Posted on 06/03/2010 8:38:09 PM PDT by mgstarr
An Air France Concorde was to have undergone borescope tests Saturday to determine if its four engines can be safely started in advance of a possible return to flight. The aircraft is at a French museum at Le Bourget Airport, where it was mothballed seven years ago when Air France and British Airways ended supersonic service after decades of financial losses and the spectacular crash of a Concorde in Paris in 2000 that killed 113 people. There was no word at our deadline on the outcome of the tests but it's hoped the aircraft can soon be fueled and readied for taxi tests before returning to the air for heritage flights. It's hoped the aircraft can be airworthy in time for a flight over the opening ceremonies of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.
(Excerpt) Read more at avweb.com ...
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/06/concorde-may-fly-again/
It was an aircraft killed by cheap tickets. When prices were still silly in the 1960s and 1970s...it would have fallen into the might-make-profit category. By the 1980s...with so much in cheap tickets starting...it was only the ultra rich that would have ever used it.
Now, it requires a ton of maintenance to operate each and every flight...so after the Paris flight episode...it was silly to keep running the few left.
Valkyrie was gorgeous.
One of the few regrets I have in life is that I never had the opportunity to fly the Concord, and by "opportunity", I mean I couldn't afford it.
It was useful in an X-aircraft sense, by providing some good information, but the engineering was ahead of the materials technology and computer technology of the time.
/johnny
Bringing it back for a fly over of the Olympics? Why? Or is the dream that if it flies over the Olympics, that somehow some mysterious demand will suddenly crop up to get on a flying death trap of a plane that should have been retired from service in the 1980’s?
Just design a better plane and get it over with.
I saw that as well. WIRED has some dandy tech articles. Sadly can’t be posted here :-(
I have the Lintoy/ERTL model of that on my desk right now!
Meow.
I’ll let others fly on the Concorde, thanks.
Gonna go visit it next weekend...;-)
It would take that much time to make one previously-serviced aircraft airworthy again?
/johnny
Well, I might suggest your numbers are somewhat erroneous. Yes, newer aircraft generally cruise slower than earlier designs. Primarily because:
—newer aircraft tend to be designed to operate at slower cruise speeds to optimize fuel savings (fuel is costly these days and a bigger share of operating expense)
—more aircraft in the sky inevitably results in aircraft in trail enroute destinations—thus all are traveling at more or less the speed of the slowest in the line (antiquadated air traffic control requirements)
—a 727 or 707 would routinely cruise at mach .82 to .85
nowadays most aircraft are operated about .77 or so
that does not equate to a 150 mph difference—more like a 60-70 mph difference (at altitude)
Regards
Want to sell it?
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