Concorde May Fly Again

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

[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.

[mgstarr]

I’d fly on her. Then again I knew test pilots as a kid so perhaps I’m jaded.

[JRandomFreeper]

Lucky you. Where is she at? WP? Bound to be a bunch of other cool history nearby.

/johnny

[OldDeckHand]

"Coolest looking plane never making it to production!"

You must not be familiar with the SeaDart, the first (and I think only) supersonic seaplane.

Tell me that wouldn't have been great for the weekend at the lake.

[SERKIT]

Here
and
Here...

[OldDeckHand]

"Well, I might suggest your numbers are somewhat erroneous. Yes, newer aircraft generally cruise slower than earlier designs. Primarily because:"

Hey, they're aren't "my numbers". They're the numbers from the article I linked to. This is what they said, specifically...

"So as some passengers lament over the fact that a modern airliner is 70 to 100 miles per hour slower than the original 707, the optimum design for fuel efficiency is to fly even a little bit slower, about another 50 miles per hour.

[OCC]

XB-70 was way ahead of it’s time. To bad more X planes cant be produced these days without billions in investment.

[JRandomFreeper]

It's a pretty fair guess that if it's high tech, and history, and AF, it's gonna be at WP.

/johnny

[truthbetold11]

getting ready for a denver escape

[JRandomFreeper]

America needs to reclaim the Kelly Johnson & Skunkworks ideal. The YF-12 still holds world records. And that's a shame. Johnson said so himself. He expected something faster and better to come along much sooner.

/johnny

[OCC]

Some amazing stuff was being tried back in the 50’s-60’s. The SeaDart looked like something out of a Batman episode.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOrj2cSDO-M

[OldDeckHand]

"XB-70 was way ahead of it’s time. To bad more X planes cant be produced these days without billions in investment."

While the Raptor is clearly impressive, it seems - and perhaps this is only a bad misconception on my part - that aeronautical innovation really slowed down during the 90's, at least military innovation. Rutan has been doing some amazing things on a shoestring budget. But the government hasn't been parading the kinds of things we saw with some regularity 30-40 years ago.

[OCC]

XB-70 Valkyrie Tribute

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HL7OqW0go8&feature=related

[mgstarr]

My dad worked for Kelly at Lockheed in the 40’s and early 50’s. You’re absolutely correct.

[JRandomFreeper]

Rutan is doing great work with fairly little (comparatively speaking). I wonder what his politics are?

Military innovation has slowed down. Too much CYA, too many people in charge that would freak out at a Johnson or a Rutan or a Stoner and block them from producing.

When you reach for the stars, sometimes you stumble and fail. And in today's world, what we used to call a normal failure is a preventable catastrophe. Gridlock on the creative.

/johnny

[Nowhere Man]

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.

Yeah, I think the 707 and DC-8's can do 650 MPH, the 767 can go 530 MPH, if you coax it, 568 MPH. Come to think of it, I think the Russians can get their TU-114 turboprop to go 545 MPH. Back to the DC-8, IIRC, technically, it was the first "supersonic airliner," they managed to coax one to go above Mach 1 but barely.

[OldDeckHand]

"I wonder what his politics are?"

I don't know for sure. Wiki says he was raised a Republican, but has much more libertarian leanings. He's been critical of AGW, amongst other government overreaches for power. He did have some critical things to say when Obama recently announced the shut-down of the NASA operations in FL. I wish I could find the story, I'd link to it. The long and short of it is that he thinks it's a HUGE mistake for the US to not have the ability to put a man into orbit.

[OCC]

Ever since the A-12 was canceled, nothing really revolutionary seems to be in the pipeline. Maybe the the F-35 is a stop gap until the anti-grav craft are in production :)

[UCANSEE2]

I think that is because we aren’t nurturing the kind of minds that produce these technological wonders. Or it may be that they have been diverted into other technologies.

Like prolonging erections, or curing baldness.

[JRandomFreeper]

Or maybe they don't want to put up with the fetishized modern security or monday morning quarterbacking or 2nd guessing by non-technical folks.

If Apollo 13 happened today, would any of them EVER flown afterward?

/johnny

[DennisR]

One of the loudest planes ever...