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Farewell To The Concorde 486

Posted by Hemos from the good-bye-cruel-world dept.
mstamat writes "BBC has a number of features on the Concorde airplanes, the timeline of their existence and their retirement. Among else, there is a virtual tour of Concorde's cockpit and a few words from journalist Mary Goldring who was opposing Concordes from the start."
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Farewell To The Concorde More

Farewell To The Concorde

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  • able to power a supersonic jet just with grapes.

  • Never to be, I guess... (Score:3, Funny)

    by pegr__ ( 144172 ) on Monday October 20, 2003 @10:06AM (#7260440) Homepage
    I've been wanting to ride the Concorde for as long as I can remember... With only a few years before I could afford it, they are no more. I guess I'll have to be happy with consumer-grade space travel. Now hurry up before my kids take my cash and waste it on an education!

  • Concorde II (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Brahmastra ( 685988 )
    Hopefully there is a concorde II with the following improvements:
    1. A glass cockpit instead of the analog crap in the old concorde
    2. More efficient turbofan engines instead of the gas-guzzling turbojets on the Concorde.
    3. A more roomy cabin

    • Re:Concorde II (Score:5, Informative)

      by matthew.thompson ( 44814 ) <mattNO@SPAMactuality.co.uk> on Monday October 20, 2003 @10:13AM (#7260503) Journal
      Concorde's engines are actually the most efficient of their type in the world.

      And although you think of all the analogue crap in Concorde it had fly by wire when designed, the bulk of it's instrumentation was digital and the brake design is only now being adopted by other larger aircraft.

      Concorde, despite being 26 years old in full service and even older by design, is still leading the way in terms of aircraft design.

    • Re:Concorde II (Score:5, Informative)

      by TamMan2000 ( 578899 ) on Monday October 20, 2003 @10:31AM (#7260645) Journal
      2. More efficient turbofan engines instead of the gas-guzzling turbojets on the Concorde.

      Ummm...

      A low bypass turbofan (read lower efficiency) or a turbojet would do better than a high bypass (modern) engine at those speeds.

      You have competing effects that you have to optimize. Fuel spent because engine is inefficient (to varying degrees), and fuel spent overcoming drag. High bypass turbofans, the efficient ones, have HUGE frontal areas, and the induced drag because of this at supersonic speeds severely outweighs the efficiency benefits gained.

      From memory the bypass on the 777 varies from about 5-9 (depends on engine manufacturer, and version of aircraft), the only supersonic jet in the world that doesn't need an afterburner to go supersonic is the F-22, it's bypass ratio is under 2 (again from memory). If I had my way, a future supersonic transport would have a low bypass turbofan or turbojet (same as a bypass 1 turbofan) sized such that an augmenter is not needed.

      BTW, the Concorde engines aren't guzzlers because they are turbojets, it is because it is augmented for the duration of supersonic flight.

      (yes I am an aerospace engineer at a jet engine company...)
      • the only supersonic jet in the world that doesn't need an afterburner to go supersonic is the F-22, it's bypass ratio is under 2

        You are mistaken, as the Eurofighter can also go supersonic without burner - and it's dry t/w ratio of >2 allows it to climb vertically without burner too. (It too has a BPR of about 1.5 IIRC.)

        On the other hand, at full reheat it can pull some amazing moves - that's where its mostly used, extra reaction thrust for turns.
    • Do you have a clue what you're talking about? That "analog crap" was state of the art when the plane was built and also I'd love to see you
      stick afterburners (which concorde uses) on a high bypass turbofan and expect them to do anything.
      • I'd love to see you stick afterburners (which concorde uses) on a high bypass turbofan and expect them to do anything.

        They would do just fine. As long as you design enough stall margin into the fan :)

        Do a search for duct burner, it is basically an afterburner in the bypass duct. They work by the same method as an afterburner, but are much better for high bypass engines because you don't have to make the engine longer (and heavier) to use one. I don't know of any engines in production that use them, but
    • .Hopefully there is a concorde II with the following improvements:
      1. A glass cockpit instead of the analog crap in the old concorde
      2. More efficient turbofan engines instead of the gas-guzzling turbojets on the Concorde.
      3. A more roomy cabin
      4. A working business model / not paid for by taxpayers

      Tor
      • 4. A working business model / not paid for by taxpayers
        What's wrong with a working business model that's paid for by taxpayers?

