinated.” - author unknown | |||
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Ammoholic |
I live three miles from where they took off and landed. Cool to watch them, cool idea, but completely pointless. They weren't financially viable, even at $10,000 a ticket. French and British government propped them up, no pun intended. Jesse Sic Semper Tyrannis | |||
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| Partial dichotomy |
Wished I'd had been able to fly on one. SIGforum: For all your needs! Imagine our influence if every gun owner in America was an NRA member! Click the box>>>  | |||
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A Grateful American |
One of those "I remember where I was when it happened" (or when the news broke). I was on a call at the Edgewater Beach Condominium in Mirimar Beach and just finished setting up new print servers, and walked out from the accounting office to the GM's office to tell the GM I was finished and leaving, and saw the image of the Concord in flames from the guy in the truck driving parallel. So, I stayed and watched through that news cycle. It was much like the loss of the Challenger, another epoch experienced in life. I remember thinking the days of the Concord were short numbered right then and there. Odd how in the first of life, you do not realize the importance of an event and the aftermath in the moment but looking back, and later, you you perceive it in the instant of moment. "the meaning of life, is to give life meaning" ✡ Ani Yehudi אני יהודי Le'olam lo shuv לעולם לא שוב! | |||
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| Go ahead punk, make my day |
Then there is the point that it wasn't financially sustainable, which is the real reason it was retired. Business, not personal.  | |||
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| Go ahead punk, make my day |
https://www.nytimes.com/2003/1...mped-technology.html LONDON, Oct. 24 — Imagine a world where Porsche came out with its 911 series shortly after Henry Ford invented the Model T, only to take its sleek roadsters off the street because they became expensive to maintain and appealed to only the most elitist of drivers. That is essentially what transpired Friday morning when the final Concorde flight touched down here at Heathrow International Airport. With the shutdown of the service by British Airways , and by Air France last May, supersonic commercial travel became a thing of the past. Technology took a step backward. Tears flowed freely, from the tarmac here to boardrooms in Manhattan. It is unlikely that supersonic commercial flight, at least on the scale of the Concorde, will be revived anytime in the near future, largely because the Concorde showed that such an operation was not financially viable, industry executives and experts say. "You should never say never, but it will not happen anytime soon," said Philippe Camus, co-chief-executive of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company, the main parent company of Airbus, which maintains the Concorde planes. "There's no evidence there's any market for that." On the cost side, the Concorde planes, which were built in the 1970's, consumed huge amounts of fuel and were becoming expensive to maintain. Airbus recently told British Airways and Air France that the fleets would require some major overhauls within the next two years. For British Airways, the estimated bill was up to £40 million, or nearly $70 million, said David Noyes, British Airways' executive vice president for sales and marketing in North America. Those spiraling costs come during a bleak revenue environment. The hamstrung economy has spurred companies to cut down on business travel costs. Paying $6,336 to fly one-way across the Atlantic on British Airways, or about $5,000 on Air France, quickly lost its appeal, even though catching the Concorde could shave several hours off of the usual flight time. Both airlines declined to give specific information on how profitable or unprofitable the Concorde was. "In the past, the Concorde was profitable," Mr. Noyes said, but it was losing money after it was returned to service following an Air France crash in 2000 that killed 113 people. A spokesman for Air France, Jean-Jacques de Saint Andrieu, said that his airline's Concorde operation was profitable "in some years." Part of the reason the airlines could claim some profitability on the Concorde was because they did not have to incur capital costs on the planes, said Daniel Solon, who works in Barcelona for Avmark International, an aviation consulting firm. The governments of England and France underwrote the costs of building the 14 Concordes, which were then turned over to the two national airlines. The noise levels of the jets hampered how much money British Airways and Air France could make off of them. The jets' sonic booms prevented them from being flown to any great degree over populated areas. Lockheed Martin and the United States government are looking at bringing down supersonic noise on military aircraft, and if that project were ever to come to fruition, then its application to the commercial world could lead to much greater uses for jetliners flying at the speed of the Concorde, industry experts say. "The airplane's potential network was limited by noise," said Robert W. Mann, an industry consultant based in Port Washington, N.Y. "When it was first used in this country on demonstration runs, the first words out of people's mouths was, `God, that's a loud airplane!' " Mr. Mann said he expected to see in the next several years the introduction of small business jets that travel slightly faster than Mach 1, the speed of sound. (The Concorde flew at Mach 2, or about 1,350 miles an hour.) That is because the airline industry is fragmenting into smaller niche markets, he said, with the most elite travelers still willing to pay top money for conveniences while many people gravitate to no-frills, low-fare airlines like Southwest. Still, as business-class and first-class cabins get more comfortable, people's desire to touch down on the ground as soon as possible will probably diminish. Offerings of flat beds, Internet service and wide video selections in those cabins undermine the need for Concorde-class speed, especially if the time saved ends up costing hundreds of dollars a minute. | |||
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| His diet consists of black coffee, and sarcasm.  |
It was necessary for slow-speed handling on the ground because the plane required an extreme nose-up pitch for taking off and there would have been no visibility. But during the actual takeoff run doesn't seem right. | |||
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| half-genius, half-wit |
Crap on the runway did the job that flying faster than the speed of sound thousands of times across the Atlantic Ocean could not. | |||
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Delusions of Adequacy |
I used to service equipment in the tower at Dulles; always loved watching them take off nad land. I have my own style of humor. I call it Snarkasm. | |||
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| Member |
Firestone tires. 
It might during a rejected takeoff. It's useful to see what lays ahead. Then again, if this is your view inside the office, you might not have a lot of spare time to look outside...  This message has been edited. Last edited by: sns3guppy, | |||
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| Savor the limelight |
Last week, I finally found a VHS tape I shot footage of the Concord doing a touch and go in Oshkosh, WI in 1985. Unfortunately the tape is badly degraded and the video sucks. The sound is still amazing. I wish I hadn't lost the tape and had transferred it to DVD much sooner. | |||
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| Dances With Tornados |
John Hutchinson was the Pilot for many many flights. If you only have 20 minutes, watch the 2nd video Link to original video: https://youtu.be/i2gk_jetltY Link to original video: https://youtu.be/fqOcYhzWUZY | |||
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Member |
I watched one take off from Charles De-Gaulle in Paris back in the 80's. Awesome sight, and talk about one hell of a roar of the engines WOW! _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ A Veteran is someone who wrote a blank check Made payable to 'The United States of America' for an amount of 'Up to and including their life'. That is Honor. Unfortunately there are way too many people in this Country who no longer understand that. | |||
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Glorious SPAM! |
What kind of money (80's dollars) were you taliking to get a flight on the Concord vs. a regular plane? Was it a rich people only thing or within reach for the ordinary person? | |||
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Lost |
I think around $8-10,000 a seat cushion (r/t). | |||
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| Ammoholic |
Joe blow was not wasting a year's worth of mortgage payments on a one way flight. I can promise you that. For those that could afford $15-20k per round trip, there was no better option. Jesse Sic Semper Tyrannis | |||
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Security Sage |
I used to watch them come and go out of Dulles. RB Cancer fighter (Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma) since 2009, now fighting Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma. | |||
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| In search of baseball, strippers, and guns |
Yep, my parent’s home was in the Dulles flight line for when they would land....watched many a flight when I was there..strangely, now, years later, if they still flew I live only miles away..but I am stuck just seeing the one at udvar hazy
—————————————————— If the meek will inherit the earth, what will happen to us tigers? | |||
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