Club Concorde Wants To Put a Concorde Back In the Air 124
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.
Nostalgia is nice (Score:1)
But the Concorde was conceived before the energy crisis of the 70s, and definitely before the kind of instant, cheap communications we have today. Except as a nostalgic thing for middle-aged men with too much money, it is useless.
Bring back the XB-70 while you're at it.
Billionaires should stop with these quixotic schemes, you're aging and dying like the rest of us. Invest in anti-aging, then we'll talk.
Re: Nostalgia is nice (Score:1)
Yes, because we all love flying slow
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A modern "look-a-like" sounds nice, but it wouldn't be able to go super sonic, thus what would be the point?
It should not be underestimated what it takes to make a plane the size of Concorde go Mach 2 for 3 hours at a time, reliability, day after day with paying customers on board.
At this point, you need to develop a whole new airplane, and that will be expensive beyond belief.
Re:Nostalgia is nice (Score:5, Informative)
Concorde was the future. When I was a kid, I sometimes caught glimpses of it around Dulles airport near DC, and as a young man I got to see some fantastic take-offs. I'd like to see commercial SST and humans on the Moon again in my lifetime. I was too young to have a clear memory of the latter. All I have is a vague memory of being kept up late for a change because "he should see this", and a lot of people being proud of what we were doing. We've regressed to not have these things, even if they are only for a select few. We've learned a lot since then. We can probably do it much more efficiently and safely now.
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I, too, am a Concorde enthusiast. But this is financial lunacy. The cost per seat flight is too high, and maintaining an aircraft will require them to assemble a small army of maintenance guys and engineers who do not have a ready market for Concorde related skills, meaning they will require specialist training programs as well as a small industry to keep parts supplies flowing. All for ONE AIRCRAFT.
Not going to happen. Never. I bet this is just a scam to get rich people with too much money to hand over abo
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While that is true, it also didn't take 13 hours to fly from NY to Paris in a 747...
Concorde was about the cost of first class on a 747, but not nearly as comfortable...
In the end, it simply didn't make sense keeping a dozen airplanes of a very old type flying. Airbus made the decision to stop supporting it, and that was that.
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Bizarre. The first thing I remember is watching the moon landings, though in my case I refused to go to bed. I was nearly three.
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But the Concorde was conceived before the energy crisis of the 70s,
Spoken like someone who doesn't know the first thing about jet engines and their history.
Concorde was designed before high bypass turbofans were introduced, and used another strategy to get superior efficiency, which was to use ram compression and run the engines at a substantially higher pressure ratio than the competing planes. Turns out high bypass turbo fans were a better bet, but the concorde was never designed as a gas guzzler: quite t
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Why, what else could they use that money for? It's not as if they're going to use it for anything useful, like reducing income inequality!
Great! (Score:2, Insightful)
Most beautiful plane ever built.
Wasn't the noise an issue? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
More interesting than that is whether any airports have plans to permit anyone to resume commercial Concorde flights [wikipedia.org].
Re:Wasn't the noise an issue? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd be surprised it's an issue given that the UK has seen many such projects over the years, one which has had a succesful view years and is now at it's end is the Vulcan to the Sky project.
I imagine if they can get permission to dick around in a cold war era nuclear V-bomber that first flew in 1952, then the slightly more modern Concorde wouldn't exactly be too big a deal.
The Civil Aviation Authority in the UK is fairly pragmatic about this sort of thing, and if there are concerns usually deals with it with restrictions rather than a blanket ban. For example, the Vulcan was allowed to fly with the stipulation that it could only be flown by RAF/ex-RAF personnel who had flown it as part of their service in the RAF - i.e. no one previously untrained in handling it was allowed to fly it. If there is a concern about it going supersonic for example, they'll just stipulate that it can fly, but not break the sound barrier.
Re:Wasn't the noise an issue? (Score:5, Interesting)
They've certainly timed the announcement well, anyway. The UK's current publically funded historic display aircraft [vulcantothesky.org] 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.
