Tighten your seat belts and never fly with a russian a/c

[Holden McGroin]

Originally posted by Dowding
That's right, the US invented atmospheric science.

And besides, the moon shot "wasn't economical". Since when has economics mattered in terms of international prestige? The fact that Britain and France chose to heavily subsidise Concorde tells you something about that. They did it for the prestige, not because of economics.

The Apollo program was obviously never meant to make a profit, and if you argue that the Concorde was never meant to make a profit, I can concede your point on the reasons the Ameraican SST was cancelled.

However, Boeing's design was considerably larger that the Concorde to carry more passengers and possibly allow for some economics in scale.  If problems could have been solved, problems such as fuel consuption, noise, and environmental, the American SST would have flown.  

The problems were not solved in any of the three SST projects, and all ultimately failed when using an economic eye.  As they said in The Right Stuff, "What makes these fly is funding"

I personally thought that the stratosphere environmental issue was overblown, and took a flight on Concorde during one of its visits to Oshkosh.  One of the more expensive joy rides I took, but the experience was worth every penny.  It is quite an aircraft, and I hope Virgin Atlantic gets BA's planes and can give it a go.

Perhaps good management can make it an economic success.

[osage]

Originally posted by GScholz
Never fly African unless it's a DC-3.

You got that straight GScholz.

I spent a lot of time in West/Central African nations in the late '80s.

One fond memory was getting head lice from the headrests.

Maintenance is completely porked, and most of the planes are Russian.  They often wittingly or unwittingly use counterfeit parts for repairs.

Goon is about the only thing you can trust.

On that particular plane, there were no seats.  They were moving soldiers and their families from Kinshasa to the interior.  Imagine every sort of household item, goats, cookware, furniture, etc.-- unsecured in the cargo bay.  People were probably sitting on their home sofas.

Blam! Catastrophic depressurization at 30K.  It would be like a tornado, except there's no chance to hide.  One hell of a debris trail.

[NUKE]

Originally posted by Dowding
Two different planes operating in two different worlds. No fair comparison.

A better comparison would be the US SST and Concorde. One of which flew for 30 years without accident and the other... well... it looked good on the drawing board didn't it?

lol

It was economics then and economics now Dowding. If it isn't economics, then why is the Concorde being dropped? Hmmmm? Why not just build more?

I guess you believe that American aircraft makers are incapable of producing an SST.

The Concorde began operations in 1976. How many were in service? 12 maybe? How much profit did they make? Out of 12, one crashed killing all aboard.  The worst safety record of all major aircraft in operation today.

The small fleet, small average use time per aircraft and worst safety record of any aircraft ( By far B.T.W) all add up to losses.

Compair the profits/loss for the Concorde over it's service life  with that of a the  profit pulled in from standard Boeing aircraft.

[Chaos68]

"I was asleep, and then I heard people screaming. When I woke up, the pilot told everyone to get to the front of the plane, and there were about 40 of us, but people kept dying. There were only about 20 survivors."

what a way to wake up!

[davidpt40]

The reason I heard the American SST was cancelled was because with a swing-wing, it didnt have the RANGE to fly across the ocean.  Might as well keep this discussion honest.  So yeah, I guess it would be pretty uneconomical to run out of fuel every time the SST tried to cross the atlantic.

[AKIron]

Originally posted by Dowding
Two different planes operating in two different worlds. No fair comparison.

A better comparison would be the US SST and Concorde. One of which flew for 30 years without accident and the other... well... it looked good on the drawing board didn't it?

lol

Without checking I'm willing to bet that the 747 has logged at least 100 times the miles of the Concord. Any takers?

[AKIron]

Had to check, they aren't even that close.

747 has logged over 35 billion miles. The only reference I could find of the Concorde was 69 million. The 747 has logged more than 500 times the miles of the Concorde.

[Dowding]

And your point is? They were designed for two completely different roles. You might as well compare the milage on the lunar buggy to a family SUV.

Better to compare the US SST and Concorde, like I said in the post you quoted but evidently didn't read. Tell me, how many miles did the US SSTs do? Would have I got enough airmiles to buy a 12-piece dinner set?

[AKIron]

You're right, I mistakenly thought you were comparing saftey records between the Concorde and the 747, no comparison can be made.

[AKIron]

Lotta things killed the SST, high noise level was one of 'em. Folks got tired of all the sonic booms back in the '60s and weren't likely to allow passenger jets breaking their windows.

[blue1]

The biggest problem was that Concorde wasn't made in America.  Thus it was OK to complain about the noise and all the rest. That killed it as much as anything. The 'not invented here syndrome'.
An American SST would never have had so much opposition.

Anyone who compares Concorde to the 747 is just stupid or ignorant of aviation. They were made for different markets, like a Ferrari and a bus.

Concorde was and is a brilliant technical advance.  They are coming out of service now because they are nearly thirty years old and Sixties technology. Yes Nuke, economics. Have you checked to see how many 1970's vintage 747's are still in service? Economics again.

Questioning the safety record is just sophistry. It's a nonsense.  One crashed, that's nine percent of the fleet. But it's still just one aircraft, one incident. One tragedy.

Concorde is also easily the most beautiful airliner ever built, no argument there.

[GRUNHERZ]

Blue are you saying Concorde wasnt meant to be the next leap in mass air transit?  If so do you think the Brits and french always intented that only 12 or so would ever be built after all the billions they invested? Are you saying that it was always intended that it would be a $10,000 a ticket toy for a few millionaires?

If you do then you are ignorant. The 747 and concorde were meant for the same market, yep the same market but with different approaches. The simple thing is people ALL AROUND the world in the test markets where concorde was trialed hated the sonic booms, not to mention that concorde turned out to be incredible expensive to operate and airlines ran way in droves. The 747 on the other hand became a great success.

Again your whole "ferrari" argument rests on the ludicrous notion that the French and Brits only made it as a plaything for the ultra rich - yep that they spend billions to make a dozen small capacity mach 2 runabouts for millionaires and only intended to use them on one  basic transatlantic route. Do you belive that was what the french and brits spent billions on? Otherwise you have no case...

[straffo]

I disagree GRUN , the concorde was not build only for millionnaires (at first) the 1st oil chock (like we call it in France) killed comercially more surely the Concorde than anything.

[GRUNHERZ]

Of course it wasnt straffo, but blue thinks it was meant as an exclusive "ferrari" of the sky, it was an attempt to serve the masses by speed in comparsion to the 747 which meant to serve the masses by capacity. Ill let history judge who won that conceptual battle...

[straffo]

As you said previously it was a competition between 2 design ... one failed (concorde) one worked (747) due to an external event not because of the conception (well in fact partially because of the conception ).