Concorde's Swan Song

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2003-10-24 07:54am

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3209837.stm

A sad day for anyone who loves aviation, I know I'll never forget this brilliant aircraft.

BrYaN19kc · Post by **BrYaN19kc** » 2003-10-24 11:16am

It's really too bad that they are retiring the aircraft. It was really a sharp looking jet.

El Moose Monstero · Post by **El Moose Monstero** » 2003-10-24 12:03pm

I seem to recall reading that the RAF were interested in keeping one of them for displays and state occassions, but still, a rather fine symbol of international cooperation ends this month...

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2003-10-24 01:26pm

Bah. It was pretty, but it was a white elephant. Did Air France or British Airways make a nickel in profit off those things the entire time they were flying?

Zac Naloen · Post by **Zac Naloen** » 2003-10-24 01:29pm

im not sure about the exact figure but i think it was reported at something like £460 million of profit for BA....

i can't remember if this figure was reported or if i i just pulled it outta my ass...

i have trouble remembering where i get some of these things :S

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2003-10-24 01:30pm

And the biggest example of the sunk cost fallacy in modern history finally dies.

Post by **LadyTevar** » 2003-10-24 01:35pm

CNN aired the last flight touching down in England.

A pity... especially since there's nothing on the boards to replace it.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2003-10-24 01:48pm

And I suppose going to the Moon was worth all the cost, please.

The costs are not the dfocal point; plane is a marvel of engineering and it is sad to see such a beauty go since we will likely never see anything like it again.

Had it not been for that crash and 11 September, BA would still be flying it. Despite the plane making profits in the last six months due to discounted flight tickets and the Iraq war being over, they still cancelled it and Airbus pulling out for other projects only helped their position there.

Zac Naloen · Post by **Zac Naloen** » 2003-10-24 01:53pm

Admiral Valdemar wrote:And I suppose going to the Moon was worth all the cost, please.

The costs are not the dfocal point; plane is a marvel of engineering and it is sad to see such a beauty go since we will likely never see anything like it again.

Had it not been for that crash and 11 September, BA would still be flying it. Despite the plane making profits in the last six months due to discounted flight tickets and the Iraq war being over, they still cancelled it and Airbus pulling out for other projects only helped their position there.

im not entirely sure how 1 crash caused the death of concorde, other than media sensationalism... i mean, how many times has a 747 crashed?

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2003-10-24 01:58pm

Zac Naloen wrote:
Admiral Valdemar wrote:And I suppose going to the Moon was worth all the cost, please.

The costs are not the dfocal point; plane is a marvel of engineering and it is sad to see such a beauty go since we will likely never see anything like it again.

Had it not been for that crash and 11 September, BA would still be flying it. Despite the plane making profits in the last six months due to discounted flight tickets and the Iraq war being over, they still cancelled it and Airbus pulling out for other projects only helped their position there.
im not entirely sure how 1 crash caused the death of concorde, other than media sensationalism... i mean, how many times has a 747 crashed?

The upgrades to the BA and Air France fleet set the costs rising to pay for the multi-million pound refit. That and the media making the plane out to be unfit to fly because of ONE crash made people shun it. Concorde needs on 1/2 of the passenger load to break even and it did that even after the crash. But BA and especially Air France dismissed their prior optimism of running the aircraft until around 2014 as sales started to slump because of 9/11 and the refit costs weren't met. Then Airbus said it was going to pull out in favour of planes like the A380 and that sealed the fate.

Zac Naloen · Post by **Zac Naloen** » 2003-10-24 02:00pm

The upgrades to the BA and Air France fleet set the costs rising to pay for the multi-million pound refit. That and the media making the plane out to be unfit to fly because of ONE crash made people shun it. Concorde needs on 1/2 of the passenger load to break even and it did that even after the crash. But BA and especially Air France dismissed their prior optimism of running the aircraft until around 2014 as sales started to slump because of 9/11 and the refit costs weren't met. Then Airbus said it was going to pull out in favour of planes like the A380 and that sealed the fate.

i hate politics

The Third Man · Post by **The Third Man** » 2003-10-24 03:34pm

A persistent rumour (urban myth?) in the aerospace industry is that if you look at a plan for all the Concorde hydraulics, wires and so on, they are all strangely routed to avoid a seemingly arbitary large rectangular area in the bottom of the fuselage. Why? It's supposedly for if they ever needed to make a bomb bay.

The truth of that aside, Concorde is a fine example of what European co-operation is capable of achieving.

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2003-10-24 03:38pm

Admiral Valdemar wrote:And I suppose going to the Moon was worth all the cost, please.

The Apollo project was designed to send an American to the Moon before the Russians. It succeded. The Concorde was designed to make money for the British and French governments and usher in an era of supersonic air travel. It failed. Comparing a glory project to what was intended to be a profitable commercial venture is spurious at best.

The costs are not the dfocal point; plane is a marvel of engineering and it is sad to see such a beauty go since we will likely never see anything like it again.

