Saw one of them next to my flight once and got to see it take off - sort of fun to watch so close up.
Had a couple of students in Berlin who flew on them occasionally. One guy, about my height (6’1") said it was odd when boarding - very low ceiling and he had to duck the entire way to his seat - but once he got into the seat, there was ample room and it was quite comfortable. Just not so much when standing.
No, really…why? Don’t hold back.
The development process had been going on from the early Sixties. It was one of the few financial commitments the incoming Labour government inherited in 1964 which they couldn’t wriggle out of, because the French wouldn’t let them. The 001 airframe preserved at Duxford museum was only ever used to carry scientists and test gear. It has a bailout hatch in the floor - a gesture towards survivability which was never used, and not present on the production airframes.
Unfortunately never, but my wife did. What a shame - only one significant accident in its entire history. IMO it should still be flying! I read somewhere that despite the small size, the ticket price did make it profitable. They shouldn’t have been discontinued. I WOULD fly one now if they were still in service! (Now that I can afford to)
That’s precisely because it was a test aircraft, there was never any intention of a bailout hatch on the produCtion airliner!
Also, Concorde is one of the few big jets to have done barrel rolls. 707 did them intentionally and there’s at least one incident of the 747 doing one unintentionally (or at least becoming inverted)
By the way do not blame BAe for the loss of its type certificate. It was the bastard French manipulating airbus and related to the a380 amongst other things. I am incredibly angry about it. BOTH supersonic passenger jets were ruined by the evil behaviour of the evil French government and its tentacles. The T144 crashed in Paris because of a Mirage flying above it to spy on its canards. Concorde crashed because the crap state owned airline Air France had crap pilots who let it take off above MTOW on crap French govt endorsed Michelin tyres. Then the crap (in comparison to what it could be if France wasn’t involved) Airbus removed its type certificate for crap internal French political reasons.
Yet ironically the only running British designed Olympus engines are on one of the French concordes (I ignore for this the Vulcan olympuses which are purely Bristol and way behind). Another demonstration that all France can do is preserve the worthy.
I am torn between extreme anger and extreme misery at Concorde’s fate. It meant and means so much to me. It was the best thing ever apart from Apollo.
occurred to me the above may sound racist if you are not British. It’s nothing to do with the French as a race, just their shitty government and the general predominant culture there, and is meant in good fun from this rosbif
I’m not sure why it was a step backwards. aircraft designed to fly faster than Mach can’t generally use more efficient high-bypass turbofans. Fighter jets and the Concorde use(d) pure turbojets or low-bypass turbofans in combination with afterburners to cross Mach 1, which means that for those portions of flight they were essentially rockets. the problem is that pure turbojets (and low-bypass turbofans) aren’t very efficient, and once you introduce afterburning into the mix, their fuel consumption is horrifying.
and, as you may have noticed, it’s been pretty difficult to make money running an airline. The reality of the world is that it’s much more cost effective to put as many butts in seats as is possible, and try to burn as little fuel per butt moving them all around the planet. Thus the A380, 787, and 747-8. as an engineer, I love the fact that airliners have never been so efficient and safe as they are now. I love the fact that- like cars- we’re still finding ways to wring just a bit more out of established technology. To me, the Concorde was like the Wankel (rotary) engine. A fascinating engineering exercise, but the negatives outweighed the positives.
I went to an outdoor jazz concert near Dulles airport and planes were going overhead a little after takeoff. We couldn’t hear them - except for Concorde. When a Concorde went overhead, the musicians stopped playing because we couldn’t hear the music,
Yes yes, but… The Concorde wasn’t about getting from point A to point B. It was about doing it in style. It’s like the demise of the Zeppelin. Imagine traveling from London to Paris or Toronto to New York in one.
There isn’t much left to the imagination anymore. Seriously, 1969 rocked. We landed on the frickin moon… The Concorde… The 747… What is there today that makes you go WOW, that’s awesome.
This hasn’t got a lot to do with the engineering realities. It’s the gut-level of “we had something in regular service between New York and London that did over the speed of sound and now we don’t. :(” I feel the same way, I’m afraid.
when this plane came into being the act of flying still had that “new car smell”. It wasn’t that many years after the last propeller planes. The last TWA Constellation flying in the lower 48 states flew in 1967. Back then people still dressed up to fly. Airline food wasn’t that bad. The Concorde was the pinnacle of the flying experience. The closest thing now is a flight with a sleeper service. we’re back to slow moving planes that take so long you need a bed to deliver a luxury experience. Might as well take the train if it isn’t a flight over an ocean.
Indeed. I used to take the tube from Hatton Cross station which is virtually at the end of the runway at Heathrow. Whenever Concorde took off it would set off a 41 car-alarm salute!
Since nobody is replying, I’ll try: the fatal accident, Air France Flight 4590 - Wikipedia affected public perception, although it doesn’t seem to be due to a design fault. Just a few months before, cracks were discovered in Concordes. They said the cracks weren’t dangerous, but I think they made the public already jittery before the crash.
I wonder if an increase in really long flights from Asia might someday lead to another super-sonic passenger plane? I expect not, given the fuel costs.
Fun fact; the 747 was considered to be a stop-gap until supersonics took over for passenger travel. Part of the reason for the upper-deck cockpit setup was so that they could easily be converted into cargo carriers and a front-door installed.
It’s not even just fuel costs, but fuel weight too. There’s a major range for payload tradeoff with supersonic aircraft as the further you go the less stuff you can haul instead of fuel. The transatlantic route was at the very maximum range for the Concorde (in fact, bad atmospheric conditions would occasionally force it to divert due to low fuel) and probably pretty close to the theoretical max range for a supersonic plane with any decent payload. Mid air refueling is the solution the military uses, but that just adds more cost and complexity.
that would depend on something like a scramjet engine to make it work. Even if the military works out the kinks it would be a chunk of change to spend on developing the plane. If you remember the race to build a supersonic transport the US companies dropped out because it was deemed unprofitable.
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I’m no engineer, but I don’t think this is right. The MD80 looks much like the DC-9 with its two aft-mounted engines, but isn’t it really a different plane? Or if there really are any thirty or forty year old DC-9s still flying, wouldn’t the engines and avionics have been refitted by this time?
doubtful. it’s more economical to toss 400-500 people around at normal speed than it is to fling 100 or so around at twice the speed. Thus the A380 and 747-8.
Delta still flies at least some of the DC-9s they inherited from NWA. And last time I got a glance into the cockpit (on the ground) it was still all dial gauges. And given how noisy the back of that plane is, they’ve still got the JT8D engines they’ve always had. AFAIK rather than update them (with hardware that may not even exist) they seem to be replacing them slowly by the Embraer E-series planes.