Concorde May Fly Again

AV Web ^ | 5/30/10 | Russ Niles

[mgstarr]

Update and longer article on Wired:

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/06/concorde-may-fly-again/

[SERKIT]

Let's get THIS one back in the air!

[OCC]

Maybe we can arrange a Space Shuttle flyover for the 2022 Detroit Olympics!

[pepsionice]

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.

[ETL]

[mgstarr]

Valkyrie was gorgeous.

[OldDeckHand]

The article that you linked to had another link to an article I found fascinating. It may be found here. Essentially, it says that the original 707 traveled almost 150 mph faster than what the modern passenger jet flies. We're getting slower, not faster. That's irritating.

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.

[JRandomFreeper]

Valkyrie seemed like a cluster from what I've studied of 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

[kingu]

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.

[ETL]

[mgstarr]

I saw that as well. WIRED has some dandy tech articles. Sadly can’t be posted here :-(

[cmsgop]

I have the Lintoy/ERTL model of that on my desk right now!

[mgstarr]

Meow.

[OCC]

Coolest looking plane never making it to production!

[Secret Agent Man]

I’ll let others fly on the Concorde, thanks.

[SERKIT]

Gonna go visit it next weekend...;-)

[wastedyears]

It would take that much time to make one previously-serviced aircraft airworthy again?

[JRandomFreeper]

She is pretty. And performed as well as the technolodgy of the day would let her. Love to see one in modern composites, alloys, computers.

/johnny

[petertare]

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

[OCC]

I have the Lintoy/ERTL model of that on my desk right now!

Want to sell it?