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Given that one of these aircraft demolished a hotel in France (more or less) recently one might expect the regulatory environment to be a bit different now,
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That incident killed about 7 (or 9?) people on the ground - I was attending a meeting there recently, so thought about it a bit - but fundamentally it wasn't the Concorde's fault. It was the previous plane on the runway which had shed a large lump of debris. Sure, having better self-sealing on the Concorde wing fuel tanks might have helped it to survive
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That incident killed about 7 (or 9?) people on the ground - I was attending a meeting there recently, so thought about it a bit - but fundamentally it wasn't the Concorde's fault. It was the previous plane on the runway which had shed a large lump of debris. Sure, having better self-sealing on the Concorde wing fuel tanks might have helped it to survive long enough to hard-land at the diversion airport they attempted at Le Bourget.
But also the long cord of concorde wings makes it more likely that a disintegrating tire will puncture a tank.
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Fly where? (Score:3)
One of the main problems with Concorde was It didnt have the range to do transpacific routes, and its not permitted to go supersonic over most countries.
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One of the main problems with Concorde was It didnt have the range to do transpacific routes, and its not permitted to go supersonic over most countries.
Only 20 were ever built, [concordesst.com] which made even simple upgrades very expensive.
For example, the cost of the reinforced cockpit regulation brought about by 9/11 was relatively easy to absorb across thousands of Boeings.
Nope (Score:1)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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It's too hard for me to dig up the statistics, but with its one deadly accident I would guess that the death rate per passenger mile flown by the Concorde is higher than the B747 and probably every other airliner in wide service now (B737, A320, etc). Not that the Concorde was dangerous, but you have to watch how you state, "safest planes in operation".
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Yes and that one accident was a direct failure of the aircraft itself, and not terrorism, or being shot down, or really bad weather or pilot error
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From: http://www.airsafe.com/events/models/concorde.htm
25 July 2000; Air France Concorde near Paris, France: The aircraft was on a charter flight from Charles de Gaulle airport near Paris to JFK airport in New York. Shortly before rotation, the front right tire of the left landing gear ran over a strip of metal which had fallen off of another aircraft. Pieces of the damaged tire were thrown against the aircraft structure. There was a subsequent fuel leak and major fire under the left wing...
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Yes and that one accident was a direct failure of the aircraft itself, and not terrorism, or being shot down, or really bad weather or pilot error
Yes, a direct failure of the aircraft to be impervious to debris that fell off another airplane and should have been cleaned off the runway as it was a hazard to other aircraft. If another plane had hit the debris, we wouldn't be having this conversation about the Concorde.
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Yes, a direct failure of the aircraft to be impervious to debris that fell off another airplane and should have been cleaned off the runway as it was a hazard to other aircraft. If another plane had hit the debris, we wouldn't be having this conversation about the Concorde.
Maybe you are unaware of the fact that modern airplanes are designed so that materials thrown from the wheels are not directed into the sensitive areas of the aircraft? There are plenty of youtube videos out there of Boeing planes undergoing these sorts of tests.
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The Concorde was one of the safest planes in operation ever, period.
No he wasn't. According to Airsafe the 747 was waaaaayyy much safer. You can't say a plane is safer because it spend 27 years with only 1 fatal accident. The Concord fleet spend most of his time sleeping in the hangar). And during a couple of decades there was always a 747 in the air.
http://www.airsafe.com/events/models/rate_mod.htm
"It would likely cost quite a lot of money ..." (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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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.
So in other words, everything that commercial airlines dream of.
Pack those cows in! YOU ARE ALL COWS! MOOO!
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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.
So in other words, everything that commercial airlines dream of.
Pack those cows in! YOU ARE ALL COWS! MOOO!
Probably the only time that moo mime is appropriate on thus site.
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Hey, it allowed the super rich to finally feel like one of the common lowlifes when flying.
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Other problems you haven't mentioned are:
* Crazy fuel consumption per person*miles flown
* Concordes significantly reduced the amount of ozone in the atmosphere
* Noise issues
Quite possibly they just won't get a permit to fly even if they restore the aircraft.
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They can probably just register them as experimental aircraft, just as any joe with enough money can do with an F-5, T-38, Harrier, various SAAB and MiG warbirds and other non-certified aircraft... but then they will be limited in flying for hire. They can work around it through legal gymnastics, such as maybe creating a small museum with a very hefty admission price, but which includes a "free" flight on the airworthy Concorde.
