Goodbye Concorde

[Ed]

Very sad. A terrific machine.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/24/international/europe/25CONCOR.html?hp

[Tmy]

What woudl happen if you flew a supersonic jet, at full speed, only a few hundred feet above land? Would the sonic boom just trash everything?

[Luke T.]

Originally posted by Tmy
What woudl happen if you flew a supersonic jet, at full speed, only a few hundred feet above land? Would the sonic boom just trash everything?

The sonic boom only occurs at the moment the aircraft breaks the sound barrier. I was standing on the deck of a ship when a military jet pilot arranged to break the barrier just a few feet from our port side. It was quite loud and felt like an actual physical blow. Not a tremendous one, but enough to make your heart thud.

If you look around the internet, you can find photos of aircraft caught at the moment of breaking the sound barrier. I'm too lazy to do it just now, but I have posted such a photo on here before.

[Tony]

Its a shame they cant produce a more cost efficient supersonic jet.

[geni]

http://www.maxpages.com/files/jetwash/F18-HornetBreaks.jpg
This claims to be a picture of a plane breaking the sound barrier. I don't know enough about planes to know if it is or not.

As to designing an afordible super sonic jet there has been quite a bit of work in this area but none of has produce anything Joe public could aford to fly. Boewing have evern abandoned their subsonic but fast sonic crusier on these grounds.:(

[Luke T.]

Originally posted by geni
This claims to be a picture of a plane breaking the sound barrier. I don't know enough about planes to know if it is or not.



It is.

[Bentspoon]

Being an Air Force brat, I know that if you aren't careful you can break civilian windows and then the base conmmander has to get involved and everyone keeps a low profile for a while.

I imagine that if you just skimmed over the ground with that wake behind you there is going to be damage.

Bentspoon

[fishbob]

The sonic boom only occurs at the moment the aircraft breaks the sound barrier. I I don't think this is correct. I think the sonic boom follows the plane the entire time the plane is supersonic. Otherwise they could go supersonic at 30K feet and descend to a few hundred feet without causing trouble for the base commander.

[Thumper]

fishbob is correct.

For further reference, read about the doppler effect (and its causes). The plane causes a bow wave whenever it goes faster than the speed of sound (in that medium). You only hear it as a boom on the ground, because the bow wave only passes you once, and then quickly. Freshman high school physics.

[Ove]

Be that as it may, i really don't think it is the Sonic Boom that is the MAJOR problem and the reason to retire Concorde, the trouble is that the Concorde is obsolete. It is a brainchild from a time where air transport was a thing for the choosen few who didn't had to worry about cost.

Trouble is that at the same time that Concorde was struggling to get of the ground the 747 revolutionized the whole marked. Air transport became a from of cheap mass-transport and the vast majority of customers really didn't worry about wether it took 4 hours or 8 to fly to new york but they DID worry a lot about the cost and with the Concorde the price was x10 that of a 747 i believe.

I think that the Concorde is a really really great aeroplane, a thing of sheer beauty and i was also moved by the strikingly beautifull images from Heathrow when 3 of theese "birds" touched down like giant swans landing on a lake BUT..... Reality has caught up with the Concorde and any other form of supersonic air transport.

The British has allways been teasing the Americans that Boeing stopped research in their SST long time ago but i have a sneaking suspicion that Boeing did a rentability calculation and didn't like what they saw.;) (Imagine that ME defending americans:D ).

[MRC_Hans]

It is of course always sad to see a magnificient machine of the past head for the museum, but the Concorde was obsolete, just like steam locomotives.

I dont think the discussion of the feasibility of supersonic transport is over quite yet, but that does not help the Concorde. No matter what we might do in the future in that area, the Concorde remains outdated.

Hans

[Kimpatsu]

If I can be allowed a moment of jingoism (it is, after all, my country's plane), I shall mourn Concorde's passing; she was a beautiful plane that deserved better than mothballing.
:cry:

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by Ove
Trouble is that at the same time that Concorde was struggling to get of the ground the 747 revolutionized the whole marked. Air transport became a from of cheap mass-transport and the vast majority of customers really didn't worry about wether it took 4 hours or 8 to fly to new york but they DID worry a lot about the cost and with the Concorde the price was x10 that of a 747 i believe.


