Work starts in £15m plan to get Concorde flying

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8712806.stm

 

I expected this might happen one day.

After seven years they better take a look at the "timing belts".

 

While it would be neat to see them up in the air again, they required a TON of maintenance. And, they weren't exactly easy on the "go juice", either. Whoever puts them up better be prepared. Not to mention the lack of spares...

CW

 

I flew the British Concorde from London to Dulles and then to Miami in 1985. It was really great!

BT

 

Yes, it was a fun experience. Flew on the AF JFK to Paris flight several times. Hot and cramped, to be sure, but nevertheless quite special. I wonder when (or if) supersonic speeds will be reached again by commercial airliners. Certainly technically possible, but the economics don't work out so well.

CW

 

Show off. Nah, but seriously that sounds cool! Did they give you anything made specifically for the Concorde to take home? Like a sleep eye mask with Concorde written on it?

Must have been an expensive ticket, lol.

 

From the Boeing Museum of Flight near Seattle:
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I think we'll see suborbital transportation first.

 

That airplane has gone the way of all the other commercial supersonic adventures. It never made one penny or sou or shilling in revenue. It cannot fly supersonically over populated areas, it is at the back edge of practical technology for a commercial airliner thus enormous operating costs and maintenance headaches. It's an Albatross and not the kind that actually works. They should forget it.
Switches

 

Let me play a little devil's advocate...

The SSTs were technologic masterpieces that proved without doubt that advanced technology could trickle down. The fuel embargo, resultant rationing and eventual higher fuel prices are what, essentially, made the SSTs too expensive to operate profitably. That said, Mach 1+ would appear to a layman to require a different level of engineering prowess, higher standards and lower tolerances for errors. While it may not be economical to operate them, we don't have an equivalent today, do we? Shouldn't we? Consider how much more advanced we are when it comes to medicine, computations and basic, every-day technology (cell phones, GPS, satellite radio, etc.). In other words, shouldn't we, as the human race, be striving to advance technologies and have that trickle down to benefit all?

All this talk about and work done on scram jets and suborbital sounds really cool, but until we actually get access to it, it's the stuff of SciFi or the exclusive domain of a few select individuals (mostly, I'd think, in the military).

CW

 

Was Boeing serious about the Sonic Cruiser or was that just a wild idea that they weren't serious about?

 

I saw one on charter, in Indy, for the 500, and I wouldn't mind at ALL being hot and cramped with some of those Parisian models, that came out of it...

They parked it on top of our plane.....LOL!

At least we had shade.......

 

I'd be glad to see her fly again!

 

*Charter*?! FFS... That's insane. But highly cool.

 

Boeing was serious about developing the technology (large carbon fiber components) behind the Sonic Cruiser but the configuration and "just below Mach" cruise performance hit too many brick walls when placed against the then current market demands.
They rethought the type of airplane that would best be suited and the 787 was the result.

The airplane Boeing was NOT serious about was their "Super Jumbo" idea that was floated for a little while in the 90's. They came to the conclusion that travelers wanted "point-to-point", not "hub-to-hub" routes, and they wanted to do so quickly, which spawned the Sonic Cruiser idea, (for a while.)

 

I'm not sure that the technical problems with suborbital transport are that much harder to solve than making an SST practical, and the benefit is much greater. However, I will defer to some of the experts about that.

 

The Sonic Cruiser became the " Chronic Snoozer'. It simply wasn't capable of operating at sonic speeds in spite of what Boeing tried to do. They thought that they could tame the beast but it wasn't possible. Airplanes at sonic speeds do weird things and nobody can predict what they will do with certainty. It's like being on the pot. You either do or you don't, there is no in between. Super sonic is easy if you have the configuration and the power. Subsonic is easy if you have the configuration and the power. BUT that realm at Sonic Speeds is neither and the energy required to exceed it is tremendous but once it has been achieved it is easier but you must have the configuration to operate at the Mach that has been chosen. I have never understood why Boeing tried the Sonic Cruiser other than to explore the material considerations that Spasso stated. I think that he is correct.
I worked on the Boeing SSt program and the problems that surfaced were immense but the one thing that raised it above the Concord was the use of titanium as the prime material. That alone made the Boeing a more viable design because it wasn't Mach limited like the Concord and that alone was one of the good things about it. It had better fuel burn at super sonic speeds and it was big enough to carry enough passengers to achieve ( on paper) a profit. Boeing never achieved a useable wing pivot due to heat/ load problems and it appeared that the delta wing configuration was the answer...like the Lockheed proposal. We went through mechanical failure studies and in flight damage scenarios that were unsolvable at the time. I'm certain that they would have been solved if the program had continued...but it didn't.
The rebirth of the Concord can offer nothing but some more chest thumping.
Switches

