ianmiller999

All I have been hearing from people this week is that they can't stop concorde, it is criminal, etc.

All these people moan about it but won't get off their backside to do anything about it, the British people get walked over again because no1 will stand up for what they believe in or want!



[Edited by ianmiller999 - 10/25/2003 6:19:36 PM]

Daz34

True.
Our nation are the biggest moaners around. I hate to say it but we should take a leaf out of the French's book and stand up and be counted. Here protests are for the militants, there they are for the masses.

Darren

scoobynutta555

Try 'British'.

Luke

Agree on us been soft... but if you where running Concorde as a business??? would you keep it going at a loss???

Its a shame but the old girls time was up..

ianmiller999

If I made enough profit on my other planes I would, just as a flagship plane to be proud of.

[Edited by ianmiller999 - 10/25/2003 6:31:21 PM]

boxst

Hello

Not that British Airways are actually making any money right now. I think they should of let Virgin have a go though.....

Steve.

carl

Surely -- if they gave a **** -- the government could intervene and force them to sell the planes/spares/infrastructure/etc. to Virgin? After all, it was the government who gave BA the money to buy them in the first place, IIRC.

Pretty sure that Maggie wouldn't have let something so quintessentially British go down the toilet

ianmiller999

Ahh yes but a conservative isn't in power the feable excuse of a PM Tony Blair is.

mart360

TB wont get involved for many reasons

1. its british, and to try to save it would mean admitting that the british got somthing right and to be proud of..

2. He would actually have to fight to do somthing, (work) and he would have criticsim from the voting public (cant have that can we!!)

3. it carrys very little value on the world stage, so unless theres a chance of a eu liftime achievement award or a global pat on the back you can kiss its chances goodbye..

4. makes you wonder where his funding comes from... you know the addage never bite the hand that feeds!!!

5. He has no control.... because people can find out the facts, he cant spin or lie his way round it,, its a clear battle you see..
funny though it was a labour gov, who actually pushed for the completion and subsequent success that concorde was, (the only thing they ever got right)

BA wont let branson get it because he also gets the landing slots which ba hate him having,,, and he,ll make a profit from it which would be egg on BA,s face.... mind you what do the shareholders think???? and why did BA take an 85M hit to stop it.. when they did??

now if it was from an eu minority state, and would cost millions to fund with no return and could be spun to death,,,,,,,, hmg would have hocked us for life..

Mart

v5 man

iTrader: (4)

now if G.W.Bush was a plane spotter...........you just know TB would have kept it flying for him

andrew6321

er, Concorde was an Anglo-French joint venture...so not 'British' as such.

It might still look nice and pointy, but at the end of the day, its 40 year-old technology and its time to send it to the breakers.

And, for all his posturing, I don't reckon the 'bearded one' could have made a profit with it either. He'd have had to push it even further up market and he couldn't have flown it anywhere that it didn't fly with BA, as very few other airports will let it in...

so put yer flags away and turn off 'land of hope & glory'

deanimus

It maybe 40 year old technology but was has been achieved in those 40 years?

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

err, yes and how old are 747's 757's 737's etc.? They are all as old. And more modern versions are only minor developments to the original designs.

Only thing different is that ones that are built (or re-fitted) today have more fancy gizmos to keep it up in the sky. Concorde could easily be retro-fitted.

Brit_in_Japan

As an engineer I've got to say Concorde was a triumph of engineering excellence. But as a business venture it was appalling, it took massive amounts of public money to develop it, and only a handful were made because it was too noisy.

The next supersonic airliner, whenever that will be, will have to match current air-noise limits for take-off, be considerably more fuel ecomonic and have reduced sonic-boom. NASA research has already been conducted into the latter.....

carl

Yes, but surely there was the 'halo effect' for BA customers? What does that make BA now -- just another airline.

I reckon Dickie would have run it as a loss leader, allowing the halo effect to filter down to his other flights.

Scoob99

iTrader: (1)

Did I hear the pilot right Concorde USE TO fly 23 miles per minute?? .........KIN ELL
Cheers
Colin

P.S. Lets start a campagin BRING BACK CONCORDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Edited by Scoob99 - 10/26/2003 9:34:34 AM]

scoobydooooo

no . it's only a bloody plane , for christ's sake .

Leslie

You may accuse Concorde of being 40 year old technology, but why in that case could it cross the Atlantic in 3.5 hours in comparison with the 8 hours of todays modern aircraft? It is a bit like comparing the speed of yesterday's steam trains with the crawl of today's train journeys! Real progress is being thrown away these days.

However old Concorde was, it was so far advanced that it is still ahead of todays aircraft in its aerodynamic capabilities. The lift obtainable from a slender delta at low speeds coupled with the cruise capability at Mach 2 is only approached by a military aircraft such as the YF 12A which carries 2 people. The achievement by the British and French designers and builders in the 60's was quite superlative. It's only serious accident in 27 years operation was caused by a piece of metal left on the runway by a more modern aircraft.

The aircraft was good for many more years safe flying. Airliners do not suffer from serious metal fatigue flying at high level from clear air turbulence. Especially at 50 K+ feet. The RAF VC10 transport aircraft are still going strong and are good for another 15 years or so. They have been going for appreciably longer than the Concorde.

As Ianmiller says, they could have been kept flying even as a flagship since BA got them for nothing anyway. There are many more important things in life than just money. Too many are worshipping the apparent importance of profits at the cost of everything else. Yet another victory for the soulless numbercrunchers and bean counters.

