The most elegant passenger aircraft ever to reach the heavens, i do not know but if you did you are total bad eggs.
No, you may recall it was debris on the Charles de Gaulle runway that was the coup de grace. Had Concordes been profitable at that point, that might not have been the end, but they weren't, so it was. The end was inevitable, but they sure were pretty. Same goes for the VC-10, Caravelle, and Comet: Workhorses can't get by on good looks alone. Every time I taxied by Concorde at Kennedy, I was completely smitten, and I miss them. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
The crash,(the only one) was the final straw, i am told that it was the Americans crying about sonic booms that killed off sales.
Yanks cried no louder than the rest of ICAO membership: Civilian booms have long been banned over "the Continent" as well.
1) Oook... that post was exquisitely painful to read. 2) The Concorde was a notoriously flawed creation. Hmm, what else. It had almost no room for cargo or comfort features, it cost your first born son to ride, the lack of headroom killed anyone over about six feet, and it was little more than a plaything for the rich and famous. What struck the mortal blow was that it was terribly noisy, above and beyond the roar of more conventional jet aircraft. Because of this, it couldn't land at most airports. Oh, and it looked like an anteater. And, what? It was prototyped in 1965. It had a good run.
fishtail: "Did you not read about the missing wheel spacer idea?" Did not. I recall it was a tailskid "wear strip" that a DC-10 left behind on a CDG runway that exploded a tire, unluckily holed a fuel tank, and the afterburners did the rest.
It's a waste of energy and a huge source of greenhouse gasses. It's also not practical transportation for the masses, just rich folks.
spidergoat: "It's a waste of energy and a huge source of greenhouse gasses." Concorde's pollution was relatively minute by comparison with the many bigger lumbering monsters still plying the airways. "It's also not practical transportation for the masses, just rich folks." That is true for a lot of wonderful vehicles. Clockwood: "it looked like an anteater." Bite your tongue! OK I admit, with the nose drooped, just a bit. Still, far prettier than Paris Hilton's shnoz. "It had a good run." A fantastic run, and longer than some more profitable busses. fishtail: "It could have been developed, if the order book had not been closed." Nah, as Clockwood said, she had a good run.
So if the American super sonic aircraft and the Russian concordski ever reached production would the situation be the same?
I think so. While there may be a market near-term for some faster bizjets, not so for big loads any time soon.
Concorde's pollution was relatively minute by comparison with the many bigger lumbering monsters still plying the airways. Lumbering means slow, slow means less fuel, less fuel means less pollution. If Concords replaced the current fleet, it would be far more wasteful.
You people are soulless, concord was a mechanical icon, a thing of beauty way ahead of any thing flying at the time, heck there were few if any military aircraft that could catch it. And even Richard Brandston was refused the right to utilise this goddess of the sky.
True, he was so important to me that i did not know how to spell his name. But you are all avoiding the point, if America or Russia had a super sonic passenger aircraft would it follow the same fate as concord.
Soulless? Why, thank you. Civilian airplanes exist for two potential reasons. They either make somebody money or they act as a worthless, but amusing, plaything of some goon with a billion dollars they don't know how to spend. Apparently the Concorde neither made certain parties enough money and it wasn't amusing enough to keep around as a novelty. If things worked as you say, the Spruce Goose and the old prop-driven aircraft of WWII and the old seaplanes (the most beautyful aircraft ever designed, by my estimates) would still crowd the skies. Now they are all museum pieces while jets, the noisy and barren-looking (but fast and efficient) things that they are, have ursurped their position. This sort of thing happens. Get used to it. I like to think that the plane took age with a little more grace than Paris is going to. When she is as old as the Concorde, it will be interesting to see how well enbalmed she is with all the drugs, booze, and botox she will have imbibed over the years. The Concorde at least knew when to bow out gracefully and with some style.
Unless it was better than the Concorde in some major respect, almost certainly. The fact that more supersonic planes aren't springing out of the woodwork seems proof of that.
