Concorde

[Booty]

Concorde was just awesome, there is no other way to describe it. Sure the amount of computing power that Concorde had could now probably be stored in something the size of a shoe box, but so what. We just do not do / build anything like this anymore. I will never forget when Captain McMullen announced over the intercom that we were over the West Coast of Ireland and he was going to accelerate to Mach 1 and that was awesome, then he announced we were about to accelerate to Mach 2 and that was simply awesome too.

[quattrokid]

I have video 8 coverage of my flight from taxiing to landing and mini disc for audio as well... need to get it on dvd sometime

[Cornholio]

Originally Posted by quattrokid

France pulled the plug on our Concordes because Air France had the contract to supply parts and after the French accident it was a perfect excuse to pull the plug on Concorde..

Completly incorrect. Both airlines spent a fortune on getting the aircraft re-engineered to get rid of the problems that led to the accident. And then returned them to service for over 2 years.

[quattrokid]

yea... until it crashed !!!

Airbus had the job of spares and decided to drop it . Costs was massive compared to return revenue and with the age of the planes they were due a very expensive strip down major structural survey.

[dest]

I wish they had of let Branson buy them and return to flight

[Cornholio]

Originally Posted by quattrokid

yea... until it crashed !!!

Airbus had the job of spares and decided to drop it . Costs was massive compared to return revenue and with the age of the planes they were due a very expensive strip down major structural survey.

The crash happened in 2000. The fleet of aircraft were retired in 2003. The accident had nothing to do with the aircraft retirement. Retirement was for commercial reasons. Old aircraft (and concorde was getting very long in the tooth) suffer from much higher maintenance costs, these were going to steeply rise as the aircraft aged.
Airbus not only provided spares, but also acted as the Design Authority. This means that there are additional costs over and above spares / maintenance that had to be paid for.
BA / AF were not prepared to pay for this, so the aircraft was retired.

Even if it hadn't been retired in 2003, you can guarantee that the huge oil price rise in the last few years would have made it even more unecconomical, and put an end to it's service.

Concorde, at the end of the day, was a complete flop.
It made a huge loss as a commercial venture (which the UK / French taxpayer footed the bill for). Effectively no airline followed through with orders for the aircraft (both BA and AF were effectively given their examples), as the chance of getting an ROI on it were pretty much zero (not helped by the fuel crisis, not allowed to supersonic over land, etc. ). I gather that it never made much money for BA / AF either.

Concorde was a technical marvel. Real cutting edge stuff. Back in the 60's......
Nowadays, it's all very old hat.

The airlines took the right decision to pull the plug, and possibly should have done so a number of years before the accident. Branson's offer to take them over was effectively just a poke at BA, I doubt that he would have ever flown them, even if BA had given them to him (he was only prepared to pay a peppercorn price for them).

It'd be nice to see one back in the air, but I suspect that the operational and refurb costs would be in the order of at least 10 times what the Vulcan cost to get back in the air. Somewhere in the region of £20million+ per year just to maintain and keep serviceable.
Besides, I believe that BA / AF still effectively own the aircraft, and to return one to flight would require their permission. Which is just not going to happen......

[steveb]

Brought a hand made model of concorde today .....and a sport qiuattro .................................................. a minchamps one :-)