Have you ever flown Concorde?

Calibos · 15-01-2015 11:13AM

I hops the Brits pull of something similar again in the next decade or two with the Sabre Engine/Skylon Spaceplane. If they pull it off, it'll be a game changer for the cost of putting stuff into low earth orbit and a passenger version would finally deliver on the promise of London-Sydney in 2-3 hours. Sub orbital trajectory would mean overflight noise would not be an issue like it was for Concorde.

Hoop66 · 15-01-2015 11:25AM

I flew Bahrain-LHR on it in 1978 (I think), the company my father was working for paid for 4 employees and their families to return from Tehran to London as a promotional stunt. Iran Air to Bahrain then BA Concorde to Heathrow. Inside, it's very like a normal aircraft but more cramped, although the seats are wider there's only two on each side and the aisle is very narrow. As an 11 year old, I was completely in love with it, and kept up a running commentary of how fast we were going to my poor mother who was absolutely terrified.

I also used to work in an office just next to the main runway at Heathrow in the mid 90s. 10.30 every morning the whole place would stop as the noise of it going off was incredible.

LeBash · 15-01-2015 11:33AM

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.

Was watching a show on it one time and it was only about 30% more expensive to begin with. A survey was ran to find out why people werent flying on it and people said it was far too expensive and assumed it was 5 k to fly. So they made the tickets 5k. Something along those figures

DoYouEvenLift · 15-01-2015 01:07PM

Calibos wrote: »

I hops the Brits pull of something similar again in the next decade or two with the Sabre Engine/Skylon Spaceplane. If they pull it off, it'll be a game changer for the cost of putting stuff into low earth orbit and a passenger version would finally deliver on the promise of London-Sydney in 2-3 hours. Sub orbital trajectory would mean overflight noise would not be an issue like it was for Concorde.

Just spent almost an hour looking at YouTube videos about the space plane. Apparently the first test flight is in 2019? Trying to wrap my head around how quickly we'd be able to travel across the world if this sort of engine was used for some kind of commercial flights. Hypothetically, if money and visas etc. were no object, you'd be able to live in Ireland and travel to work in America everyday.

padd b1975 · 15-01-2015 01:49PM

MadsL wrote: »

Never tried to play both Live Aid gigs then?

On the morning the original Band Aid single was being recorded, Boy George found himself in a New York hotel room slightly the worst for wear when he should have been in London.

He was ordered by Geldof to get on Concorde in order to make it back in time to record his vocals.

A perfect illustration of the hypocrisy when millionaire popstars take a notion to do "charity".

Your Superior · 15-01-2015 01:57PM

Flew on it to New York for the start of my honeymoon in 1996. It was a great experience, glad I managed to do it once.

JoeA3 · 15-01-2015 01:59PM

For anyone who has National Geographic, their "Air Crash Investigation" show is covering the Paris Concorde crash next Monday at 9pm. It's a very good show, they do great reconstructions, worth a watch for those with even a passing interest in aviation.

Karl Stein · 15-01-2015 02:19PM

I think it flew fast enough to make the Sun appear to rise in the east which means you could leave London after sunset and arrive in NY before sunset.

mickdw · 15-01-2015 02:53PM

Was watching a clip last night from the factory in Filton when they were building the last concorde 216 which is the one now stored at Filton.
The manager there spoke of how sad it was to be stopping production in 1978 but was quite certain that by the mid 90s, concorde would be old hat and the technology available by then would blow concorde away.
How wrong he was.

Heritage concorde is a good site for info and latest news re ongoing works etc

Ben D Bus · 15-01-2015 04:05PM

I used to go quite often for training to an office on Bath Road on the Heathrow perimeter where all the hotels are.

Regularly headed up to the top floor (and roof when accessible) to watch Concorde take off.

That's the closest I've been unfortunately.

Boscoirl · 15-01-2015 04:17PM

starvin wrote: »

They have the Concord, the SR-71 and now there's the Space Shuttle.

That space shuttle never went to space

Was sickened to read that when I was there last year.

Got to go in the cockpit of the Concorde though that made up for it.

Peregrine · 15-01-2015 04:48PM

British Airways still use the Concorde callsigns(Speedbird 1/2/3/4) for their business class London-New York route. Two flights a day using 32 seat all business class A318s(:eek:) from London City Airport to JFK. It stops over in Shannon on the outbound leg to refuel and clear US customs because LCY's runway isn't long enough for them to take off with all the fuel they need for the flight.

So,

BA1 LCY-SNN-JFK
BA2 JFK-LCY
BA3 LCY-SNN-JFK
BA4 JFK-LCY

They save a little time by using London City Airport (right beside Canary Wharf, nowhere as busy as Heathrow so no need to arrive early) and pre-clearing from Shannon (only 32 passengers max and arrives in the US as a domestic flight).