        The roads you're so fond of driving your climate-changing SUV are working under a business model that's heavily paid for by taxpayers, boy.

        • What's wrong with a working business model that's paid for by taxpayers?

          Nothing, as long as it's my business model, and not yours. Not to mention that "working" is rarely defined as "loses money hand-over-fist" as Concorde did.

        • What's wrong with a working business model that's paid for by taxpayers?

          The roads you're so fond of driving your climate-changing SUV are working under a business model that's heavily paid for by taxpayers, boy.

          Why on earth should tax payers subsidize concorde travel, a luxery goods enjoyed by a priviledged few?

          I hate driving and I don't have a car, let alone an SUV. I would be all in favor for reducing government spending on roads. Although admitevly, economic theory does lend some support for tax

  • An idea that really wasn't ready for prime time (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mind21_98 ( 18647 ) on Monday October 20, 2003 @10:08AM (#7260462) Homepage Journal
    The Concorde really wasn't ready for prime time. With tickets starting at around $6000, fast travel to Europe was only affordable by the rich and by those whose employers would pay for it. Not to mention that you could only fly out of New York and Washington, DC to London and Paris. The technology was impressive for its time though, and I hope another attempt is made at high-speed air travel, knowing the problems with the Concorde.
    • Neither BA nor Air France ever published financial numbers on just their Concorde service, but it was widely thought that even at $6k per ticket (and that's one-way!), Concorde lost money. These airlines subsidized Concorde as a status symbol.
    • Lots of airlines had options on Concordes, and at one point there was talk of building over 200 of them. That would have probably brought the cost right down.

      Customers who dipped out included Pan Am and The Shah of Iran. Look what happened to them....

      • Unfortunately, it wasn't the cost of the plane but the cost of operation. Building them in bulk wouldn't have reduced that cost significantly. The real issues are that you can't operate the thing over populated areas, making it only useful for transoceanic flights. And, more importantly, the market of people who are willing to pay 3 to 5 times the price for a ticket, to save themselves 6 hours of flying time, is extremely small.

      • Lots of airlines had options on Concordes, and at one point there was talk of building over 200 of them. That would have probably brought the cost right down.
        Air Chance paid the second to last Concorde $20,000, and for the last one, a measly $2,000 (yes, two thousand)...

        (source of this information [amazon.fr])

    • A few slight corrections (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      It was possible to buy a "one way on Concorde, one way on 747" return flight to New York (from London) for under 2000 pounds, even up to about July of this year (one of my friends did just that and got his flight a couple of weeks ago). Compare that with the usual first class fares from London to New York, which I just checked at www.ba.com, flying tomorrow and returning the day after would be 6,596.70 POUNDS (that's the better part of 10k dollars). When you compare first class fares, Concorde was moderatel
    • Some people are banking on a more extreme version of the idea. Economic justifications of the X prize have included the development of suborbital rocket courier and passenger services, when you (or your package) absolutely has to get to Tokyo in two hours from New York. Of course you would be paying five or six figures for the privilege, which makes Concorde seem like taking the bus.
    • Opposition to Concorde in the US also had a lot to do with it. The 'not-invented-here' lobby can be pretty powerful.

      • Opposition to Concorde in the US also had a lot to do with it. The 'not-invented-here' lobby can be pretty powerful.

        NIH wasn't all of it...probably not even most of it. Luddism was a bigger part of it. Boeing had a supersonic airliner, the 2707, in the works that would've been faster and offered more space than either the Concorde or the Tu-144 (the Russian supersonic airliner, similar in size and speed to the Concorde). The environmentalist wackos of the early '70s shot it down. Once they had the 2

  • Everybody saw the burning Concorde via this crappy home video from this people in their car.

    I guess the sole reason for shutting the concorde down were these pictures burned in the public memory.

