Crazy headline of the day - "Concorde will fly again"

Never goimg to happen.

 

Would be cool if they succeed. My Dad flew on a BA Concorde back in the 80's. His company had an office in London back then.

 

Seems like a completely absurd business plan.... Even turning an old Concorde into a restaurant seems like a tough one as its so small inside. It would be cool if it happened.... But so would having the Thunderbirds make formation Mach 3 passes in SR-71s. It's a kids fantasy that is so impractical as to be nearly impossible.

 

Not so impractical, these were airliners and a lot easier to maintain than a warplane, plus the brits got a vulcan flying. A vulcan is even older and the egine are essentialy the same as the concorde minus the afterburners. There was an extensive parts store to keep the 14 airliners flying so parts are still probably around for limited use. If travolta can keep an old 707 in the air, and a dedicated group can fly a vulcan, then the right group of volounteers can fly a concorde.

My bet is there is close to zero chance that the french will sell them a plane though, and if they do, then its going to take longer to get in the air than they think, but then it always does..

 

Club Concorde - Concorde Locations

 

This plane is such a landmark in aviation someone should find a way to keep one flying.

 

Shoot I'd pay for a ride!

SV

 

My thoughts, too. Why? It did accomplish some relevant things and made a splash but , like the Russian SST, it didn't go anywhere and , well, made a splash. It was uneconomical, on the ragged edge operationally, and used materials that made it Mach limited. The Boeing SST was ahead in many aspects but was not ready, either.

 

I'd rather see someone fly the Spruce Goose.

 

You make it sound like a bad thing! 8^)

Taking a ride in one is just better than all the alternates...

SV

 

I have seen it in flight, I have gone through the cabin and gazed at the steam gauge cockpit and I guess that I'm not impressed for some reason. Perhaps it's because I worked on the Boeing SST and got too close to many of the problems with a titanium airplane. The Concord is "aluminium" and very small. Slim margins between safe and....

 

Paris....

I only got to see it in person passing thru Heathrow a while back. Tiny, very cool looking!

SV


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I have only seen the concorde once but was to young to remember today. It's something I'm sad that I will probably never experience.

On a short list of planes I have not been on (north American planes) it's a flight I would consider just because. Best of luck but I don't see it happening sadly.

Would be a dream of my father and I to fly on one

 

It had an operational life spanning many yrs, hardly a didn't go anywhere existence. If the design point was M2 then it used the right materials. The late 70's saw the evolution of air travel become the equivalent of getting on a bus. Concorde was a 100% first class cabin, and would never have been anything different, especially not a bus for the masses. The Boeing SST was the one that was not economical at its design point, which was significantly different than Concorde.

I think the Boeing SST would have had a steam gauge cockpit also.

 

Concorde flew for nearly 27 years, hard to buy into the "didn't go anywhere" bit. The Tu-144 truly didn't go anywhere and required reheat for the entire supersonic flight, yet flew faster and carried more passengers than Concorde.

But the Boeing SST? It never made it past a wooden mockup, and therefore I don't think you can say it was ahead of anything. It was a paper designed airplane at best.

 

The design limits were set because of the use of aluminum. When asked why titanium wasn't used , the answer was," Well, we know how to use aluminum" thus setting the Mach limits.
When I said it didn't go anywhere, I was referring to expanding operational uses and mission expansion. I know that it could fly trans Atlantic distances, etc. I know that the Boeing SST had steam gauge technology and that it failed to reach viable economical operation levels. That was ONE of the reasons that it was cancelled. Also, the variable sweep wing was never successful due to chronic pivot bearing failures. So, the final configuration was similar to the delta offered by Lockheed. As the Boeing swing wing design evolved it open more and more "Pandora's Boxes" of technical difficulties and it was wise to cancel it.