Apparently the route is profitable.

MarkAnthony · 15-01-2015 05:07PM

I flew in a Tristar once

ScumLord · 15-01-2015 05:07PM

I thought the concorde just wasn't safe enough to keep flying.

they made some amazing machines in the 60s that's true, they pushed the boundaries right to the limit but they didn't do it economically and their machines weren't as dependable because they were still learning. Everything they did back then was extremely dangerous and a lot of people died.

Didn't the concorde have all sorts of problems at high speeds with parts expanding and contracting.

I think the big advances in modern technology have been in making more dependable and safe technology. It's a more practical type of engineering that benefits more people. I think if supersonic flight was to come back it would stay because we wouldn't bother if it couldn't be done in an affordable way.

AllGunsBlazing · 15-01-2015 05:56PM

The future of commercial air travel is neither increased speed or comfort imo. It's about herding as many people on board as to make it more cost effective for the carrier. You'll never see another Concorde.

Larbre34 · 15-01-2015 06:02PM

I was on board the Concorde at the Intrepid museum in New York, and it was unbelivably cramped and dated. I know people used to value the short flight more, but in the modern world of communications Id rather a spacious flight for 6 hours with wifi.

Concorde cost €10 billion in todays money and produced some good innovations but it was noisy and thirsty and unsustainable. Basically it was cold war era mickey waving.

Nforce · 15-01-2015 06:13PM

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.

Probably this one in NYC ?

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Into The Blue · 15-01-2015 06:22PM

Nforce wrote: »

Probably this one in NYC ?

Bollards are a good idea to stop some one nicking it.

mickdw · 15-01-2015 06:23PM

ScumLord wrote: »

I thought the concorde just wasn't safe enough to keep flying.

they made some amazing machines in the 60s that's true, they pushed the boundaries right to the limit but they didn't do it economically and their machines weren't as dependable because they were still learning. Everything they did back then was extremely dangerous and a lot of people died.

Didn't the concorde have all sorts of problems at high speeds with parts expanding and contracting.

I think the big advances in modern technology have been in making more dependable and safe technology. It's a more practical type of engineering that benefits more people. I think if supersonic flight was to come back it would stay because we wouldn't bother if it couldn't be done in an affordable way.

You are very much incorrect in nearly all of that.
Expansion and contraction was very much designed in.

Nforce · 15-01-2015 06:29PM

mickdw wrote: »

You are very much incorrect in nearly all of that.
Expansion and contraction was very much designed in.

Exactly...the floor is on rollers as the aircraft expands by around 9 inches during supersonic flight,iirc.

Here's a pic of one of it's Rolls Royce Olympus engines

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ScumLord · 15-01-2015 06:42PM

mickdw wrote: »

You are very much incorrect in nearly all of that.
Expansion and contraction was very much designed in.

Every plane has to take it into account but I remember watching interviews where people described gaps forming and moisture starting to make it's way through the gaps. The problem with too much movement is that it's eventually going to pull the airplane apart. This was the first plane of it's kind, it's not surprising they would underestimate the forces it's not like they would have to many references.

Nforce · 15-01-2015 06:50PM

ScumLord wrote: »

Every plane has to take it into account but I remember watching interviews where people described gaps forming and moisture starting to make it's way through the gaps. The problem with too much movement is that it's eventually going to pull the airplane apart. This was the first plane of it's kind, it's not surprising they would underestimate the forces it's not like they would have to many references.

There wouldn't have been any gaps as the aircraft body is, and needs to be, pressurised.

kona · 15-01-2015 07:02PM

seamus wrote: »

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.

Modern wide bodies cannot do supersonic airspeed and won't be able to safely, the jet engines on them cannot work at supersonic speeds, the Concorde had inlets designed to slow the air down to below Mach 1.

A china airlines 747 went Mach 1 in a dive and the aerodynamic stresses actually bent the spar.

Wibbs · 15-01-2015 08:50PM

ScumLord wrote: »

I thought the concorde just wasn't safe enough to keep flying.

Ehhhh... no S. Indeed for miles flown it was one of the safest airframes ever built. 30 years of service and only one fatal flight and that wasn't caused by the aircraft's design.

they made some amazing machines in the 60s that's true, they pushed the boundaries right to the limit but they didn't do it economically and their machines weren't as dependable because they were still learning. Everything they did back then was extremely dangerous and a lot of people died.

Where in god's name did you get that idea?