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were gifted
I realize that in 2015 we're on the front lines of the Decline of Western Civilization - and as such I'm quite used to atrocious examples of improper grammar - but it still galls me: "gift" is a noun; the word you were looking for is "given".
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No, gifted, meaning given as gifts. It says more than just given.
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Feel free to argue with the Oxford Dictionary [oxforddictionaries.com] about what's proper English and what's not. Moreover, this use of 'gift' as a verb, while not always in vogue, has historic roots from at least the 17th century [grammarist.com].
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Re: "It would likely cost quite a lot of money ... (Score:5, Funny)
We're loosing our language.
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We're loosing our language.
Which is a good thing, because the language should be free.
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Idk, sumtims I tink we shuld try hardar to git it rite.
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Anybody who has moved property between family members (without incurring income tax, or, in the US, gift tax) has been aware of "gifting" as a verb for a very long time.
This source cites Seinfeld as the cause of it becoming more common in non-tax conversations: http://www.quickanddirtytips.c... [quickanddirtytips.com]
Seinfeld is not exactly a millenial.
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You got bumped from 747 to Concorde? That's the real story here.
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Yeah... usually when I get bumped.. they just put me on a bench in the airport for a couple of days..
how did he get the Concord?
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Specifically, it was 5K for going east. For going west you could get a ticket for £800 or so.
The main reason it existed was to avoid the red eye; landing in the early morning at Heathrow is unbelievably horrible. Concorde avoided that.
The Concorde will fly again ? (Score:1)
Thats Plane awesome.
Thin the Herd (Score:2)
I'm OK with a bunch of wealthy "enthusiasts" going up in a death trap on their own dime. Just don't let them fly over populated areas.
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Trolling aside, it is unlikely that they will pay to go over land where supersonic travel would be prohibited.
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Perfect.
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So, they take off and land on water? I didn't realize the Concorde was amphibious.
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So, they take off and land on water? I didn't realize the Concorde was amphibious.
there are plenty of coastal cities with airports right on the water, as soon as you clear the runway you are over water.
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You really are determined. But you can't troll me on this because I really don't care whether the Concorde flies or not - I have much higher priorities for the money that it would take to ride on the thing.
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I have much higher priorities for the money that it would take to ride on the thing.
You realize that airplanes don't use money for fuel, right? The money spent goes right back into the economy and gets used for other things.
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Yeah, but I want my money to go to things like "my kids' college fund" and "a new car" rather than a short thrill ride. I'm not their demographic :)
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You have no idea.
How do they plan to maintain it? (Score:2)
As for static displays of the Concorde, there is already one on display at the Intrepid [intrepidmuseum.org] in NYC. I expect there are others on display for visitors as well.
Re:How do they plan to maintain it? (Score:4, Interesting)
Anything within the limits of physics is possible if you have enough money.
When BA/AF said there was essentially no way to get parts to maintain the aircraft, what they meant was that there was no *economical* way to get those parts. Anything can be fabricated as a one-off part, it will just cost several hundred or thousands of dollars more than a mass-produced part. Send a drawing with the proper specifications and GDT to a well operated machine shop and they'll turn out nearly any part you need. Something more complicated simply takes more time and setup. It is possible you could have to pay to construct an entire facility to make a custom set of turbine blades, make ten, test 8, and have only two for spares? Sure. Again - it's only money.
Whether they will be able to make such a venture possible given schedules and maintenance requirements of modern aircraft is simply an exercise in capital funding and cash flow. If Virgin can take you to space for $200k, you can probably rehabilitate the Concord and offer seats on a flight for no more than half that.
Re:How do they plan to maintain it? (Score:5, Insightful)
This and the fact that you also need to get a valid airworthiness certificate from the local authorities for it to fly. Getting that without OEM support is not impossible, it's just improbable for this aircraft. We keep WWII aircraft flying with one off machined parts all the time, but those parts are not difficult to machine by a modern shop. The materials used are common and the older manufacturing techniques aren't cutting edge anymore. Those older aircraft also tend to have much more simple control mechanisms (Concorde was a primitive partial fly by wire system [concordesst.com]). You would end up scouring collectors and museums for spares, not to mention corralling certified maintenance techs to work it.