I never claimed otherwise. It is a fantastic piece of engineering with an excellent safety record, and it's pretty too. That doesn't change the fact that it's a white elephant. At the same time the British and French governments were sinking three and a half billion dollars into a gas-guzzling plane that could only carry 100 people, Boeing was rolling out the 747, which could carry almost 600 people (in certain configurations) for far less per passenger per mile. The commercial airline industry needed a flying bus that could move a lot of people for cheap, not a Mach 2 puddle jumper.

Had it not been for that crash and 11 September, BA would still be flying it. Despite the plane making profits in the last six months due to discounted flight tickets and the Iraq war being over, they still cancelled it and Airbus pulling out for other projects only helped their position there.

Other planes crash all the time, and September 11, despite hitting the airlines hard, didn't force any other planes out of service. That hardly exonerates the plane. Yeah, IF they hadn't happened, the Concorde would still be flying. And IF it hadn't cost $3.5 billion to develop, and IF they had sold 300 like they planned instead of 20, and IF the economics of the air travel industry didn't favor big planes with low operating costs, then the plane would still be flying too. While we're at it, IF I had an 18 inch dick, I could star in porno films.

As for Airbus, they pulled out because the plane was too expensive to support. BA might have been making money on ticket sales, but obviously Airbus wasn't sharing the wealth.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2003-10-24 04:01pm

We all know Concorde wasn't meant to be a rival to the wide bodies out there, it was supposed to be a luxury service that would give the rich and famous a taxi that could cross the Atlantic or even go to Australia at one point in no time at all. The problems in cost stem from the aircraft being complicated, obviously a Mach 2 airliner is not a common vehicle in this day and age even.

Airbus, BA and Air France had originally planned to fly these planes well into the 21st century and have a replacement even, but such plans didn't come to fruition because of numerous factors. Namely the fact that Concorde wasn't allowed to fly many routes and designers saw SSTs as being liabilities rather than the future, compared to things like the 747-400 and A380.

There's no denying that the effects of the crash and 9/11 brought an inevitable end closer, had Branson got the gov't to give him one or two Concordes he would easily support them still given his plans. He now wants at least one plane to remain flying as a monument to the engineering involved at least.

They're right though, aerospace has just taken a step backwards in terms of what a paying customer can do (unless you know anyone selling off a used Tu-144 anywhere).

Zoink · Post by **Zoink** » 2003-10-24 04:04pm

I heard that the airlines were making money off concorde ticket sales prior to the crash, but after the crash it went into the red.

This sudden loss, coupled with plans to retire them in the near future, resulted in the decision to retire them.

Even with a small profit, I would assume that the money the airlines put into maintaining the concordes can be better invested in other areas.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2003-10-24 04:12pm

They were going to be retired earlier than any other airliner, but the crash and so on made the cost of refits too much for Airbus to handle. So they threatened to pull out. Everyone agreed to a date for the last flights (Air France pulling out earlier as a fuel dump caused one plane to have an emergency landing in Halifax) and that was that. And yes, it made quite a lot of cash over the last year or so, but that didn't phase anyone and BA et a; have their sights on the next gen super airliners.

The only way we will see such aeroplanes again is if NASA gets that sonic boom negating aircraft design into a real working airliner model, along with cheaper construction, maintenance and better fuel efficiency.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2003-10-24 05:57pm

I wish I could hear a sonic boom, I've never heard one before.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2003-10-24 06:29pm

Uraniun235 wrote:I wish I could hear a sonic boom, I've never heard one before.

From the people I know who actually hear Concorde fly over, it ain't nice. It's a good way of messing with a school class though. Even take-off is loud as the thing takes off at 250kts.

Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi · Post by **Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi** » 2003-10-24 10:11pm

The Concorde was a cool plane, and a marvel of engineering, but I say the only thing we're losing is the ability to cross the Atlantic in 4 hours, and being able to pay far more money for a ticket to do so. And, I don't think anything will replace it, unless there's some big demand for supersonic civilian air travel in the near future, and a new, more efficent supersonic jet comes out with a higher passenger capacity.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-10-25 02:36am

Admiral Valdemar wrote: Despite the plane making profits in the last six months due to discounted flight tickets and the Iraq war being over, they still cancelled it and Airbus pulling out for other projects only helped their position there.

The plane was making a profit because after they announced it was going to stop flying people began selling out the flights because they wanted to fly it just once, or one last time. Canceling its retirement would have thrown it back into the red.

victorhadin · Post by **victorhadin** » 2003-10-25 09:30pm

*Wipes away a tear.*

darthdavid · Post by **darthdavid** » 2003-10-25 10:10pm

*taps starts playing in the background*

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2003-10-25 11:14pm

Its too bad it wasn't more successful. As it was, I am not that sorry to see it go.

El Moose Monstero · Post by **El Moose Monstero** » 2003-10-25 11:16pm

Curious though, I attach more symbolic significance to Concorde's last flight than if the UK joined the Euro tomorrow and the Pound ceased to be.