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Old 20 October 2003, 05:28 PM
  #1  
Pete Croney
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Corncorde will make its last passenger flight on Friday this week. I find this very sad as we are losing something very special and very British.

Concorde RIP

Concorde landing at Heathrow earlier this month
Old 20 October 2003, 05:31 PM
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unclebuck
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and French....
Old 20 October 2003, 05:58 PM
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It is noisy, thirsty, pointless, expensive, anti-social and elitist

I will really miss it !

I still miss the Vulcan and the Tri-Star.

Anyone else remember 1970's jumbo interiors, Chocolate brown and Orange mmmm
Old 20 October 2003, 06:10 PM
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Chip
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From the Times on Sunday:
She burned bright but takes her final bow this week. Jeremy Clarkson explains why he will be on Concorde for a last push through the sound barrier



Like most middle-aged people, I don’t know where I was when John F Kennedy was shot. But I do know where I was when the Air France Concorde crashed into a Paris hotel. And I know where I’ll be next Friday: on board the world’s only supersonic airliner as it makes its final scheduled flight from New York to London.
As I step off, the temptation will be strong to say: “That was one small step for a man. But one giant leap backwards for mankind.”

It’s hard to think of past examples where human beings had the technology to progress but held back. Maybe AD410, when the Romans pulled out of Britain, but not since. It’s not in our nature to snuff out the fire.

We went to the moon and now Beagle 2 is on its way to Mars. We invented the steam engine and replaced it almost immediately with internal combustion. We went to America in three hours . . . and now we can’t any more. It doesn’t make sense.

When the British and French governments decided to commission a supersonic jet liner in 1962, the engineers had no clue how such a thing might be achieved. Sure, they had jet fighters up there in the stratosphere, doing more than twice the speed of sound, but these were being flown by young men with triangular torsos in G-suits. The politicians were talking about putting overweight businessmen up there, in lounge suits.

Friends at Nasa have told me that the technological challenge of making a Mach 2.2 passenger jet was greater than putting a man on the moon. Those rocket boys get all teary-eyed about their beloved Apollos. But when you mention the Concorde, their eyes dry and they nod, slowly and reverentially.

That’s because life beyond the 750mph sound barrier is seriously hostile. There’s the friction, which generates so much heat that planes swell by up to a foot. There’s a spot on Concorde’s dash that, in flight, is so hot you could fry an egg on it. Then there’s the shockwave, a phenomenon of such ferocity that it jams the hydraulics and freezes the controls.

Toward the end of the second world war, pilots who put their Spitfires into a dive often lost control and could not pull up. They didn’t know it at the time but a supersonic shockwave, the source of the sonic boom, was to blame. It sat on the trailing edge of the wings, preventing the ailerons from moving. To get a plane to fly through the sound barrier, this shockwave has to be tamed.

Of course, you can’t let the supersonic savagery anywhere near those delicate Olympus engines. The air has to be slowed down before it’s allowed into the intakes and past the spidery blades.

To make things even more complicated, there’s the bothersome business of fuel consumption and reliability. A typical fighter jet of the 1960s, the Lightning, for instance, was out of juice after about 45 minutes. And it needed up to two weeks of maintenance after a sortie.

Concorde had to fly in that cruel place, where the air is as destructive as a nuclear blast, for 4,000 miles. Then it had to turn around and come home.

The Americans failed with their Supersonic Transport because they aimed for Mach 3 and the exotic materials needed to withstand the heat at this speed weren’t commercially available back then. The Russians were more realistic with their Tupolov but it failed because it only had a range of 1,500 miles.

It’s worth remembering that Concorde was built by trial and error after error. Men wearing Brylcreem and store coats, endlessly lobbing paper darts down the wind tunnel in Filton.

Make no mistake, Concorde was an extraordinary technological achievement. Almost certainly, one of the greatest.

And not just technically but politically. France and Britain couldn’t even agree on how it should be spelt. They finally decided that it should end in an “e”, in the French style, but then Macmillan fell out with de Gaulle and dropped the letter.

It was Tony Benn, the then secretary of state for industry, who solved the matter by declaring it would be “e” for England, “e” for Europe and “e” for entente cordiale.

Benn saved Concorde over and over again. He even had to fight the Americans who, in a fit of sour grapes, tried to ban the plane on the grounds that its sonic boom would knock over their cows.

They kicked up such a stink that, bit by bit, the world began to lose confidence in the plane. One by one, the 16 airlines that had ordered Concorde began to cancel until just two were left: Air France and BOAC.

Knowing that the plane was destined to be a commercial disaster, Benn had to cajole the Treasury and the French until, on January 21, 1976, the scheduled services began. For the first time, paying passengers could fly so fast they could watch the sun rise in the west and arrive in America before they left home.

The cost to the British taxpayer was astronomical: £1.34 billion. Even in today’s money, that would nearly get you two domes.

But, astonishingly, the white elephant became a cash cow. Even though this exotic plane arrived as Freddie Laker began to take the working classes to New York for

£59, it regularly flew three-quarters full and made £20m a year for BA.

