[Blackstealth]

I'm trying to get as much publicity for this cause as possible at the moment...

Well, this week, I'm ashamed to be British. After 27 years of passenger service, British Airways has finally retired the magnificent Concorde - an aircraft that helped shape the modern world. It was technologically ahead of it's time in the sixties, it's still ahead of its time today. Don't believe the stories of it being too costly to operate and unsafe to use - it's FUD.

There can't a single person out there that doesn't dream of flying on her, just once. Hell, I'd empty my savings account tomorrow for the chance of one flight at twice the speed of sound.

But now the evil empire of British Airways has taken away those dreams. They're planning to decommission their entire fleet of 7 aircraft and tuck them away in museums where they can be seen but never experienced. And it's unlikely that we'll ever again have the ability to travel at speeds in excess of Mach 2 within our lifetimes (short of joining the airforce).

When the Conservative government gave British Airways Concorde for �1 they said that if another British company ever wanted to operate it they could - and yet British Airways have refused to sell the planes to Richard Branson (owner of Virgin) who'd keep them flying for the 25 years of life they have left in them.

So I'm asking just two things:

1. Sign the petition to save Concorde, it's not only the British public that should be making their voices heard - but the whole world, anyone with a passion for technology, aviation, luxury, or just believes in not letting a good thing go to waste - and
2. Boycott British Airways until they reinstate this majestic airplane.

I'll step down from my soapbox now...

[- - e r i k - -]

Don't worry. Supersonic flight will be improved soon. Concorde was ahead of it's time, but still, we have researched better alternatives (supersonic flight without the boom), just wait for it to go into production.

[Developer]

Originally posted by Blackstealth:
And it's unlikely that we'll ever again have the ability to travel at speeds in excess of Mach 2 within our lifetimes (short of joining the airforce).

"Who comes too late is punished by life." (Michail Gorbatchov)

[Myriad]

Originally posted by Blackstealth:
Don't believe the stories of it being too costly to operate and unsafe to use - it's FUD.

Well that reasoning has certainly got me convinced.

[Landos Mustache]

1) It was expensive as hell
2) They started falling out of the sky a few years ago.
3) It was an environmental disaster

[ambush]

While Africans are starving to death, we're busy trying to save the Concorde.

Ironic.

[catsank]

Originally posted by Landos Mustache:
1) It was expensive as hell
2) They started falling out of the sky a few years ago.
3) It was an environmental disaster

To the British it's an end
of a particular vision of the
future, A future that had
'made in britain' stamped
on it's bum ;)

[Mediaman_12]

Originally posted by Landos Mustache:
1) It was expensive as hell
2) They started falling out of the sky a few years ago.
3) It was an environmental disaster

1. It was until the entire development costs where written off by the UK (conservative) government. BA did a survey of Concorde passengers, they all thought that it cost far more that it really did, So BA put the price up to more closely reflect what people thought they where paying. They then ran at an operating profit from that point.
(you are on a Mac board and have problems with 'better than anything else' products being 'expensive as hell' compared to the competition)
2. One 'fell out of the sky' there have been problems with others but none led to a crash landing. The one that did crash did so because the tire exploded after being punctured by a small strip of metal that had fell off another plane on tho the runway. BA knew about this weakness with the tires (Concorde accelerates along the runway far faster than conventional passenger planes, the only passenger plane to use jet afterburners, those are Military engines on there. So it puts more pressure on the tires) and made sure the runway had been extensively swept before any take off. The French on the other hand mustn't have been as careful.
2. OK I will give you that, But keeping one running for Air shows and other special occasions wouldn't be too bad.

Remember Concorde was built for 50's style Air Travel, Before the Boeing 747 etc. made air travel about as exclusive & exciting as taking the bus.

[Mediaman_12]

Originally posted by ambush:
While Africans are starving to death, we're busy trying to save the Concorde.

Ironic.

This can be said about almost anything.
i.e. While Africans are starving to death, we're busy trying to send spacecraft to Mars.

While Africans are starving to death, we're busy trying to reduce our dependance on fossil fuels.

While Africans are starving to death, we're busy trying to reduce copyright piracy on the internet.
etc.
See.

[CheesePuff]

$11,000.00 for one ticket? I don't think so. Plus passengers said that it felt like concrete seats, etc. when flying at its normal cruising speed.

[Mediaman_12]

Originally posted by CheesePuff:
$11,000.00 for one ticket? I don't think so. Plus passengers said that it felt like concrete seats, etc. when flying at its normal cruising speed.

Why do I keep responding to this thread, oh well.

Time travel doesn't come cheap (The time difference between NY and London means that you arrive in London earlier than you left NY)

At least you don't sit in them very long, and you aren't very likely to get DVT anyway on a flight of just over 3 hours.

[Uday's Carcass]

it's the other way around. it means you arrive in NY earlier than leaving London.

[amsalpemkcus]

I would love to own a concorde myself!! They are beautiful. Screw it though! If I cant have it no one else may! Hope they sell it all for scrap metal!

