Farewell Condorde.

[den]

It sure was a nice plane.

I remember in the 70s when it flew out here on its first PR trip. There was a proposal to fly the plane from London to Sydney via Singapore, and BA wanted permission to fly at supersonic speeds over the outback. Oh boy didn't people jump at that! They were talking about shattered windows, deafening the people, structural damage in buildings and disturbing the animals. The pollies folded, of course, and Concorde never flew a commercial route here.

The idiots either thought or wilfully misrepresented that Concorde would be flying that speed at only a few 1000 feet. A sonic boom at 50,000 feet is not more than a pair of dull booms, much quieter than a thunderstorm. Granddad's house was in Bexley, right under the landing flightpath. The planes flew overhead so low we could hear the noise the wing-tip vortex made as it broke up. (It sounded like a phantom plane going over us.) Connies, 707s, the first 747s... no one complained about that noise. They were just "the planes going over."

If there hadn't been such an outcry, faster, safer and more efficient SST would be in the air now. We have instead a gap left by an aging fleet. Not many aircraft operate commercially for 30 years. It would have been nice to see new, high tech, economically viable Concordes rolling off the line but that didn't happen. As much as I hate to say this, it really is time for the old planes to retire.

Concorde is very much like the Sace Shuttle in this regard. An aging fleet, expensive to maintain, superceded by technology but kept flying because there were no replacements even on the drawing board.

Comments

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[kelloggs2066.livejournal.com]

Sigh. :(

Scott

[twfarlan.livejournal.com]

It really didn't help the US space program that the government awards contracts to the aerospace companies, nor that the aerospace companies that stand to make more money maintaining an expensive, outdated technology have enough lobbying power to make sure that more modern, efficient, and cheaper to build/maintain space vehicles don't happen. Awfully similar to how oil companies have managed to delay or destroy any hope of the emergence of viable alternative energy sources, whether for heating or as a replacement for petrol in cars.

Bastards all. Money should never be a concern of good governance except in how to pay its own workers.

[weibchenwolf.livejournal.com]

So many things I could say to this but I think your avatar says it all.

Bugger.

[kelloggs2066.livejournal.com]

Sigh. :(

yes, but...

[yasha-taur.livejournal.com]

I agree that the Concorde was unjustly persecuted for may sins that it didn't have, but I have heard it take off, and LORD was it LOUD!!!! It was, far and away, the loudest plane that I have ever heard for takeoff and climb out....

[klishnor.livejournal.com]

I'll miss that white bird, I only saw it a couple of times, but even on its final flight, nearly fifty years after the initial design sketches, it managed to look modern.

I know that NASA was doing some research for a couple of companies, using a couple of the remaining Soviet TU144's. I haven't seen anything official, but I think that the companies involved suddenly discovered just how much technology they would have to develop.

Concorde's engines for example, were only economically feasible because they were developed in tandem with those for the TSR2, but don't get me started on what the politico's did to that beauty.

As to why we don't have a newer version flying... Blame the Americans who were so sure they could do better, Boeing were working on plans for a plane cruising at Mach 3, carrying over 250 people. Totally impossible with the technology of the time, and pushing the limits even now.