Then we get to the engines, they'll need to be rebuilt and eventually be rebladed. There are enough surplus parts to keep the J79s [youtube.com] from the 60's going, but there were thousands of those built. The Olympus 593s [wikipedia.org] were a one off just for the Concord, not a lot of surplus parts floating around. Manufacturing new blades would be incredibly cost prohibitive.
My personal belief, if they want to throw billions into it, the best they'll be able to do is static runs and taxi displays. I don't think they'll get it into the air again and certainly not carrying passengers. I just don't think they have the muster to get a full D check completed and any local authorities to authorize it.
A good write up [saveconcordegroup.co.uk] on what it would take. Impossible, no, improbable, yes.
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Considering the fact that engines and planes are designed together, you'd be buying an engine designed to work in a different plane. there is no hope.
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Actually, no, they are often not. The Boeing 787 Dreamliner, for example, is offered with a choice of two different engine models, one of which is also used on the 747. The Concorde's engines are probably unique to it, though, due to the plane's unusual requirements.
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The Concorde's engines are probably unique to it, though, due to the plane's unusual requirements.
Not "probably", totally...
The airplane, engine, and system combintion is one unit, none of it can be split up and done as parts.
For example, in supersonic flight, more than 50% of the thrust of the engines is actually produced by the inlet box on the front of the engine. The turbine engine core is only 9% of the total in flight supersonic thrust.
That is how it flies Mach 2 without afterburners for 3 hours. It gulps fuel like a drunk sailor at subsonic flight speeds, but is amazingly fuel efficient at Mach
Re:How do they plan to maintain it? (Score:4)
If you've got another spare 500 million laying around, sure. Like the OP stated, with enough money anything is possible (even designing an entirely new SST). But, in the case with the 593s, they were designed to work specifically with the air frame, intakes and nozzles. At mach 2 supersonic flight, thrust generation breaks down to roughly 8% from the engine compressor core, 29% from the nozzle, and 63% from the intake. It really is a magnificent system. More complex systems exist (aka SR-71, etc), but they are to be considered fully unified from a design standpoint.
So a new engine would mean a new intake design and nozzle, which further translates into structural modification to the wings, which translates into the aircraft no longer being allowed to operate under it's current type certificate by the authorities. This means the aircraft would end up needing to be re-certified through an approved flight test program to operated under an amended/derived type certificate. Aka, you might as well just build a new aircraft (you're going to burn through the $$ anyway).
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It might be cheaper to build an entirely new plane.
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If Virgin can take you to space for $200k,
Yeah, if.
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You can't exactly get those parts pressed at your local machine shop if you need replacements.
Why not? I mean where do you think prototypes come from. So yea you really can just order the parts, with the design from the local certified machine shop. It is however expensive and you get long lead times.
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So yea you really can just order the parts, with the design from the local certified machine shop.
you really don't know what goes into the process of manufacturing turbine blades, do you?
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So yea you really can just order the parts, with the design from the local certified machine shop.
you really don't know what goes into the process of manufacturing turbine blades, do you?
The aircraft industry has moved on from the 1960s and I would argue that is is next to impossible for a small, bespoke operation to deliver components with the same level of quality as a large scale production process. Aircraft parts are made for fleets of around a thousand aircraft. Large scale means that your production and testing processes can be highly repeatable.
Its like asking how expensive it would be to make ten modern CPUs from scratch, and get them working as well as one from the shop. Impossible
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You are getting quality and price mixed up. Less automation does not imply a reduction in quality, only lower standards of acceptance imply a reduction of quality.
There were only ever twenty Concordes, built at more than one site, so the originals were "a small, bespoke operation" in the first place anyway.
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Sorry I don't agree. Bentley will never have the quality of Mercedes or Toyota. They don't have enough eyes on the job.
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Plus, the originals were "bespoke" by your yardstick as well.
It would be very cruel to compare a one-off item like a space probe to your Toyota crack - do I really have to go there or do you get the idea that you can have quality without full automation?
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The monocrystalline ones came in later.
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The solution to this problem is money. Just 'cause AF and BA can't afford it (or rather, don't think it's remotely feasible to afford it) doesn't mean that someone with more money than brains can't do it.
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That would be the first time in a long time that money can't change laws.