    Anyone 'remembers' the Hindenburg pictures [google.com]? The first 8 of 12 pictures are showing the Zeppelin rather than the politician.

    concorde is "only" 4 out of 12 [google.com].
    • The burning Concorde was not the reason for ending the service. They just took the opportunity. BA and Air France were contemplating for nearly a decade on grounding that elegant dinosaur.

      But - without the Concorde the Airbus Consortium - and today Airbus Industries would never have come to the market. We would have no alternative to Boeing nowadays.

      All people coming to Germany who are interested in Aircraft History should take a day at "Technik Museum" in Sinsheim near Speyer.

      CU
    • "I guess the sole reason for shutting the concorde down were these pictures burned in the public memory."

      I guess you`re right - and all those pictures of 747s, crashed trains, crushed cars etc must be the reason no-one uses those methods of transport either.
      • typical slashdot sarcastic response. Try actually thinking about what he said. The fact is that the concorde had an excellent safety record. Only one ever crashed and that was because of a flat tire. In spite of that, they grounded the whole fleet for several months. You can't say that wasn't an overreaction. I think it was very similar to the Hindenburg or the Titanic.
    • It's interesting that you bring up the Hindenburg disaster as it exemplifies not only the effect such images have but how conclusions drawn from these disasters are very often completely wrong.

      This short paper [e-sources.com] discusses whether or not hydrogen, the often cited culprit for the Hindenburg disaster, is really any more dangerous than any other fuel (I am well aware the zeppilins didn't use hydrogen as fuel but in the context of the paper it is an appropriate description). This is very relevent as it blows a

  • Sad to see it go (Score:5, Insightful)

    by NickFitz ( 5849 ) <slashdot@nOSPAM.nickfitz.co.uk> on Monday October 20, 2003 @10:12AM (#7260492) Homepage

    The Concorde is a beautiful thing, both aesthetically pleasing and impressive in its use of (for the time) advanced technology. It's a shame to see it go, even if the likes of me couldn't afford it.

    I don't know which is more impressive: that it was done with slide rules, or that the English and French stopped squabbling long enough to agree on which units of measurement to use :-)

  • Well... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Bluesman ( 104513 ) on Monday October 20, 2003 @10:15AM (#7260510) Homepage
    Mary Goldring sounds like a fun, upbeat person. I think I'll invite her to my Halloween party.

  • Farewell? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Stonent1 ( 594886 ) <stonent&stonent,pointclark,net> on Monday October 20, 2003 @10:17AM (#7260543) Journal
    That was the problem, the Concorde did not fare well. One problem with it is that early on in its career, it was determined that supersonic travel over populated land could shatter windows, upset livestock and generally annoy people. Thus limiting travel to continent to continent travel. If only it could have made a space in the New York to LA slot, London to Moscow (over land) or even LA to Montreal it could have allowed more funding to be developed into making the travel more efficient, cleaner environmentally, and lower prices. They introduced a Supersonic Limo into a world that wanted a Supersonic Bus. That being said, the Concorde is still a breathtaking aircraft to behold and 30 some odd years later still looks more modern than anything current from Boeing or Airbus. It is sad to see it gone.
    • I'd rather have a SST fly over once in a while, than the A-10 warthogs that buzz my roof every hour or so.

      I'm scared they are going to kill my tropical fish.

      • Re:Farewell? (Score:3, Funny)

        by jafiwam ( 310805 )
        Kill your fish? A 7-barrel 30mm cannon is a little overkill for some tropical fish don't you think?

        They would not even be able to re-use the tank afterward.

        A half a cup of bleach would do the job just fine.

        • Re:Farewell? (Score:3, Informative)

          by fishbowl ( 7759 )
          I know you're joking, but a 55 gallon aquarium is a heavy mass of water. Tempered glass under stress can shatter under low frequency waves.

          I have a lot of time and money invested in my fish. I'd be more than a little upset if they were killed by the subsonics from a military jet, and this *DOES* happen.

