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will never forget watching a programme few years back interviewing eye witnesses

where the plane finally crashed it was near a hotel, one bloke was sat at a desk on his laptop and saw the plane come towards the hotel it slowed right down and flipped up nearly vertical and slammed arse first back into the ground.

he said he was just frozen on the spot just staring at this happneing infront of him.

i dread to think what it must have been like for the people onboard in those last few seconds.

The Americans never liked Concorde. They were jealous. Such a shame that we've taken a great step backwards since Speedbird died. 🙁

I miss that sound and that sight.

This was the only Concorde crash and it grounded the fleet. It was a terrible tragedy but seemed a convenient reason to de-commission a service that wasn't viable anymore.

Not sure it needed to be viable, as such. It was a loss leader for years, but that's the thing.

During the boom years, before our current recession, people would have queued around the block to get on board. Still one of my regrets that I never got to experience it.

As you say, though, it was the only crash but grounded the fleet. If we took that logic along, when did you last fly on a 737?……Scary, huh?

Expensive,overpriced,and dated technology,noisy and poluteing,now used as a large prop at various museums.

Thing is, it was because of some debri on the runway, hardly a fault of the plane if thats the case, just the excuse they needed to get ride of it I guess.

dated technology

Compared to what more up to date technology which improves on it?

It was designed in the 60,s built in the 70,s and kept in service to long,at great expence.

If there was a need for a newer model it would have been built by private companies and not subsidised by the british and french governments as a way of job creation.

Also no other airline ever bought the model, unlike the Boeing and Airbus planes.

project – Member
It was designed in the 60,s built in the 70,s and kept in service to long,at great expence

So was the 747. What's your point?

Concorde was a step forward. Losing it was a step back. Name me another time when technology has taken a step backwards. None. We gave up on something amazing.

Sometimes you should do something just because you can. Viable or otherwise, the whole world admired Concorde.

CaptainFlashheart – Member

project – Member
It was designed in the 60,s built in the 70,s and kept in service to long,at great expence

So was the 747. What's your point?

Concorde was a step forward. Losing it was a step back. Name me another time when technology has taken a step backwards. None. We gave up on something amazing.

The advanced passenger train,failed due to lack of investment, and was taken foward by Fiat ,who produced the pendolino, tilting train.

CFH – concorde was no step forward, The 747 was Some good technology in it but basically it was a brute force solution and behind the times. Post 70s oil crisis it made no sense if it did before, Hugely expensive, polluting,thirsty, and ultimatly pointless.

I'd have love to have flown in one but be realistic. It was an ego boost not any sort of solution.

The plane equivalent of a Ferrari.( if you are being kind)

There were a huge number of options for Concordes, they were pulled when it was realised that it couldn't go supersonic over land, and thus was largely useless to a lot of the customers, including all the US airlines who had orders!

Hence it only ever really flew to Paris, Rio and initially to Bahrain.

It was a phenomenal feat of engineering, and a true shame that it's no longer flying, safe to say we're very unlikely to ever see anything else like it. Not because there's not a 'need', but because there's not the demand, as above it never made money anyway, but that wasn't the point!

The whole issue surrounding the piece of metal is rather contentious anyway if you read up on it, and there were a number of documented cases of tyre blowouts on Concordes in the past, some of which had been very close to causing serious incidents. The main issue was the significantly higher take off speed required due to the lack of flaps and the different wing profiles, and thus the issues with tyres disintegrating.

As for it hapenning to other aircraft, of course there have been incidents where fleets have been modified in the wake of a disaster, DC-10s after the cargo door fell off the Turkish one, and after Sioux City with the number 2 engine blowout. 747s after TWA800, and everything was modified after the IFE wiring melted and caused the Swissair MD-11 to crash off Nova Scotia. They're usually small modifications done as an emergency measure, this was not a quick fix, hence the grounding of the aircraft. They returned to flight, but it's safe to say that post 9/11 with numbers declining anyway, it's days were always going to be numbered.

A better car analogy is the Bugatti Veyron, it's purely a 'because we can' exercise which will never be replicated.

The advanced passenger train,failed due to lack of investment, and was taken foward by Fiat ,who produced the pendolino, tilting train.

What? The APT project was abandoned, but Pendos are produced by Alsthom, with variants operating in a number of other countries. They're not an evolution of the APT really, in any way.

concorde was no step forward

Erm, supersonic travel wasn't a step forward? OK, so let's not have broadband. Let's not have mobile phones. Digital TV, oh no, not in TJland.

Supersonic travel was a massive leap forward. That cannot be denied, even by you in your guise as Expert on Everything.

Polluting? Maybe, but with investment there could have been massive changes.

The 747 wasn't really a step forward. It was just something getting bigger.

The plane equivalent of a Ferrari.(

Without the likes of Ferrari or Rolls, ordinary cars would not have ABS brakes or traction control. Progress comes from going beyond the bland and banal.

Captain F.: .

Name me another time when technology has taken a step backwards

.