Never mind that we got men to the moon and back without a single inflight fatality. 1960's aircraft designs still with us today are the 747 and 737, both very safe aircraft in all their versions. The oh so modern A380 has had it's fair share of minor incidences, including cracks forming and it's only in service since 2008 IIRC, so it seems we're "still learning". Outside of composites and electronic systems airframe design of the 1960's was a high point.

Didn't the concorde have all sorts of problems at high speeds with parts expanding and contracting.

It was designed to. The SR71 was even more stretchy and leaked fuel like a sieve on the ground. They had to mix up a very special fuel to run it. It's MO was to take off with enough juice to get it up to altitude to meet a refueling tanker, where it would suck up the rest of what it needed. At full chat the wrinkles and gaps would seal and it would be all good. Concorde was a significantly more elegant solution and wasn't that much slower. The engineering to go mach 3 isn't that much more problematic than going mach 2(engine intake air speeds and nose and leading edge temps become the main issues). SR71 Mach 3 odd, two man crew wearing full pressure suits, required inflight refueling etc/ Concorde Mach 2 odd, 100 plus passengers, in suits or bermuda shorts chugging martinis and flying a couple of times a day with a couple of hours turnaround. Concorde was also fully aerobatic and could do barrel rolls and the like. TBH my biggest "WTF"? is why there wasn't any calls from the military for the airframe. It was fast as fook, could run at 60,000 feet, was aerobatic and had a fair sized carrying capacity. It would have made a pretty fancy AWACs, even spy plane.

I think the big advances in modern technology have been in making more dependable and safe technology.

Yes and no. Clearly there have been major advances, however it's becoming more and more clear that some are a double edged sword. EG the computerized flight control systems have meant that more and more commercial pilots are flying the systems that are flying the plane, rather than flying the plane and this has led to a few accidents. Take the Air France that went down en route from Brazil. When they stuck French air force pilots who are more "hands on" into the simulator and ran the same scenario they all recovered the aircraft. The commercial pilots were faced with a near textbook stall scenario and didn't cop it even as they smashed into the sea, because they weren't flying the plane.

It's a more practical type of engineering that benefits more people.

If anything we've become less practical, more overly complex, adding complexity where it may not be necessary, but just because we can.

I think if supersonic flight was to come back it would stay because we wouldn't bother if it couldn't be done in an affordable way.

Pretty much every true leap forward in human engineering achievement is ultimately scuppered by bean counters.

SEPT 23 1989 · 15-01-2015 09:30PM

I used to hear the sonic boom holidaying as a child in Wexford

Mankind took a step backwards when we retired that beautiful bird
the first time in our history we have actually done that

we always move forward but not this time

Calibos · 15-01-2015 09:38PM

The Wibbs has spoken

cnocbui · 15-01-2015 09:41PM

An interesting statistic I remember about the Concord is that each airframe in the fleet had spent more hours supersonic than had all the worlds military aircraft put together.

I blame the PC. The world stopped advancing after the PC was introduced.

FreeFallin · 15-01-2015 10:38PM

AllGunsBlazing wrote:

The future of commercial air travel is neither increased speed or comfort imo. It's about herding as many people on board as to make it more cost effective for the carrier. You'll never see another Concorde.

That's the worrying thing. I've seen the Airbus A380 a few times and while it's extremely impressive, it doesn't have half of the appeal of Concorde. I'm going to have faith that Richard Branson and others in the space still see the benefit in allowing pioneering spirit to win over short-term efficiency!

Wibbs · 15-01-2015 10:47PM

Calibos wrote: »

The Wibbs has spoken spouted his usual bullshíte

FYP C

mickdw · 15-01-2015 11:00PM

ScumLord wrote: »

Every plane has to take it into account but I remember watching interviews where people described gaps forming and moisture starting to make it's way through the gaps. The problem with too much movement is that it's eventually going to pull the airplane apart. This was the first plane of it's kind, it's not surprising they would underestimate the forces it's not like they would have to many references.

You are making comments as if there are facts to back them up.
One concorde crashed. All the others never had an accident. The one that did crash was overloaded with fuel which by all accounts was a major reason for fuel tank cracking on the top surface when a tyre exploded and slapped into the underside of tank.
That aircraft has a wheel spacer left out while servicing also. It is believed the crash was caused by metal on the runway ripping the tyre etc.
The entire fleet was upgraded with reinforced fuel tanks and revised tyres and electrical changes to remove any possible sparks should fuel leak in future in that area.
BA parked 5 perfectly safe and serviceable concorde at Heathrow one evening in 2003, never to carry a fare paying passenger again.
A huge percentage of the population believe concorde was grounded because it's unsafe. Its absolutely wrong. They were good for many years, certainly the later ones with low hours and flight cycles could still be in the air if economics were not the deciding factor.

Have you ever flown Concorde?

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