 

The Boeing SST was ahead in advanced concept and materials technology. A lot of things came out of the program that are being used today. That British and French governments supported the Concord, the U.S. government terminated support of our SST when it was in the mock up stage.
Four, or is it five, European countries propped up Airbus until it got successfully on its feet so perhaps it would have faded away, too, without help.

 

I don't class myself as any kind of expert on the economics of the SST or its use or longevity. I worked in the SST program for two plus years and saw it go from preliminary sketches to some full sized test hardware. My task was to design contractually required training programs and I spent 90% of my time in engineering working with engineers. I saw the airplane reach a final configuration and soon was aware, like everyone else, that there were aerodynamic and structural problems that required more time to solve. One engineer with whom I was working said that ," We're getting answers to problems that we haven't encountered yet." As in all ambitious programs, the Gremlins and Boogymen started to jump out of the dark unknowns and posed many problems that I'm sure with time would have been solved. The Mach 2.7 SST Boeing airplane was sized to possibly earn revenue for the operator and it wasn't supposed to be national flag-waving vehicle. Therefore it was large enough to carry enough pax to earn its keep. The Concord was a huge technological leap forward and a successful airplane for what it was designed for...a boost in national pride and elite travelers. It was a wonderful and exciting airplane.

 

I got the chance to walk through the Concord at the Paris air show as a kid also saw both the Concord and TU-144 fly there as well but was on the train back to Germany the day the TU-144 went down.

Even as a kid I thought the inside of the Concord was small.

 

I'm sure that's the case with the Boeing SST (advance materials). I'm just reacting to the 'ragged edge' comment that to me, implies it wasn't safe to fly (if I misinterpreted, I apologize). The aircraft flew for nearly three decades, and the one tragic accident (repeated decades earlier but without the fireball or loss of a/c) was at subsonic speeds on take-off and near the end of it's service life.

One reason it couldn't go many other places was all the fear of the "sonic boom" placed on it by anti-Concorde groups. Thus, being a EU airline owned aircraft, left few places it could fly at the speeds it was designed to. So outside of London/Paris to New York/Washington D.C., not to many other places to travel to without flying way out of the way. I'll avoid repeating all the history that can be found on the internet, but it did fly plenty of other places (Singapore being the farthest), and did serve Dallas (sub-sonically, through Braniff) for about a year.

While it was a financial failure as a program, and a financial failure in the first half of its life, it was a success in the last decade and a half it operated. If it were still flying, I still think it would be financially successful today.

 

Why? Because NY to London Heathrow took 3.5 v. 7-8 hours. I flew it. Teeny-tiny cabin, but the service was excellent and the time saving was worth it. For me, anyway. Even first class cabin on across-the-atlantic flight is tedious and long. Pricey, though, and it made you think twice. Too bad we can't find a way to make it more economical with modern technology.

I don't see this happening, no matter how deep-pocketed the backers are. It might make a splashy announcement and fly again (that's a BIG "might"), but I don't see enough people willing to fork over the ticket price to sustain a long-lived service.

Last time I flew it, IIRC, it was about $10K round trip.

CW

 

I flew in it on a demo ride the year it was at Oshkosh. The thrust was very impressive. One of my big regrets is never flying NY to Paris in it. I meant to after it was announced it was going to be discontinued, but didn't get to it in time.

 

+1

Sorry to say it, and I guess I'll get in trouble here, but the "ban" on overflying the continental US supersonically was a pure BS move initiated by the losers at Boeing!

LHR/CDG -> LAX/SFO was the winning route, but "they" managed to get it outlawed - Wouldn't even let it take off from LAX, go over the ocean when going supersonic then turn round!

I have *immense* respect for Bob & Boeing in general, but the politics and the fact that they couldn't get the SST working was, IMESHO, an example of sour grapes & political pressure.

I used to do SFO ->LHR all the time; Had enough miles to do Concorde, but that would have meant stopping in JFK, and I spent enough of my life there - Always figured "next time", but unfortunately never did.

Cheers,
Ian