As for the Concorde/747 comparison, I'm not sure that's fair

  

Why not?  The UK chose Concorde while Boeing chose the 747. which of them made the correct decision? The entre Concorde fleet over its life-time carried about 5M passengers (BOAC/BA claimed 2.5M and Air France carried slightly fewer.)

 

Qantas has one B747 t(VH-EBQ) that alone carried 5.4m passengers.

 

Many of us can afford to fly on a 747 - how many could afford Concorde? 

 

 

The UK lost all it's mainstream commercial aviation momentum with the Comet,

 

 

By the mid-1960s the UK was recovering from the Comet and had had the BAC111, Hawker Siddeley 748, Hawker Siddeley Trident, and Vickers VC10.

 

In 1965 the companies who had missed out on Concorde funding (Hawker Siddeley, Breguet and Nord)  formed HBN to study airbus designs. HBN eventually became Airbus and the design the A320.  The British and French governments expressed doubts about the project and the British government pulled out in 1960. Fortunately Deutsche Airbus had became involved and Hawker Siddeley raised investment from the German government.

Nah, you have to read it like 'same speed, but without the need for reheats'. Mind you that the reheats weren't there to make it impressive or cool. Although they do. ^_^ But there was a thrust demand for the takeoff and parts of the acceleration regime. And the engines themselves, while already being a powerful pack at that time, weren't able to develop the thrust needed. Hence the rather unusual addition (for commercial passenger transport).

 

Reheats were what made it very cool. Essential of course without flaps. But reheats were also needed to push her from subsonic to M1.7. I don't see how a Concorde B could do that without a vastly more powerful engine as the wing shape wouldn't affect climb rate.

 

 

 

I think the low numbers of flying Concordes actually helped her with that. ... Maybe this even lead to the admiration in the first place. You wouldn't want a supersonic capable plane of her generation taking off or landing every 45 seconds, would you? ^_^

 

I think it was the fact that there were so few of them that made it so special to see one. Funny how we would always say "there's Concorde" rather than "there's a Concorde". It's like there was only ever one! And no, the fact that there were only a couple of flights a day from LHR made it special.

 

 

While I complained about little technological progress in previous posts, it's important to point out that the testing for a supersonic 'boom' suppression is ongoing and current by the way. Not sure if it's mainly for civil uses though.

 

Listening to the sonic boom from a F18 sounds pretty puny compared to Concorde's. Size clearly matters. :biggrin:

#####? :blink:

 

Did you not get the comparison between a 747 and Concorde? isn't the 747 referred to as the "Queen of the skies"? :wink:

How have you subsidised the rich, I wonder?  More likely that the rich are subsidising your medical care, community etc by virtue of the fact they pay more in taxes than the non-rich.  If they choose to spend their net income on expensive airline tickets that helped make an operational profit for BA, surely that's up to them.  And, for several decades, that has involved no contribution from you or I.

 

Obviously, if you were a tax-payer in the late 60's/early 70's, some of what I said is b***ocks.  Even so, you should really feel proud of the fact that some of your income taxes helped get Concorde built.

 

If you have a decent accountant you'll not be paying that much in taxes. And anyway, I'm almost certain that as a proportion of the government's income, tax of 'the rich' is far less than from middle and low earners.

Whatever your feelings about the politics/environmental issues surrounding Concorde, it can't be denied that it was a seriously impressive piece of kit.  Like Ray I've done the technical tour at EGCC - it's when you get up close that you really appreciate how amazing it was given the technology of the time. The flightdeck doesn't really feel particularly high tech though !

If you have a decent accountant you'll not be paying that much in taxes. And anyway, I'm almost certain that as a proportion of the government's income, tax of 'the rich' is far less than from middle and low earners.

Tax is a consequence of high income, regardless of the accountant.  Your second point is of course very true.

Tax is a consequence of high income, regardless of the accountant.  Your second point is of course very true.

 

It is, but there are plenty of ways of minimising your exposure to tax, potentially enabling you to pay less as a percentage of your net income, than someone who is paying straight PAYE/NI on their gross salary.

 

 

By the mid-1960s the UK was recovering from the Comet and had had the BAC111, Hawker Siddeley 748, Hawker Siddeley Trident, and Vickers VC10.

Seeing the list like that, I can't help wondering what the ********** went wrong!  No doubt it was something to do with timing, pax capacity and price, not to mention the lack of vision for the need of something like a 747.

Seeing the list like that, I can't help wondering what the ********** went wrong!  No doubt it was something to do with timing, pax capacity and price, not to mention the lack of vision for the need of something like a 747.

 

 

,,,and lack of government support because all the available funding was going to Concorde - whose costs were escalating

 

 EDIT

 

and it couldn't be cancelled!.

I have been on board the Concorde at East Fortune, but it isn't a guided tour. In fact, only half of the passenger section is open to the public, and I think that the cockpit was closed off aswell (by a glass screen) when I was there. Nevertheless, it was a seriously impressive sight to see a Concorde up close and personal. I have actually been that close to G-BOAC at Manchester aswell, but I have not been on board that one (and it was before the hangar was built).