          I don't know whether I would be more upset about my fish or about the mess. But I'm pretty sure insurance would take care of the mess, minus a $250 deductible. I don't know if you'd want to clean up 60

    • Re:Farewell? (Score:2, Informative)

      by applemasker ( 694059 )
      Supersonic aircraft don't leave a wake of shattered glass and spooked cattle in their wake. Although the Concorde has a reputation for being noisy at low altitudes, particularly on takeoff, it only makes sonic booms passing through Mach 1 when accellerating or decelerating. This occurs offshore, away from populated areas. No reason why it couldn't fly supersonic across the Continental U.S., so long as it accellerated and decelerated off each coast.

      In 1990, a SR-71 set the following records over the C

      • Re:Farewell? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by 0123456 ( 636235 )
        "Although the Concorde has a reputation for being noisy at low altitudes, particularly on takeoff, it only makes sonic booms passing through Mach 1 when accellerating or decelerating."

        Uh, no, it makes sonic booms any time it's travelling faster than Mach 1. However, the damage claims are probably bogus.

    • Re:Farewell? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Alan Partridge ( 516639 )
      "One problem with it is that early on in its career, it was determined that supersonic travel over populated land could shatter windows, upset livestock and generally annoy people."

      As someone who has lived in Concorde's flightpath (about 5 miles from the end of the runway) I can confidently assure you that - while certainly noticeable - Concorde is significantly less annoying than a) some twat on a Harley b) an unladen 38 tonne truck or c) some boy racer exploring the rev limiter on his BMW 325. Loud, but
      • The Concorde was banned from Logan in Boston due to pressure from residential groups in East Boston, which is right under some of Logan's flight paths, and from some of the towns bordering Boston Harbor. The pressure groups' arguments always sounded bogus to me, but there you are.

  • Technological regression (Score:5, Interesting)

    by simulate ( 323156 ) on Monday October 20, 2003 @10:19AM (#7260559)
    The retirement of the Concorde is a rare example of technological regression. If our children ask us why airplanes don't fly faster, we can tell them we used to have supersonic commercial jets, but now we don't.

    This isn't necessarily bad since the Concordes lost money throughout their existence.

    What are some other example of technology regression, I wonder?

    • Re:Technological regression (Score:5, Insightful)

      by HarveyBirdman ( 627248 ) on Monday October 20, 2003 @10:32AM (#7260656) Journal
      Is it really fair to call it technological regression? There's more to flight than raw speed. The Concordes were notoriously inefficient. I think an argument can be made that some of Boeing's latest offerings are technologically more advanced.

      You have a similar situation with the SR-71. It's still probably the one of the most amazing and fastest planes ever built, but it required a support staff similar to that of an aircraft carrier.

      It's possible the Space Shuttle may be replaced by cheap, simple capsules. Technological advancement isn't always about faster and more complicated. It's also about discovering what's the most efficent and practical way to do something. They've done a lot of work on advanced space planes, but there's a lot of hurdles there, and the space plane could easily become another boondoggle like the Shuttle.

      In the early years, cars got faster and faster. Now we're looking to more safety and fuel efficiency. And some days I think we might have been better off when our car engines didn't have 57 computers all over the place increasing the rate of failure. Most people I know who were into working on their own cars have just given up. There's just too much crap under the hood now, some of it requiring specialized and expensive equipment just to test. The manuals are multivolume.

      • Is it really fair to call it technological regression? There's more to flight than raw speed. The Concordes were notoriously inefficient. I think an argument can be made that some of Boeing's latest offerings are technologically more advanced.

        So true! The true innovation of the jet engine was not that it was faster. It was because it reduced vibration as compared to props and was more efficient. Faster was merely a side benefit. The physics involved in commercial supersonic travel just don't make it

      • "You have a similar situation with the SR-71. It's still probably the one of the most amazing and fastest planes ever built, but it required a support staff similar to that of an aircraft carrier."

        Once the USAF took it over. While it was a CIA/Lockheed plane I believe the ground support crew consisted of about half a dozen people, and they were more reliable too.

