Concorde

Never traveled in it, but used to witness it travel at about 5,000ft altitude over me as it landed at east midlands airport when i was a boy. Absolutely amazing thing.

UAE, you're a rich country why not buy the blueprints of conocorde, but then modernize the design with 2015 technology in order to make it more efficient.

yea clarkson says its state of the art, well its not, but it was way ahead of its time and would still rule in the performance department.

Been re-fitted and stand strategically placed around the world ready for use. Anyone can see one of them standing ready at Heathrow. There was NOTHING wrong with these planes.

Some of the "out of service" stories I've heard are:
1. Can't get the spare parts anymore.
2. The events of 9/11 made it unprofitable to use them.
3. They are dangerous.

Anybody else heard any "explanations"

i'm no expert in planes, your message should be send to the royal family since they back-up the emirates airline project in mid-80's to this day.

i love to see the concorde fly again.

listen to the engine noise,, this is a true representation of the kind of noise it made when flying over, its not an exaggeration, it had immense power.

Forget Concorde – new hypersonic jet will get you to New York in just one hour

[link to www.dailystar.co.uk]

yeah i read about it CONCORDE 2. didn't like the design tho. keep it cool and stingy like the classic.

Im no expert either... But i read that the concorde fleet was sold to British Airways, after tax payers money funded the development of it.

Im not sure how it could work as it would require the knowledge of a lot of experts of to build such a thing, trade secrets and such.

We need some experts on this thread to see if they think such a thing as a Concorde could be superseded today, do we even have the experts and knowledge or is it lost.

These "figments of the imagination" have been on the cards for how long now?

yea that thing looks fugly.

If i were in charge i would so ok.. So take concorde, strip out all the old computers and install a lightweight state of the art fly by wire system.

Take the exact same airframe, check it in a supercomputer to see if there are any slight improvements that could be made for efficiency, less drag from vortexes etc. Then build this new airframe with state of the art composites, something beyond the new boeing composite, something imbued with graphene for example.

Use carbon fiber or composites throughout the aircraft such as in the seats as well.

This saves a lot of weight.

Take the same engines, re-design them with todays most efficient improvements. Give the cabin some nice state of the art entertainment and luxury. Job done.

But whos going to pay for it, when all corporations are interested in today, is sacrificing quality of the product and cutting corners, in order to make just a little more profit.....

Now but my uncle, who is an 37th level illuminati used to fly Concorde to all his Bilderburg meetings

[link to i.imgur.com]

True story!

 

Never to be seen again,.

i believe you.
But there apparently were not enough VIPs paying expensive tickets, to keep it flying.

They lost a lot of regular flyers on 9/11. The real thing that killed Concorde is that Airbus wanted to end the maintenance contract. There were too few airframes to work on, making training engineers expensive, and a dwindling supply of original parts as well as an expensive overhaul programme on the horizon. BA and Air France thought they would be able to keep all their first class regular flyers after they killed Concorde, that didn't really work out.

 

I love the Concorde but it's 1950-1960's technology.

Where are the new supersonic airliners? They should have been rolled out decades ago.

Why no more manned space missions?

What the fuck happened?

It was a rocket ship really wasn't it. There is a chance we can fly in it again, fingers crossed.

[link to www.clubconcorde.co.uk]

:)

A British company does have engines in development that would take a concorde to mach 5 easily. Its called the SABRE engine, and its actually in testing right now.

It can fly all the way to orbit.

But it lacks funding, and corporations only want to make profit.

IMO we'll probably have greedy corporations over charging rich future billionaire space tourists to go into space on the top of refurbished old russian moon rockets if we are not careful.

All because of profit and greed.

its seems that nations lost their national pride and sold out to rich greedy private corporations that have fucked us up the ass in the long run.
Things like the space shuttle and the concorde were funded by the public and build by experts with national pride and spirit.

Not some filthy rich global mega corporation that is only ever interested in maximizing profits for its CEO and directors, so that they can retire with their private yachts and luxury islands.

I watched an interesting documentary last night about the Russian version, the TU 144.I never knew it actually flew first. Nicknamed the concordski, it was a total rip of the much better concorde. Quite interesting. I had the good luck to see the concorde fly, several times, including its last flight.

When I was flying with TWA, I did take a one way over the pond on BA's bird.