Les

[Edited by Leslie - 10/26/2003 10:02:20 AM]

Scoob99

iTrader: (1)

Les,
I think you might find that the so called metal object had nothing to do with the paris crash, it was in fact a tyre on concorde which burst on take off the metal object was found further down the runway, BUT yes it had fallen off a modern aircraft.
Cheers
Colin

dnb

A word about the useful lifetime of aircraft, ships etc...

They are designed with VERY long lifetimes in mind, and they not usually like cars - with only a 3 year limited warranty! Planes and ships tend to come with a lifetime of 30 to 40 years, with a LIFETIME service & repair contract, and numerous oppertunities for upgrades and redesigned bits to be added. Concorde isn't old - I'd say it's more "middle aged"

If I read the press releases correctly, Qinitiq had offered to work with Branson on updating the avionics systems on Concorde, along with numerous other companies. So you may end up with a 30 year old shell, but it would have essentially been a new plane!.

Just because it looks old doesn't make it bad.

Politics tend to be for short term gains (whoever you are) while designing civil aviation and millitary hardware is very long term. (Don't forget the 5 to 10- years of design work first!!) The two shouldn't be mixed, as it's a recipie for disaster - no R&D funding for example, as it doesn't look good on a balance sheet. Don't let me get started on R&D funding....

Leslie - Let's get the accountants!!!!!!!

ianmiller999

I don't see why people always blame accountants, as far as I am aware accountants try to get spending up to reduce the amount of profitable income, or at least that is what they did at the accountants I went to work experience for.

Dyney

Right you lot!!

Branson couldn't fly it as the manufacturers will no longer support it in parts or tech support.

Branson would have bought them and painted them in Virgin colours and given them to Museums (very good marketing/advertising )

Concorde is not an old aircraft in flying hours, only in the technology it uses. This has had minor updates over the years but to re-engineers all the avionics to currents stds would take millions and would need the people who know the aircraft best (and they still work for BA)

BA never really made money from Concorde, it was always just a prestige thing but in the current airline market there is no room for such costs.

Concorde is a beautiful aircraft and a one of a kind that we will never see again.
All the major aircraft manufacturers have plans for a supersonic airliner but have not built one due to the astronomical costs involved.
Concorde was originally designed and built as a research project by the French and British government using their government owned/funded agencys.

Ringpeas

It is still a real shame.
I think they did more for the image of Britain than Tony Blair ever could
They will fly again, I am sure of it. Even if it is only at air shows 15 years from now.
Mark

SHAGGY6603

Dyney,

1. BA made more than 1 billion £'s profit off concorde over it's lifetime and for many years it subsidised BA'S "unfair" price wars with Freddie Laker and The like.

2. BA got it for £2 so the the Gov't should force them to sell it for the same- BA never paid for Concorde- our fathers and grandfathers did with their taxes.

3. Branson has said (on question time- I heard him) that as their now seems no hope of them flying commercially then he'd be prepared to back keeping a couple flying for airshows special occassiond etc- AND STILL KEEP THEM IN BA COLOURS.

4. I n the same week that they washed their hands of Concorde this govt used £30 million of PUBLIC MONEY to save a painting by a blooming Italian, because it was culturally important? To whose culture? "COOL BRITANNIA?" Yeah right Tony

Luke

Just another example of FUUK

blair

Can we have a quick reality check here ?

Hands up how many people here are willing to pay £9,000 for a return flight to New York.

If you are - then why didn't you? It's your fault Concorde isn't flying anymore, not the accountants / BA / Tony Blair / .....


Don't get me wrong - Concorde is a beatiful piece of engineering but it was used by the super privileged and ultra rich to squeeze a few extra hours into their day. It's a damn shame that it won't be flying anymore but I for one do not want to waste any of my money/taxes on a privately owned asset, run for profit by a listed company.

It should never have been built in the first place - there obviously wasn;t the demand for it and the British and French governments had to bail the project out twice - funding the development and then forcing the nationalised airlines to buy a few each.

I don't see any fuss being made over the fact the Boeing never developed their supersonic passenger aircraft !

Yeah it's a shame, yeah it was an iconic symbol of European engineering but FFS it's only a plane !

We'll get over it eventually

Leslie

Scoob99,

Yes I was well aware that the pieces of burst tyre went through the wing and into the fuel tank thus starting the fire. The reports I read blamed the burst tyre on the metal object. Was that incorrect?

Les

chiark

Concorde was a bet by the British and French that commercial flight would be for the mega-rich, hence designed a bloody fast thing to take 100 bloody rich people quickly from a to b bloody noisily.

Boeing decided to carry the masses. Their plane wasn't banned from countries due to the noise. 400 people on 1 plane, or 100 people? What makes commercial sense?

People say that they don't care about the noise, but if every plane was a concorde, would they still be saying that? It was a niche, operated as a niche and as such was liked. If it was the rule rather than the exception, people would be campaigning for it to go!

The rest is history. The best technology doesn't always win (see betamax, microsoft,...)

I think Concorde is truly marvellous and a magnificent piece of engineering, and I deeply regret not paying out for a pleasure flight in it a couple of years back when it was flying regularly from Leeds/Bradford... It's made a lot of money since it was announced that it was to be decomissioned, but prior to that was rather stymied by the recession, the crash...

I would have loved to see it fly still, especially after so much money was spent on the improvements and refit. I reckon they could have eked a few more years out of it.

Cheers,
Nick.

TelBoy

I reckon it was just mis-managed.

Concorde once flew with just 18 passengers.

How hard would it have been to say to business class passengers checking in for the preceding 747 flight "Would you like to pay £500 to upgrade to Concorde?"

How many would say no? I reckon i could have filled Concorde up every journey.

The fact that nobody at BA was able to do so was lamentable.

pugoetru

well said telboy