        The SR-71 was highly inefficient fuel-wise (AFAIR it burnt about $100k of fuel every hour at Mach 3, making Concorde look cheap), but it wasn't h
        • Once the USAF took it over. While it was a CIA/Lockheed plane I believe the ground support crew consisted of about half a dozen people, and they were more reliable too.

          Well, yeah, they were also newer at that point. I always read that they were at the point of needing a lot of parts that were manufactured strictly for the Blackbird, so if you include stuff like that, this extended family of a "support staff" was growing quite alarmingly.

      • Is it really fair to call it technological regression? There's more to flight than raw speed.

        Indeed. Here in the UK there is a massive market for cheap flights. We don't generally care about how long it takes to get from A to B (and we don't mind going via C and D) especially when, if we book early enough, we can get it for less than 10 pounds (about $15).

        I know several people going skiing in February to Austria and the flight is costing them 35 pounds. It would have been only 7 pounds if they'd booked

    • Had zip to do with technology. Had everything to do with the effects of sonic booms on populated areas, and the fact that the Concorde was designed by subsidized European firms as a showoff piece instead of an economically sound transport aircraft.
    • Thirty years ago we had man-rated hardware that could fly to the moon and back.
    • /me starts to mutter...alpha...amiga...would keep going but the list would get too long...
  • Didn't you all see the fireball [slashdot.org] that baby made?

  • Farewall (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ItsIllak ( 95786 )
    Concorde passes over my house regularly, and it will be greatly missed after Friday. Hopefully the path taken for one of the three incoming concordes will be this way so I can bid it farewall.

    It's a huge pity that I never managed to fly on it as it's possible I'll now ever get to move faster than the speed of sound (relative to the earth!).

    It's pretty rare that any industry manages to combine such technical feats with such beauty (the only other airplane I can think of that managed it was the blackbird),
    • It's pretty rare that any industry manages to combine such technical feats with such beauty (the only other airplane I can think of that managed it was the blackbird), and it will be a huge loss to the skies.

      In that case, the pleasure of looking at the XB-70 Valkyrie [labiker.org] awaits you. IMHO the Valkyrie is even more beautiful than Concorde.

  • where their customers are.. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by martin ( 1336 ) <maxsecNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Monday October 20, 2003 @10:35AM (#7260681) Journal
    Documentary on BBC 2 last night..

    40 of their frequent flyers where killed in the WTC. Not only that, those 40 also authorised Concorde flights for their company's staff, so in that single day they lost a huge number of customers.

    It was one of my dreams to fly on Concorde, but by the time I had the cash to allow me a special trip I had a family to support, so my priorities are now elsewhere.

    .

  • Tu-144 "Charger" (Score:3, Interesting)

    by iJed ( 594606 ) on Monday October 20, 2003 @10:35AM (#7260685) Homepage
    This may interest some of you:
    The Russian Tu-144 "Charger" was actually the first SST. It first flew in 1968 about a year before the Concorde. In its later revisions it had a longer range than Concorde and was more fuel economic. However, for various reasons, the Soviets never really used the Tupolev 144. Its interesting to also note that NASA picked this aircraft over Concorde for various tests done in the late '90s.
    • They picked it probably because BA and Air France didn't have a concorde spare to lend NASA whereas the russian plane wasn't exactly in high passenger
      demand at the time. Plus it was built from (allegedly) stolen plans to the concorde.

    • Re:Tu-144 "Charger" (Score:3, Informative)

      by mikerich ( 120257 )
      In its later revisions it had a longer range than Concorde and was more fuel economic.

      It had a longer range only if it did not go supersonic since it needed afterburners for supersonic cruise. There were several unresolved problems with the Tu144 including inefficient engines and a double-delta wing which was not as good as the ogival wing on Concorde.

      The Tu144 was a Kruschev kludge to beat Concorde. The original design with four engines under the belly was the one that made all the early records, but

  • Nice pics of Mary. She looks like she's been eating lemons. Could it be because it took 30 years to prove her right? I mean, imagine how you might look after thirty years of going "Any minute now. I know I'm right. You'll see. Any minute now, and this will fail..."
  • ... these Monday morning quarterbacks like this Mary Goldring? Bah...
    "It's nice to be proved right. I knew it wasn't going to sell because I was told it wasn't going to sell."
    So she believed whomever told her it wasn't going to sell, and on the strength of that, the rest of us should have believed her? What kind of logic is that?