[sambeau]

Originally posted by Developer:
"Who comes too late is punished by life." (Michail Gorbatchov)

Are you sure that wasn't "He who comes too late is punished by wife."

[Angus_D]

Are you sure it's been operating at profit recently? I doubt BA would just drop it for the fun of it. I'd heard that they lost 40 of their regular customers in the twin towers, and were hit by the US boycott of all things French.

As far as the seats feeling like concrete, they looked pretty cushy to me and all the reports I've heard from people who actually flew on it were that it was pretty comfortable. I don't see why they'd feel any different at cruising speed, either, since the main time you'd feel any forces would be during the acceleration to take off.

[macvillage.net]

Originally posted by Angus_D:
Are you sure it's been operating at profit recently? I doubt BA would just drop it for the fun of it. I'd heard that they lost 40 of their regular customers in the twin towers, and were hit by the US boycott of all things French.

As far as the seats feeling like concrete, they looked pretty cushy to me and all the reports I've heard from people who actually flew on it were that it was pretty comfortable. I don't see why they'd feel any different at cruising speed, either, since the main time you'd feel any forces would be during the acceleration to take off.

Everything I've read in the papers said they were losing big money for a while... and it's just gotten worse following the crash of that Concorde in 2000, and Sept 11th.


I have a feeling supersonic flight will be back within 15 years. The Concorde was just fundimentally to "ahead of it's time", meaning to expensive for today's use. To few passengers per flight, to limited in # of planes. Mantainance costs were high, fuel costs were high, etc.

I strongly believe in 15 years, we will see Concorde2, faster, larger, cheaper. Something perhaps one of us could afford to use.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by Angus_D:
Are you sure it's been operating at profit recently? I doubt BA would just drop it for the fun of it. I'd heard that they lost 40 of their regular customers in the twin towers, and were hit by the US boycott of all things French.

They never paid for development costs.

*British Airways* was operating at profit, because the GOVERNMENT wrote off the development costs, AFAIK.

Concorde itself never flew a profit, IIRC.

-s*

[amsalpemkcus]

"Simple Economics

The Concorde never made any economic sense, at least from a business accounting standpoint. It couldn't repay even a portion of its massive development costs. However, because the French-British government consortium that developed it absorbed those up-front expenditures, it managed to make an operational profit for British Airways and Air France for almost three decades. It may be that even then it didn't make a profit, but had sufficient value to both airlines as a prestige item useful for marketing to allow it to continue.



That suspension of rational business economics comes to an end this month, because the price that people are willing to pay for a three-hour trans-Atlantic trip doesn't justify the increasing maintenance or replacement costs as the small fleet of aircraft, now quite long in the tooth, goes into its dotage. They were particularly unwilling to pay such a price after the disastrous crash in 2000 that killed all on board, and was a result of an intrinsic design flaw that allowed blown tires to be swallowed by hazardously located engine intakes.



None of this is to say, of course, that there's no demand for supersonic passenger travel. Various business jet companies have been looking at options for developing small supersonic vehicles for years, so far without success. People, and not just businesspeople, would certainly like to get from point A to point B much faster - getting from the east coast to the west coast in two hours, say, or cutting trans-Pacific flight time of twelve to fourteen hours to five or six. And they'd like to do so at costs comparable to current ticket prices.



What's the Problem?



So in the case of supersonic transports and the Concorde, the problem with it wasn't that there was a lack of market. Its limitations come in the form of a technology problem; but it may be one that's solvable.



The military aircraft technology on which Concorde was based doesn't allow overflight of land, because of the sonic boom problem, or long-range operations, due to the supersonic wave-drag problem. Even military aircraft don't fly supersonic for long -- they can't afford the fuel, and their ground signature is unacceptable in peacetime -- it's only allowable in wartime in an environment in which sonic booms, and their associated broken windows, are the least of the worries of those on the ground below them. That's not an acceptable mode of operation for a commercial airline.



What is the source of these constraints? It's our continuing ignorance of the fundamentals of supersonic aerodynamics.



In the twenties, the German aerodynamicist Ludwig Prandtl laid out the fundamental principles for subsonic aerodynamics, including the all-important circulation theory, which applied the basic physical concept of conservation of angular momentum to the principle of lift. This laid the foundation for much of modern aerodynamics, making possible the rapid progress and sophistication of aircraft designs from the golden age of the late twenties and thirties, through the war, extending to today's modern subsonic airliners.



Prandtl also developed the first theory for supersonic flow, but it was sadly deficient. It didn't, in fact, extend his critical subsonic circulation-flow theory into that realm, though some believe that this can be done, at least based on more recent theory and results. As a result, we've been plowing through the atmosphere supersonically, in a more or less controlled manner, wasting fuel and shattering glass on the ground, since Yeager's flight in 1947, and we've characterized the supersonic effects of aircraft of all manner of shapes to the nth degree, and managed to design a commercial aircraft that could fly supersonically. But we haven't really developed a true understanding of the supersonic flow regime.



