Have you ever flown Concorde?

FreeFallin · 14-01-2015 09:16PM #1

I'm watching a show about Concorde's last flight and find it hard to believe that we let these machines go. Flying from London to New York in 3 hours seems alien now and I for one wish I had the chance to fly in one! I look forward to there being another equally impressive supersonic passenger jet.

I'm sure someone here has been lucky enough to have flown in one?

syklops · 14-01-2015 09:17PM

I was the Co-pilot. Does that count?

mikom · 14-01-2015 09:20PM

FreeFallin wrote: »

Have you ever flown Concorde?

No.

Question for you............... Have you ever been in a Turkish prison?

Wise Old Elf · 14-01-2015 09:21PM

mikom wrote: »

No.

Question for you............... Have you ever been in a Turkish prison?

Have you ever seen a grown man naked?

Birneybau · 14-01-2015 09:22PM

mikom wrote: »

No.

Question for you............... Have you ever been in a Turkish prison?

Question for you............... Do you like gladiator movies?

csallmighty · 14-01-2015 09:23PM

I couldn't even start the bloody thing

kneemos · 14-01-2015 09:23PM

Looked cramped and claustrophobic.
Who doesn't have a few extra hours to spare.

It was a spectacularly pretty aircraft though.

conorh91 · 14-01-2015 09:23PM

Apparently the tickets were like €10,000

I have never been in a situation where I would pay €9,000 over-the-odds just to arrive in a place two hours earlier.

You'd need to have been capable of earning around €5,000 per hour for that to make financial sense. Sadly I don't fit into that category.

mikom · 14-01-2015 09:23PM

Wise Old Elf wrote: »

Have you ever seen a grown man naked?

Birneybau wrote: »

Question for you............... Do you like gladiator movies?

I just want to tell you both good luck. We're all counting on you.

BorneTobyWilde · 14-01-2015 09:25PM

A British airways jet flew London to New York in 5 hours last week.
He got it up to supersonic speed.

miamee · 14-01-2015 09:30PM

I was in a plane in the take off queue in Heathrow once when the Concord was about to take off. The captain came on to tell everyone to look out the right hand side as it was about to take off. It was amazing

It took off and then the noise of it a second or two later! Awesome.

coopdog85 · 14-01-2015 09:30PM

I made it from New York to Dublin in 4 hours 45 mins last week. The tail winds were some of the strongest the pilot had ever experienced.

FreeFallin · 14-01-2015 09:40PM

miamee wrote:

I was in a plane in the take off queue in Heathrow once when the Concord was about to take off. The captain came on to tell everyone to look out the right hand side as it was about to take off. It was amazing ï¿¼ It took off and then the noise of it a second or two later! Awesome.

Amazing! Apparently the noise was one of the reasons it was so impractical to operate.

kingchess · 14-01-2015 09:40PM

Years ago I would hear what sounded like Thunder at around the same time some mornings,years later I realized that it was Concorde flying past the south west of Cork breaking the sound barrier.

Honey Monster · 14-01-2015 09:43PM

No, but I hope to one day.

Birneybau · 14-01-2015 09:45PM

Honey Monster wrote: »

No, but I hope to one day.

I don't know how to put this...

fleet_admiral · 14-01-2015 09:47PM

I used to drink in the concord in raheny if that applies

lc180 · 14-01-2015 09:47PM

I was on a Concorde a couple years ago, it was on show at an air show or airplane museum in the US. People literally had to queue up to walk in the front door of the plane, walk down the aisle and then exit at the back door. Inside it just looked like..... A plane!

About as exciting as an episode of nationwide.

Birneybau · 14-01-2015 09:50PM

lc180 wrote: »

I was on a Concorde a couple years ago, it was on show at an air show or airplane museum in the US. People literally had to queue up to walk in the front door of the plane, walk down the aisle and then exit at the back door. Inside it just looked like..... A plane!

About as exciting as an episode of nationwide.