  • I think it has more to do with the passengers... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by El Camino SS ( 264212 ) on Monday October 20, 2003 @10:49AM (#7260826)
    When the Concorde killed all of those people, you have to ask yourself who can afford a six thousand dollar ticket?

    Rich... very, very rich people. Their families can hire very, very, very expensive lawyers to make a corporation pay very, very, dearly for their mistake. Think of the lawyers for the families that they can afford. Add that to the cost of running a supersonic, high-end aviation service. It just isn't possible anymore.

    Yeah, if one of the regular world dies in a plane crash, we can probably get a class action settlement for burial expenses and some change from the airline. You can bet your sweet tail that when a group of people that wealthy die in a plane crash, that there will be an entire nation of lawyers after your corporation. The Concorde was getting expensive. I guarantee after all of the rich people died it got outrageously expensive to operate.

  • Amazing aircraft... (Score:2, Informative)

    by D-Cypell ( 446534 )
    I was fortunate enough to experience a flight in one of these amazing planes several years ago.

    British Airways used to do a short 'experience concorde' flight that would take off from RAF Manston (South east coast of the UK), fly around the south coast and land again 45 mins later back at manston. The flight was subsonic due to the realitly short distance but even so, you could really feel the power of the plane, especially during take off.

    The flight was fully commentated and some of the statistics about
    • the plane has to be built to allow for a 6 inch+ stretch during flight.

      I remember a documentary that showed the effects of this by showing the changing gap between panels in the cockpit. Interesting but scary stuff!

      Was the stretch caused by drag? Or has Einstein got anything to do with it? ;-)

  • It is on its tour of the Uk and i was there to greet it at its last flight into my home city of birmingham, i took some pics but alas not digital so will have to wait for developing - may link to them scanned in my journal.
    Its a magnificent and loud aircraft, also have a few videos (avi) of it flying overhead / taxying from today :-D

  • A sad day (Score:3, Insightful)

    by PhilipPeake ( 711883 ) on Monday October 20, 2003 @11:20AM (#7261081)
    It is truly sad that Concorde service has come to an end. I am old enough to remember the whole history of the project, and my father actually worked on some of the Concorde components.

    I noted the comments earlier about old-fashioned cockpits and non-turbofan engines - well, just remember that Concorde was essentially designed with slide-rules. Computer simulations just were not up to it in those days. Certainly, computing was not at the stage where a glass-cockpit was even conceivable. Let alone practical. As for turbo-fan engines, do they really work at 60,000 feet?

    As for being cost effective, for the airlines BA and Air France, it actually was. It only becomes a loss maker if you insist on taking into account all the R&D. That loss was picked up by the consortium that built the planes, not BA or Air France.

    The thing that killed the aircraft was purely and simply American sour grapes when Boeing finally admitted that their own late entry into supersonic air travel was over budget, overdue and over weight and would never fly. There were plenty of American airline with options to buy, but they all pulled out when the American government then decided to ban overland commercial supersonic flight, making the aircraft practically useless to American airlines. Of course, many military aircraft continue to fly supersonic over the American mainland, and cows still give uncurdled milk, children are not thrown from their beds by the sonic shock-wave, and there are not hoards of angry sleep-deprived and shell-shocked American citizens beating at the doors of congress to limit this evil.

    As far as reliability goes, one fatal crash in 30 years of operation is actually pretty good. Admittedly, the somewhat spectacular film of the doomed flight didn't help.

    I was actually lucky enough to make a concorde flight once, London to Washington DC. That really IS the way to make that trip, and it could have been commonplace now... Unfortunately, Boeing had its way, and its failure to be able to copy the Concorde was mitigated by its friends in Congress making it a moot point.

    Remember to thank those people who represent you next time you are sitting on an 11 hour flight from London to LA.

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