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There are three Concordes around Paris that I know of:
- The air & Space museum at Le Bourget has one in a hanger that you can walk through. It was of the first 2 built & was used to prove Concorde's air worthiness. It's in the state it was left in in the mid 70s -- no seats or cabin furnishings, just late 60s recorder instrumentation.
- They have one up on a canted stand to make it look like it's taking off and banking left as you leave Charles de Gaulle Airport towards Paris. I assume it was strippe
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There's a Concorde in Seattle at the museum of flight. It belongs to Air France I think and it's on extended loan. As part of the conditions of the loan, the museum has to keep the airplane in near-flying condition at all times should they ever want it back. This does not mean it could fly without serious work, but it does mean they keep the plane clean and free from corrosion, inside and out. This means that on certain days they cannot open the airplane for tourists when the humidity is too high. The en
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I've driven by the Orly Concorde a few hundred times (It's on the way to a client's offices) but that's the only time I've ever seen it opened or even anyone waling around it. Most of the time it just looks abandoned. If you follow the map link I gave you can see a picture or two.
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There's one in NYC on the Intrepid as well..
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Boeing's Museum of Flight has one on display [museumofflight.org] in Seattle.
Interesting note: On it's last flight in 2003, it flew supersonic over Canada. So there are still some places one can do this without a bunch of whiners getting their panties in a bunch.
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The interdiction is on flying supersonic is over inhabited areas so flying over most of Canada doesn't count...
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> When Air France and British Airways mothballed the Concorde, they claimed that one justification was that there was essentially no way to get parts to maintain them. How will this group get around that? You can't exactly get those parts pressed at your local machine shop if you need replacements.
Well, they may be able to if they completely dismantle the aircraft, then rebuild it as an experimental. Then, as the manufacturer (assuming they manage to achieve manufacturing of >51% parts in the rebuild)
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Then, as the manufacturer (assuming they manage to achieve manufacturing of >51% parts in the rebuild) they would be able to legally produce and install their own parts for maintenance.
Again someone with no idea of the complex manufacturing processes required to manufacture turbine blades. There are only a very few places in the whole world where it's done.
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> Again someone with no idea of the complex manufacturing processes required to manufacture turbine blades
I understand that - refer to another post I made in this thread where I stated that very few machine shops have the expertise or equipment on hand to produce such parts. :-p
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Actually I stated that very point in the post to which you responded with your basis ad hominem attack. Let me copy & paste for your convenience:
"Then, as the manufacturer (assuming they manage to achieve manufacturing of >51% parts in the rebuild) they would be able to legally produce and install their own parts for maintenance. It would require more expertise and finder environmental controls than your typical machine shop could provide."
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Another rich people toy (Score:2)
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Americans hate the Concorde, because it was better than anything the USA managed to build. Admit it.
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Americans hate the Concorde, because it was better than anything the USA managed to build. Admit it.
yeah americans are jealous of a plane that can't break even when they charge $5000 a seat for a flight?
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obsolete technology. But ... (Score:2)
You can see one now (Score:2)
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I wouldn't want to spend much time in there.
The whole idea of the Concorde is that the flight is over before you notice how cramped it is.
You pay $5000 for a short ride, so they ply you with champagne and fine food to distract you from the crappy interior and the frightening price.
The problem was not "Concorde in the Air" (Score:1)
It was "Concorde All Over the Place"
Grounded not due to crash (Score:3)
After the 2000 crash, several Concordes were modified to prevent a recurrence, and were put back into service. They were grounded in 2003 due to reductions in passenger numbers (9/11/2001 plus a general recession) and due to a decision by Airbus to stop maintenance support.
Hydraulics (Score:1)
I've recently listened to a nice interview with an ex-Concorde captain from British Airways and I've learned quite a few interesting things about that plane. One of the last questions was his opinion about if the existing Concordes could be put back into the air. The answer was 'rather not' because of the apparently notoriously difficult maintenance of the hydraulic system and the fact that it needed constant caring while in use. Sitting around for quite a few years now without any care or without having be
Price... (Score:1)
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"Nostalgia should not factor into a business plan."
Why not? It helps selling quite a lot of things, from straight razors to Morgan Roadsters.