But faster.

chughes · 14-01-2015 09:50PM

I flew it on Microsoft Flightsim, does that count?

The Backwards Man · 14-01-2015 09:50PM

Isn't progress a wonderful thing?

In 1980 you could swan up to the airport in the motor, park it at the door, pay the fare in cash, mosey onto the plane, smoke a cigar, have a kip and be in New York before you left Heathrow.

Into The Blue · 14-01-2015 09:53PM

lc180 wrote: »

I was on a Concorde a couple years ago, it was on show at an air show or airplane museum in the US. People literally had to queue up to walk in the front door of the plane, walk down the aisle and then exit at the back door. Inside it just looked like..... A plane!

About as exciting as an episode of nationwide.

USS Intrepid?

Honey Monster · 14-01-2015 09:54PM

Birneybau wrote: »

I don't know how to put this...

Is this not the mid 90s?

lc180 · 14-01-2015 09:57PM

Into The Blue wrote: »

USS Intrepid?

Yep pretty sure that was it. Was on it during fleet week in NYC a few years back. Is USS Intrepid there full time?

Into The Blue · 14-01-2015 10:03PM

lc180 wrote: »

Yep pretty sure that was it. Was on it during fleet week in NYC a few years back. Is USS Intrepid there full time?

Yeah, creamed myself when I heard there was a Concord and SR71 Blackbird onboard..

The trade off with my wife was a sex and the city tour. Worth it.

Birneybau · 14-01-2015 10:14PM

Honey Monster wrote: »

Is this not the mid 90s?

You/I wish.

MarkAnthony · 14-01-2015 10:19PM

"The West Wing: The Warfare of Genghis Khan (#5.13)" (2004)

Leo McGarry: My generation never got the future it was promised... Thirty-five years later, cars, air travel is exactly the same. We don't even have the Concorde anymore. Technology stopped
.
Josh Lyman: The personal computer...

Leo McGarry: A more efficient delivery system for gossip and pornography? Where's my jet pack, my colonies on the Moon?

fuerte1976 · 14-01-2015 10:20PM

Into The Blue wrote: »

USS Intrepid?

I was on it a good few years ago & the Concorde wasn't on show. Still hapes of machinery to ogle over tho. Amazing...

Banjo String · 14-01-2015 10:34PM

conorh91 wrote: »

Apparently the tickets were like €10,000

I have never been in a situation where I would pay €9,000 over-the-odds just to arrive in a place two hours earlier.

You'd need to have been capable of earning around €5,000 per hour for that to make financial sense. Sadly I don't fit into that category.

That's time travel though.

New York +5 GMT.

London - New York via concorde = 3hrs flight time.

Arrive before you set off.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh9PYtmVybU

14-01-2015 10:38PM

No. I was in CDG Airport though the day the crash happened!

seamus · 14-01-2015 10:41PM

If you were an A-list celebrity or the CEO of a huge company with a 7am meeting in NYC and a lunchtime meeting in London, the concorde had its use. And of course, there were the bragging rights of saying that you're flying concorde. Then the recession of the 80's hit, followed by the widespread adoption of satellite TV links, and finally the internet, to put the nail in the coffin of "needing" to travel that far, that quickly.

BA and AF flew the thing primarily at a huge loss for the last years of its existence, because it was a prestigious and beautiful flagship, and some CEOs still wanted bragging rights. The massive reduction in the cost of flying though meant that it became a bigger deal to have your own private jet rather than slumming it on some commercial airliner.

I suspect supersonic passenger flight will come back eventually. Modern widebodies are practically engineered to handle that stress already, the issue is efficiency and cost. Going faster isn't a linear progression - the amount of power required to maintain your speed rises massively as speed goes up URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_(physics)#mediaviewer/File:Drag_Curve_2.jpg"]img[/URL

But private companies like SpaceX and Virgin are developing technologies which will trickle down to commercial aviation and will likely result in faster times for little or no increase in cost.

Have you ever flown Concorde?

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