 

I'd rather see the Tu-144 flying again. Flew faster, carried more people, got ****tier gas mileage, and had even ****tier range. Just like the SUX6000, goes really fast and gets really ****ty gas mileage.

But it looks damn good doing it.

 

Commercial use is not being considered in these plans for rebirth. Someone wants to get it flying again just for the sake of flying it.

The cost will be astounding.

 

Well, I think NASA "borrowed" it a bit for testing. Then it went up for sale...less engines. Something about being unable to export it with engines due to them being military-based and Russia not wanting it to leave the country.

Didn't the Tu-144 use a parachute to stop? That would be a bit awkward. Didn't look bad, but I preferred the looks of the Concorde. It didn't look like it was "leaned" back since all of the landing gears were around the same height.

 

NASA in conjunction with Boeing and McDonnell Douglas leased it for research into future supersonic aircraft. It wasn't cheap, and even flew in the United States briefly (out of Edwards AFB) during this testing.

The engines (normal as delivered) could be exported. However, the NASA bird was a grounded example that had to be restored to flying condition. They used uprated engines of the Tu-160 Blackjack bomber, and those engines could not be exported.

Concorde has an elegant "bird like" look, while the Tu-144 has a Pterodactyl "bird of prey" look.

 

The Russians are good at making their aerospace stuff look scary. Everything from Buran on the launch pad to the Luna moon landers. They seriously look like they want to destroy everything in sight, lol.

Do you happen to know the whereabouts of all the Tu-144s? What about that particular one that was for sale? Did it sell or still up for grabs?

 

Here is a pretty comprehensive article from 2004 on the TU-144s and it's evolution,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A2818640

Excerpt;
"Most of the 17 Tu-144 were scrapped: only a few were kept airworthy to conduct atmospherical research and Buran5 pilot training until the mid-1980s. Plans to adapt the Tu-144 as a naval interceptor or strategic bomber were not pursued further.

The Second Rise: Tu-144LL

In 1994, then Vice President A Gore and Prime Minister V Chernomyrdin signed a contract which allowed NASA to use a modified Tu-144D as part of their high-speed research programme. The ultimate goal was to produce a next-generation SST, which, while carrying three times the passenger payload of both Concorde and Tu-144, and being able to cover twice the range, should only demand a fare 20% higher than that for subsonic aircraft journeys.

Therefore, the Tu-144LL6 was born. A truly international collaboration, since Boeing, Tupolev and others were actively involved in the project. It is quite ironic that the former pride of Soviet engineering helped to revive the legacy of America's supersonic dreams.

A total of six flight experiments was conducted at Zhukovsky airfield, forming the first phase from 1996 - 1998. During the second phase, up to 1999, Tu-144LL flew an additional four flights.

The experiments focussed mainly on subsonic and supersonic handling of the aircraft, internal and external noise levels, aerodynamics and engine performance. The results, together with previous test flights by Tupolev between 1979 and 1993, led to the creation of the Tu-244 project, with characteristics similar to those of the NASA programme.

After the termination of the test flights, the Tupolev was put up for auction on eBay for $10million, only to be removed a few days later due to legal problems.

Currently, the Tu-144LL is offered for sale by the American company Tejavia."

The last passenger version TU-144D could carry 155 people.

 

TU-144LL hard landing, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRr_rlDOIdQ
Take off, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5f1XZaj-9g&feature=related

 

^^That was a pretty ridiculous landing...bouncing up and down quite a bit.

I wonder if the Tu-244 will ever be made. With the way the global economy is and is going, I can't imagine that thing coming to life anytime soon.