Simviation Forum - For those who want the concorde back

Reply #15 - Nov 26^th, 2006 at 4:11pm

C Offline
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Jake, I'd be interested to know how you consider the Concorde to be a failure?

Some political elements did their best to limit it's success certainly - no prizes to guessing where from...

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Reply #16 - Nov 26^th, 2006 at 4:55pm

Heathaze Ex Member

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The crash was never used by BA as an excuse for dumping it. They desperatly wanted to keep it flying, and for numerous months gave Air France parts to keep theres flying in an attempt to convince EADS to keep supplying the parts. They put all that money into the saftey and comfort upgrades. They didn't do that with the intention of benching the plane only a couple of years later.

I stand corrected.

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Reply #17 - Nov 26^th, 2006 at 9:17pm

Jakemaster Ex Member

Oops. I went off on the wrong tangent there.

By'failure' I mean that the concorde, COMMERCIALLY, was never a big success.

I really do admire the design, its a beautiful plane and the engineering behind it and its complexity is incredible. I can only DREAM of designing something like it when I become an aerospace engineer.

I would LOVE to see it fly, but I know its not going to happen for the sme reason why it ISNT flying right now. The plane was TOO far ahead of its time and so it never could be a success because it was too expensive to operate. It burns too much fuel, its too big to go supersonic over land, and its just not a commercially sound design. Therefore, I don't think we should be admiring it TOO much because it didnt have a huge impact on aviation. The deHavilland Comet had a HUGE impact. The 747 had a HUGE impact. The 787 will probably also have a big impact as well as the A350. The A380 so far isn't really doing much Tongue

. But the concorde: It caused Boeing and Tupolev to come up with their own designs, but neither got far because the idea of a supersonic passenger plane is a fantasy, It probably will never become a viable economic interest. The concorde was a failure in the sense that only 2 airlines actually operated it, it did not carry that many passengers over the atlantic, and it really didn't change the look of air transportation in the long run.

The concorde should sit in museums like the Spruce Goose: Both are marvelous designs, but neither should or ever will fly again because they weren't all that successful.

Again, I am not trying to bash the concorde, I really admire it, heck I have a model of it sitting right next to me and I occasionally pick it up just to look at it. Its a good looking plane and a great design, even though it doesnt even come close to the DC-3 in either case ... Grin

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Reply #18 - Nov 26^th, 2006 at 9:23pm

Jakemaster Ex Member

Heathaze, the US companies DID make a 'concorde' Boeing BUILT a SST: It wa a lager concorde style aircraft, similar shape except it had a variable wing much like the tomcat. TI never flew because Boeing knew it would be a commercial failure.

The biggest problem with a supersonic passenger jet is that for the amount of fuel and the fuel prices, they just cannot hold that many passengers comfortably. A supersonic business jet could be a resounding succes, and probably will be when they are built (I believe dassault and another company are planning some), but a concorde style large passenger jet will probably never work.

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Reply #19 - Nov 26^th, 2006 at 10:35pm

expat Offline
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Quote:

Oops. I went off on the wrong tangent there.

By'failure' I mean that the concorde, COMMERCIALLY, was never a big success.

Not quite understanding on your insistence that Concorde was a commercial failure. On average Concorde made and operating profit of £30-50 Million a year for British Airways in the boom years where many passengers were traveling first class. British Airways reportedly received £1.75 Billion in revenue for Concorde services against an operating cost of around £1 Billion. Air France made a much smaller profit, but profit is profit and not failure. Also more than 2.5 million people paid to travel on here since it started commercial passenger services in 1976 and considering she only has 128 seats and flew twice in a day I would say that was not too bad.

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Reply #20 - Nov 27^th, 2006 at 4:42am

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The concorde was a failure in the sense that only 2 airlines actually operated it, it did not carry that many passengers over the atlantic, and it really didn't change the look of air transportation in the long run.

The truth of the matter is that Concorde was deliberately killed off by politics. It was never allowed to succeed. This is a familiar story. http://www.concordesst.com/history/orders.html

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Reply #21 - Nov 27^th, 2006 at 5:29am

C Offline
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...and the small matter of a minor oil crisis in the early 1970s!

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Reply #22 - Nov 27^th, 2006 at 8:24am

Chris_F Offline
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Just to side with Jake here, although I disagree the Concorde was a commercial failure (it did turn a profit back in the day) it didn't influence aviation all that much. Okay, perhaps it did show that supersonic passenger travel wasn't viable on a large scale, but that's more like influence by failure.

All the Concorde did was fill a tiny nitche market: ferrying those who absolutely, positively had to be on the other side of the pond RIGHT NOW, and were willing to pay for the service. It was a small nitche indeed.

Had the Concorde actually been successful we'd see a lot more supersonic airliners zipping around the world. Perhaps politics killed it. Perhaps it was simple economics. Perhaps it was people living under major air routes who didn't want to hear thier windows rattle every couple minutes (had supersonic travel become as popular as subsonic travel is today). Perhaps it was technology (fuel useage).

Either way, the Concorde didn't set a trend. The DC3 set a trend. The Comet set a trend. The Concorde just marked the end of an idea.

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Reply #23 - Nov 27^th, 2006 at 9:23am

dcunning30 Offline
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It was the first aircraft that brought supersonic flight to the public, something the big US companies couldn't (and still haven't for whatever reason) acheived.

Reason for that is Boeing saw SST wouldn't be an economic success. In that respect, Jake is correct.

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Reply #24 - Nov 27^th, 2006 at 9:25am

dcunning30 Offline
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The truth of the matter is that Concorde was deliberately killed off by politics. It was never allowed to succeed. This is a familiar story. http://www.concordesst.com/history/orders.html

Do you consider environmental ordinances that prevents supersonic flight over land politics?

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Reply #25 - Nov 27^th, 2006 at 10:31am

C Offline
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Do you consider environmental ordinances that prevents supersonic flight over land politics?

A lot of the land for certain planned routes was nigh on completely unihabited.

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Reply #26 - Nov 27^th, 2006 at 11:42am

dcunning30 Offline
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Quote:

Some political elements did their best to limit it's success certainly - no prizes to guessing where from...

Please elaborate.

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Reply #27 - Nov 27^th, 2006 at 4:03pm

Jakemaster Ex Member

*Jake needs to do his reasearch*

oops, mistake on my part. I had been under the impression from certain TV shows about the concorde that it was a non profitable aircraft and THATS what eventually killed it off.

Sorry. Really, seriously, sorry.

http://1940airterminal.org/images/art2005/Concorde.gif

Cool painting for all you concorde fans, came across it today by accident. I musta missed this one when I was at the 1940 Air Terminal a few weeks ago...

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Reply #28 - Nov 27^th, 2006 at 4:12pm

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Reply #29 - Nov 27^th, 2006 at 4:15pm

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Why do the petitioners need to influence "The Government"? Isn't this between the petitioners and the airplane owners? I'd assume anyone with the cash could buy one of these planes, bring it up to safety standards, and go fly it as much as they want, correct? Or has there been some stupid law passed saying the Concorde will never again be allowed to fly?

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