Why is this a problem?



Because the reason that supersonic flight is currently commercially impractical (and only barely practical even militarily) is because of the shock waves formed by aircraft designed on the current theory. These generate a tremendous amount of drag, increasing fuel consumption by a factor of at least two, and often much more, relative to subsonic flight. They also take the energy they thus steal from the engines and convert it into the ground disturbance that restricts overflight of land. If their formation could be eliminated, or at least substantially reduced, supersonic flight could in fact become as practical and routine as subsonic flight.



Conventional wisdom is that shock waves are an inevitable consequence of supersonic flight, but there is actually no law of nature that requires them. In fact, shock-free supersonic bullets have been designed for use by military snipers (for the purpose of keeping misses quiet -- much of the noise of a conventional bullet whizzing past the ear is a small sonic boom). So we know that it's possible to travel supersonically without shock. The trick is to do it while also generating lift.



Working Towards Supersonic Flight



There is a small company in South Pasadena, California, called Vehicle Research Corporation (VRC), that believes this can in fact be done, and holds some patents on the process (in the interests of disclosure, I note that I have a small bit of equity in this firm). They believe -- with a lot of analysis, and some computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations that validate it at least to a degree -- that shock waves are nature's inefficient way of balancing the wing circulation, required for lift, in supersonic flight. Thus, with more clever designs, introducing a small amount of energy into the flow to provide this necessary countercirculation, the formation of the shock waves can be greatly reduced, if not entirely eliminated, to the point at which they become inconsequential.



If they're right, it would mean that aircraft could fly at Mach 2 or 3 for not a lot more fuel than they currently fly at Mach 0.9. It means that they could have far greater range, and fly lower in the atmosphere (one of the concerns about supersonic transports was that to maximize fuel economy, they had to fly so high that they became a concern from an ozone standpoint). Engine design requirements would be greatly eased, allowing more conventional placement (eliminating the possibility of a repeat of the Concorde disaster in 2000). Wings of such aircraft could have much larger aspect ratios (similar to subsonic airliners), further reducing induced drag, and providing much better takeoff and landing performance, eliminating the need for afterburners and swing wings, vastly increasing safety and decreasing cost..



They could fly from Los Angeles, or even New York, to Hong Kong or Sydney, and do it in a half or a third of the time of a 747. They could fly from the east to west coast in two hours. There would, in fact, be no more restrictions on where they could fly than currently apply to subsonic air transports. And they could potentially do it in wide-bodied aircraft, rather than the slender wasp-waist designs such as Concorde.



In short, they could revolutionize air transport far beyond the dreams of any previous supersonic program.



So, are they right? Many knowledgeable people, including the former Chief Engineer of Northrop, who have looked at it think they're on to something. My own opinion is that the physics seems sound, and they're not obviously wrong. The question is whether or not practical aircraft designs can be developed from their theories, and that's one that won't be answered until the theory is further developed and quantified with additional CFD, analysis for which, to date, they've been unable to find funding. Should they do so, however, either from the government or private sources, it may finally usher in a new, practical supersonic era, perhaps rendering today's subsonic jets obsolete, and firmly ending any false nostalgia for the first unsuccessful supersonic transport."



- Rand Simberg is a recovering aerospace engineer and a consultant in space commercialization, space tourism and Internet security. He offers occasionally biting commentary about infinity and beyond at his web log, Transterrestrial Musings.


Nice interview here with one concorde pilote:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/3207470.stm

[quandarry]

beam me to paris scotty.

[macvillage.net]

There are only a handful of people who really "needed" to go that fast.

Most just did it for fun.

[willed]

Concorde rocked.






That is all.

[Mastrap]

Concorde should have been passed to Virgin if Branson wanted to keep the service up and running.

[- - e r i k - -]

Good article to support my original point amsalpemkcus

[Fillman]

I keep hearing comments about the sonic boom being a problem. How many people have actually heard one?

I was at college in Cornwall in south west England in the early and mid seventies when Concorde was doing its pre-commercial flight testing and early flights. Each day, if you listened carefully at the right time, you could just hear a couple of slight crack noises as it came in supersonic before throttling back. It was no problem at all to us lot on the ground but the environemntal protests were very loud and forceful.

Net result was that Concorde could only ever fly transatlantic and not overland.

Now I'm living down under in Oz we're 14 hours from LAX and 24 hours from LHR and we're slowly flying around the world on giant lumbering busses.

It won't happen in my lifetime but hypersonic travel with scram jet engines will arrive. The design team at University of Queensland have made some incredible advances in recent years.

In the meantime I'll keep using my PB12" in coach and watch the movies after my 3hr battery has gone down......

[scoxx]

Originally posted by Mastrap:
Concorde should have been passed to Virgin if Branson wanted to keep the service up and running.

Airbus, which provides spare parts, says it is unwilling to service the aircraft any more.