From my point of view, in a Fulham flat, Concorde was simply a device that prevented me hearing the second item on the six and 10 o’clock news. Twice a night the hum of central London would be drowned by the crackle from those massive engines. And twice a night the entire city would look up. Familiarity never bred indifference.

And then. As I stepped off a Royal Navy Sea King helicopter in York, my phone rang to say Concorde had crashed into a Paris hotel.

My reaction was the same as yours. Initial shock that was only slightly lessened when we found out it was an Air France bird and the people on board were not British. Usually, in an accident of this kind, we mourn the people who have died. But this time, it was different. For the first time since Titanic, we mourned the loss of the machine itself.

The great white dart. The machine that reminded Londoners twice a day how great we once had been. The plane that was 40 years old but still at the cutting edge of everything. It was not invincible after all.

It never had been, actually. On one BA flight from New York to London one of the engine intakes refused to budge, increasing the drag and therefore the fuel consumption. The captain ignored the advice of his engineer and number two that they should land at Shannon in Ireland to refuel and cruised over the middle of London, arriving at Heathrow with enough juice for 90 seconds more flight. It ran dry while taxiing to the stand. Joan Collins never knew how close she came to being a permanent fixture in the wreckage of what had once been Harrods.

After the Paris crash and September 11, public confidence in Concorde dried up. I flew on it for the first time last year and couldn’t believe how empty it was.

There were lots of things I couldn’t believe, actually. Like how small the windows were, and where in such a tiny fuselage they found space for such an extraordinarily well stocked wine cellar. And how noisy it was in the back. But most of all, I couldn’t believe the surge of acceleration as it cleared Cornwall and the afterburners took us up past 1,000mph.

Unless my children become fighter pilots, they’ll never feel that surge.

No company or government in the world is currently undertaking serious work on a supersonic airliner. There’s talk of Gulfstream building a Mach 2 business jet and there are whisperings about a “scramjet” plane that could get from London to Sydney in two hours.

In the early 1990s, British Aerospace and Aerospatiale held secret talks about developing a 225-seat aircraft that could get across the Pacific at Mach 2.5. But when the proposed cost of such a thing worked out at £9 billion, they decided to build a double-decker bus instead.

Do you think Columbus would have reached America if he’d concerned himself with the bottom line? Do you think Armstrong would have walked on the moon or Hillary on the top of Everest? Was it profit that took Amundsen to the South Pole or drove Turing to invent the computer?

Compounding the problem is a sense that the first world has pulled so far ahead of the third, the money would be better spent helping others to catch up. For every pound spent on human advancement, there are a thousand bleeding hearts saying the money could have been spent on the starving in Africa. I see their point.

But what I cannot see is the human thirst for improvement being extinguished by the bean counters. No individual company or country could afford to develop a plane that’s significantly better than Concorde, so maybe what’s needed is a ring-fenced global fund for the greater good. A fund that undertakes the work business won’t touch, hunting the skies for asteroids, searching the seas to find a cure for cancer and fuelling our quest to go faster and faster.

Or maybe the days of mechanical speed are over. Why go to America at the speed of sound when, with an internet connection and video conferencing, you can be there at the speed of light? Why go at all? Maybe planes are about to follow in the footsteps of the horse. When the car came along, the horse didn’t go away. It simply stopped being a tool and became a toy. A show jumper. A playmate for 12-year-old girls.

If you can communicate instantly with anyone anywhere the only reason to travel is for fun, for your holidays. And given the choice of doing that at Mach 2 or for £2, I know which I’d choose.

Perhaps, then, this is not a step backwards. Maybe Concorde dies not because it’s too fast but because, in the electronic age, it’s actually too slow.


Chip.






Old 20 October 2003, 06:20 PM
  #5  
Chip
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Ooops

Chip.


[Edited by Chip - 10/20/2003 6:27:59 PM]
Old 20 October 2003, 06:25 PM
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Neil Smalley
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Chip,

So good you posted it twice

JC had it nailed though
Old 20 October 2003, 07:03 PM
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top article that.

Sad to see it go
Old 20 October 2003, 07:13 PM
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mista weava
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It is noisy, thirsty, pointless, expensive, anti-social and elitist

maybe how some see scoobs!

i am sorry i never got to fly on it

Weava
Old 20 October 2003, 07:19 PM
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scoobydooooo
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who cares ?? it's only a piece of 30 year old junk ! or is that the missus ??
Old 20 October 2003, 07:34 PM
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dnb
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I haven't either Always wanted to, ever since I saw the prototype at Duxford when I was 10 years old.

A history lecturer tried to tell me after the Paris incident that it was now an old fashioned idea to want to cross the atlanic quickly. I dread to imagine where that sort of thought will get us. Kind of like the Honda "OK" advert

I think it's time the engineers reclaimed the world from the clutches of the accountants!!