It was an honor! The aircraft was amazing from a technical standpoint. The cockpit area was full of computer equipment racks, and after flight, I noticed the electrical smell from the warming of those racks...intriguing. Noise was comparable to an older DC9 interior--rear cabin position. Outside, those Olympus powerplants were screamers...literal death without hearing protection.

The cabin is very similar to a regional sized jet these days...there was a compact-ness definitely.

Technically, there is no way it could be brought to a feasible operating capacity. These birds were truly "oners" and virtually "custom" built. The barriers to the efficient and profitable operation are vast and the industry has an agenda to maximize profit...this is where the airframe fails in many regards, and the finger can be pointed to deregulation as the start of the end.

Until a frame is designed to operate and COMPETE with the current profitability standards, there will be no more than what's on the plate now...for a very long time. The current technologies are becoming maxed out and it will take a complete overhaul of the current model to come up with a new advancement, such as another Concorde. Be sure to understand the depth of profit taking here...for comparative purposes...realize...the Boeing 747 is extremely close to shutting down also...for profitability reasons. Two of these massive turbofan bypass engines are becoming more efficient than four of the 74's class of turbofan.

Thanks for the thread, and letting me share!!! Best to my bud...F-BVFA!

You're quite right. But people should expect to pay a premium for a performance that is way ahead of the competition. So what if they did build the airframe with a graphene imbued modern composite, i guess they still would not approve it. Because if the composite was available they would just build a 747 out of it and be done with it..
Maximum profit for the CEO and more money for his retirement to a private luxury island with a mega yacht.

Am i right?

The problem with substitutions of materials and technologies creates flaws in the original engineering. Frames, spars, load ratios, centers of gravity, etc. etc. all are designed with the current technologies that are available. Throw in new concepts and the original engineering is lost...you literally would have to redesign from scratch.

Yup - been on it twice. Beautiful a/c.
Windows v small, and they got hot at mach 2!
Take-off was most exhillartaing. Like being sat on top of a bomb. I think it rotates at about 250kt, so it accellerates to twice the usual take-off speed on the same length of runway.

Mach 2 was cool as well. You could see the black sky above and the slight curve of the earth. (sorry, flat-earthers!..)

At cruise speed, there is a gap in the floor between cockpit and cabin which you could slide your fist into. On the ground that baby was as tight as George Osborne's wallet.

What else? -- I liked the check-in at supersonic "R-class" - very swish, and treated very well by the ground staff.

Also kinda cool thinking that *no* RAF jet could have caught up to us in the cruise.

Sad day when they canned it. :(

Testing work began in the 1950s but Concorde used technologies which were decades ahead of other aircraft, when it first flew at the end of the sixties it had:

An airframe that incorporated carbon composite materials,
Computer controlled fly by wire ( analogue computer !),
Computer controlled engines ( FADEC ),
Carbon-carbon composite brakes, with brake by wire.
Ogival delta wing that could generate vortex lift at low speeds, but still have low supersonic drag.
Engines capable of supercruise, something which has never been equalled. The F22 can supercruise at around Mach 1.7 but not efficiently enough to have any sort of range.
An engine and ramp combination that gave Concorde the most thermally efficient engines up until the last 10 years or so. Most people think Concorde was hopelesly inefficient but in cruise the engines had over 40% thermal efficiency, only the best latest generation turbofans and large diesels can beat it.

 

There's a retired client I spoke to once about the Concorde.

Although not an aviation enthusiast, when the Concorde is mentioned he perked up. He started telling all kinds of interesting stories regarding the flights he had taken.

Ultimately, he said that flying on the Concorde is something everyone should experience at least once.

Lucky you!

There was one aircraft that caught Concorde.

"In April 1985, British Airways were trialling a Concorde up and down the North Sea. When they offered it as a target to NATO fighters, Mike and his team spent the night before in the hangar polishing XR749 which he borrowed from the LTF for the occasion, and the next day overhauled Concorde at 57,000 ft and travelling at Mach 2.2 by flying a stern conversion intercept. "Everyone had a bash - F-15s, F-16s, F-14s, Mirages, F-104s - but only the Lightning managed to overhaul Concorde from behind".

[link to www.lightning.org.uk]

I have divided loyalties

COOL!
guess I was wrong, but i think the Lightning wasn't in service in the RAF in the early 90's (when I made my flghts)..

wow, though! I'd love to fly in a Lightning!