 

By the way, those windows are tiny!

 

I actually created a 90 minute Manchester Airport DVD several years ago (mainly take offs and landings), and G-BOAC can be seen in the background on multiple occasions. I actually have a couple of thousand copies left. Evidence of my pathetic marketing skills :lol:

Now I don't want to hard stop any (subsonic ^_^ ) train but I kind of wonder how some facts get connected.

 

I think I'll start with one sentence.

The UK chose Concorde while Boeing chose the 747. which of them made the correct decision?

Do we agree that the UK is a country while Boeing.. is not? :mellow: Different aims. Not only in theory. Why the comparison?

 

Needless to say that, at that time, the believe and drive was on developing the next type of commercial passenger transport which almost every capable player deemed to be a supersonic one. The FAA director, back then, for example urged his president (Kennedy) to start such a program. And he wasn't alone with his vision. Remembering the consensus.

 

It also makes sense to look how the Concorde concept was viewed and ordered before, erm, politics played a bigger role. The big airlines all had a portion of that cake on their desk.

 

Sticking with Boeing, they were on model 2707, after winning the US SST competition and receiving the funds. A magnificent concept, very ambitious and also in the very same cost class as the one on Concorde. Now Concorde was handled by two countries, which shows how much of an investment a SST was and, most likely, still is.

 

The projects actually compare well on the money invested to receive some outcome. The outcome on model 2707 is a wooden mock-up while the Concorde fleet flew for close to three decades. 2707 wasn't doomed but the costs already reached Concorde's level while still being far away from flyable prototypes.

 

Side note. I get the impression that some folks jumped on a strange 'us vs them' or 'poor vs rich' discussion. Is this really bound to Concorde? And, if so, wouldn't it have been a thing like.. 10 (or more) years ago? :huh:

A lot of beautiful things can be noisy and expensive to run. Footballer's wives spring to mind! :biggrin:

 

Back in July 2000 I was in the back garden of the pub 100 yards from the threshold of 23R at EGCC when Concorde spooled up her engines for take-off. It's the only time in my life my chest cavity has vibrated. :shok:  Wouldn't have missed it for the world!

 

Having upgraded my PC recently I'm looking forward to flying the FSLabs ConcordeX. A magnificent rendition as you quite rightly say Oliver.

You've never stood behind a VC10 on take-off then? It was actually noisier than Concorde on take-off. That was in September this year another sad milestone in aviation history with the retirement of the 10 after more than 50 years in service. But, still holding the fastest Atlantic crossing record (bar Concorde) of 5hours 1 minute.

I do think that BA were wrong to not sell Concorde(s) to Virgin, and given that BA only paid the government £1 each for them, it should have been the government that stepped in and in some way force the sale.  Morally the right thing to do, even though it's probably not politically 'do-able'.

The problem here is/was then even if Virgin had bought them they wouldn't have been able to fly them as "all" the spares were held by Eads in France and they refused to give them even to BA (which is why BA had to stop flying them).

Listening to the sonic boom from a F18 sounds pretty puny compared to Concorde's. Size clearly matters. :biggrin:

I wouldn't give much on a mic recording that boom. There are all kinds of variables in between until the actual sound is saved. You have a point on the size of the planes but that 'click' you are hearing isn't what the F-18 or other fighters put out.

 

If I find the link, I can show you some NASA study (I think), going a bit into detail on how big a 'silent' supersonic plane could get. Well, they have lots of studies on the case, so the actual topic is very current while plans for a future Concorde+ sized plane are not.

 

As for the envisioned Concorde model B engines (from back then), their planning stage would indeed have offered enough dry thrust to take Concorde to the skies and also accelerate properly to M2.0. One may relate a huge thrust increase with the reheats running but it's a very poor tradeoff when compared to the enormous increase in fuel flow. Hence their 'special' character on that plane and also their topmost priority when it came to planning for a later version, without that help.

Here's a shot I took in 2007 when I did the Technical Tour at Manchester. back then it was open to the elements which made for better photography but the weather wasn't kind to her.

 

 

Political implications aside, it was a magnificent piece of equipment.  I've had the pleasure of seeing (and hearing ) it (yes, funny how we refer to them collectively as one) fly on a number of occasions, including fly-bys at Oshkosh, but my most memorable encounter remains at London Heathrow.  One winter evening I was on a BA flight to Milan departing at dusk, #2 behind Concorde.  I was able to watch from the left side of the plane as we waited at the hold line while it departed ahead of us, burners glowing blue, the rumble felt deep in my body as it accelerated down the runway into a darkening sky.  I can't really describe it, but the moment has lived on in my mind for decades.

 

Scott

Do we agree that the UK is a country while Boeing.. is not?

 

So? The USA (which is a country) got it right. It didn't waste taxpayers' money on an aircraft that no one wanted.