Old 20 October 2003, 07:37 PM
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I'm fortunate enough to work one mile from the end of the runway and she passes overhead everyday and still 6 years later we all still rush outside for a look

I tried to get a piccy on Friday as she was landing from the west, eta was 17.51 on the BAA computer so there I was all ready waiting to catch it at sunset and it comes by at 17.30 21 minutes early!! Im not missing friday!

The best thing is seeing concorde come over when its dark, the reheat is a sight to behold, pure white heat coming out of the 4 Olympus engines and within the flame coming from the engines are 4 white ringlets, its difficult to decribe but when you see it a couple of hundred feet above your head its all very impressive.

Are they intending to land all three from the east or the west?? anyone know??

It is a real shame she will be gone

Cheers Dave
Old 20 October 2003, 07:43 PM
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a tear in my eye

Just about sums this excuse for a country up...

Andy
Old 20 October 2003, 07:49 PM
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My ex's grandad helped on the test flights, so has great sentimental value to a few I know. Will be sad to see it go!

God Bless ya Stanley x
Old 20 October 2003, 08:07 PM
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A very sad day indeed, still remember the test flight days when it use to fly over our house at Heston, fantastic sight to see it only a few hundred meteres over the house, It is and always will be a beautiful aircraft, R.I.P. Concorde you will be sadly missed
Cheers
Colin
Old 20 October 2003, 08:25 PM
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TelBoy
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A sad day. Anyone who's ever had the privilege will confirm it's a very special experience.

Hopefully in our lifetimes there will be something to equal it. I'm not holding my breath for anything to surpass it, however.
Old 20 October 2003, 08:36 PM
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Luke
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Without a doubt the best looking machine in the world.

better than any ferrari, fancy watch or motorbike.

Concorde was a woman we all wanted to Fukk...
Old 20 October 2003, 08:39 PM
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Just watched her take off from Birmingham International, and it was awesome. Haven't seen her take off before, and I loved it.

I see planes taking off all the time in my job, but this was something else.

Deafening... ground-shaking, and compared to the other planes taking off, much much faster. Superb sight.
Old 20 October 2003, 08:45 PM
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Exclamation

Luke got it spot on...........just one of the most beatiful man made objects ever created.
Old 20 October 2003, 09:24 PM
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I was a small boy when i was taken by an uncle to a remote dual carrageway in yorkshire.... the reason a test flight by concorde..
I remember seeing a small blob (it was 20 odd+ years ago) and thinking wow... i was fortunate to be one plane behind it when it took off 2 weeks ago from heathrow... it was then and still is aone of the best planes ever... the fact that bob ayling refuses to let richard branson have a go is a travesty of justice...

its no good appealing to hmg as they would rather let it go than admit the uk had somthing the world will always be proud of.

M
Old 20 October 2003, 09:29 PM
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Bas
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Damn shame

Flightpath was directly over my work and it still made me stop and stare every day

Bas
Old 20 October 2003, 09:32 PM
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It never CORNERED too well though



RNAS Yeovilton for concorde 002 btw

Steve
Old 20 October 2003, 11:00 PM
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J4CKO
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"It is noisy, thirsty, pointless, expensive, anti-social and elitist

"maybe how some see scoobs! "




But Concorde pilots are highly respected.....
Old 20 October 2003, 11:14 PM
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Bro-in-laws Dad was a pilot for a few years. He has told us many stories !! Still, it always makes everyone at the pub in Windsor stop and stare every evening.

She will be sadly missed.

Dave

[Edited by druddle - 10/20/2003 11:16:08 PM]
Old 20 October 2003, 11:26 PM
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I have the day off work on Friday and wanna go & see it whilst I still can. I believe it is taking off from Heathrow on Friday Morning & flying to Edinburgh before returning to Heathrow later the same day. Does anyone know the exact Take off & Landing times for Friday at Heathrow & a good vantage point?

Darren
Old 20 October 2003, 11:43 PM
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well i think BA are wrong to ground it even though i would never be able to afford a seat it is still ahead of its time

a true classic
Old 20 October 2003, 11:59 PM
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Daz34
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I know it seems to be the trendy thing to do lately, but I blame the Government. They should have intervened & kept it flying. Forget the Queen & all her hangers on. The real icon for this country & link to our glorious past achievements is that aircraft.
Old 21 October 2003, 07:56 AM
  #27  
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Daz 34

Good luck coming down to Heathrow, we have been warned that between 500,000 and 1,000,000 will descend on Heathrow and surronding areas to see all three land one after the other, 1 ex Belfast 1 ex Edinburgh and 1 ex JFK

The Jfk aircraft will depart the night before usually between 18.30-19.00 , came over at 20.55 the other night obviously it missed its slot.

If that many people turn up the whole place will grind to a halt, there have been signs up on the M25 for over a week now warning of serious delays on M4 / M25 on Oct 24th. I wonder why

Cant wait to drive to work Friday afternoon
Old 21 October 2003, 08:33 AM
  #28  
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I can't believe I've only just worked out what those signs on the M25 relate to I have to do J11-J19 ish on Friday
Old 21 October 2003, 08:46 AM
  #29  
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So where are they going to be stored? Are they not coming home to Bristol?


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