Aye, the amazing thing is that two airlines managed to run her at some sort of profit for 30 odd years. By all rights, she should never have been economically viable at all........

[Kimpatsu]

It was mostly millionaire rock stars like Phil Collins who flew on Concorde (money no object), or people on package tours who flew London to New York, and then cam home on the QE2. Even so, that was a pretty expensive once-in-a-lifetime holiday. The problem was that after the crash in the Paris suburbs in 2000, the package tours stayed away, and Concorde never recovered from the financial loss of the lucrative packages...

[Ed]

I flew it once and it was certainly one of the most memorable experiences that I have had.

[Kimpatsu]

Originally posted by Ed
I flew it once and it was certainly one of the most memorable experiences that I have had.
So was sex with Father Flanagan; was it a good experience? :D

[Ove]

Aye, the amazing thing is that two airlines managed to run her at some sort of profit for 30 odd years. By all rights, she should never have been economically viable at all........

I wont debate that too much but are you sure?? They might have kept it alive even if it cost them money just for the prestige,-glamour,-etc.

But the most stupid remark i heard was from someone (i didn't catch his name) who thought thaty it was "stupid to ground the fleet (for rebuilding) just because the French one crashed". "They should just have continued flying".

Boy, talk about blind stupidity. The Concorde had a weak point in the fuel tanks, a point that was exposed i the crash, a solution was found and implemented and then it flew again. If they had continued flying, unmodified, they would have wiped out all trust in the plane.:rolleyes:

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by Ove
But the most stupid remark i heard was from someone (i didn't catch his name) who thought thaty it was "stupid to ground the fleet (for rebuilding) just because the French one crashed". "They should just have continued flying".

Boy, talk about blind stupidity. The Concorde had a weak point in the fuel tanks, a point that was exposed i the crash, a solution was found and implemented and then it flew again. If they had continued flying, unmodified, they would have wiped out all trust in the plane.:rolleyes:

Bear in mind though Ove............ lets say a 747 crashes..... would they ground the entire global fleet of 747s? dont think so. In this respect, concorde was a victim of her own glamourous high profile.

[Ove]

Bear in mind though Ove............ lets say a 747 crashes..... would they ground the entire global fleet of 747s? dont think so. In this respect, concorde was a victim of her own glamourous high profile.

Yep you are right, no need to say "DC10" is there?;)

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by Ove


Yep you are right, no need to say "DC10" is there?;)

DC10s were grounded after a history of crashes as was the comet, not just a single incident in almost 30 years of flying.

[richardm]

Originally posted by Ove

But the most stupid remark i heard was from someone (i didn't catch his name) who thought thaty it was "stupid to ground the fleet (for rebuilding) just because the French one crashed". "They should just have continued flying".


That was from the former British Airways chief pilot. He pointed out that BA had actually kept their Concordes flying for three weeks after the French crash before grounding them, and only did so then because of pressure from the French. In his view the accident was a one-off and grounding the whole fleet was an unnecessary move that further undermined confidence in the aircraft.

He also reckoned that it was pressure from Air France that got BA to retire their Concordes - the French couldn't justify retaining theirs, but didn't want to lose them while the British kept theirs.

Furthermore, he believed that a major reason for Concorde's lack of sales was aggression from the USA, which was based on jealousy that the Europeans could create such an aircraft when they couldn't.

All in all, it was a jolly afternoon of jingoism :D

[Ed]

Originally posted by Kimpatsu

So was sex with Father Flanagan; was it a good experience? :D


It was ok. Didn't last as long as the Concorde flight:D

[Ove]

That was from the former British Airways chief pilot. He pointed out that BA had actually kept their Concordes flying for three weeks after the French crash before grounding them, and only did so then because of pressure from the French. In his view the accident was a one-off and grounding the whole fleet was an unnecessary move that further undermined confidence in the aircraft.

Yep you're right. Seems that the fact that the Concorde HAD a weak spot hadn't penetrated his mind. Just proves that you don't need to be intelligent to be a good pilot.:D