We can't get to the moon any more. that's another step missed. It'll take us a few years before we can do it again.

Definitely with CF on this one, to say it's not a leap forward is absurd.

as above it never made money anyway, but that wasn't the point!

Actually for many years it did make money. They asked the regular flyers how much they thought tickets cost and, since most of them had PA's and big business to book it and pay the bills, none of them had a clue and all guessed way too high. So BA simply raised the prices to match the expectations! 🙂
It made money indirectly as well, as a kind of PR exercise for BA and Air France.

I used to cycle home along the A4 past Heathrow, could often time it with a Concorde landing. I'd just stop at the roundabout near the end of the runway and watch it come in right overhead. I loved that noise. My Mum's house is under the flight path as well (but much further out) and every evening at 6pm, we'd miss the first item on the news as Concorde went over.

It's sad to think there will be very few 'concorde' moments in the future.

It a demonstration of what man can do, everything now has to be commercially viable, with the exception of emerging economies like Asia and the middle east.

In theory we should be going twice as fast in our passenger planes 40 years on from when concorde first flew.

CFH – I just simply beg to differ, I think it was a fantastic thing – elegant and beautiful and unmatched in many ways. But to me to be a step forward it has to be innovative and move the technology on. It was neither and it proved to be a dead end.

I agree with everything else you say about it but it was no great step forward – or else we would be using the technology it pioneered now. But it wasn't and we are not. It was a beautiful dead end.

Crazylegs – you forget the massive development cost that were written off.

Edit – so where was the innovation? What technology did it showcase?

A French inquest in the crash of a French aircraft will never get to the truth.

Much as I agree it was a leap forward, the real world says that maybe it was one that wasn't needed?

In terms of technology there's always leaps forward, of which alot don't get taken forward, due to economics and practicality.

IMO Concorde took what they'd learnt from fighter planes and applied to passenger aircraft. It didn't lead to any huge leaps in passenger aviation – why not? Because its not needed? However the advances in fighter planes could always trickle down to passenger planes if we ever needed them to.

We made it to the mmon in the 60s but haven't since. Why not? Because there's no need.

If there was real demand to travel to NY in 3 hrs then other technologies would have developed – oh they have! Video-conferencing and broadband…maybe the cost of Concorde was so high that it spurred the development in telecomms?

And forgot to mention – in progress I think you have to have 5 or 10 innovations, of which 2 or 3 will actually be taken forward due to practicalities

It only didn't go supersonic over land because people complained about the sonic booms scaring their pets etc etc.

There is another Concorde "moment", its the Veyron……

TJ – You really do talk out of your arse sometimes:

Ogival wing design,
Adaptive fuel system for balance and cooling,
Sustained supersonic flight,
Droop nose,
Topology optimised internal wing structure,
Area ruling for fuselage on a commercial aircraft,
High altitude cabin pressurisation and electrical system config
Adaptive engine air inlets,
Bypass flow,

To name but a few….

But to me to be a step forward it has to be innovative and move the technology on. It was neither and it proved to be a dead end.

But that's exactly what Concorde did. The engines, or more particularly the engine intakes were a remarkable feat of engineering unmatched since (lots of other innovative stuff to do with aero – it's just the engine intakes which were one of the most significant pieces of brilliant engineering). These enabled Concorde to fly faster on supercruise (which means without using afterburners) than ANY other conventional jet plane before or since – that's including military planes. It's hardly Concorde's fault that a lot of this stuff hasn't been taken forward – not for any technological reason, but more for political ones.

However the advances in fighter planes could always trickle down to passenger planes if we ever needed them to.

Except that as I mention above, in some ways Concorde was more advanced than modern fighter jets. If they were to make another superonic passenger plane it would owe a lot more to Concorde than current fighters.

The whole argument against "technology taking a step backwards" appears to be a circular one anyway. If I suggest a bit of technology which hasn't been reused, you'll say the technology wasn't a step forwards, otherwise we'd be using it. If I suggest it has been reused then you'll point out that technology hasn't taken a step backwards 🙄

It only didn't go supersonic over land because people complained about the sonic booms scaring their pets etc etc.

What's your point? That's the reason all the US airlines cancelled their options, had it been able to do New York to LA in 2 hours it may have been rather more viable in the long run!

Agree with all of the above from folk saying it was a technological advance, just because it wasn't technology which continued to be used doesn't make it a dead end. Maybe just ahead of its time!

Arguably mind, the Tupolev TU-144 was ahead of Concorde, it flew first, it flew supersonic first, and it flew Mach 2 first! It also crashed first…

Ok – Point taken. We are slightly at cross purposes. To me a beautiful white elephant that did not move the mainstream on at all. If you go up a dead end do you go anywhere?

So what innovations did it have that are on other aircraft now? Thats my point.

To that end, how was the 747 any more 'innovative'? What did the 747 have first that other aircraft still have.

It was just a bit bigger than previous models.

So what innovations did it have that are on other aircraft now? Thats my point.

All sorts of things I'm sure. Since they haven't made another supersonic passanger plane, just not the big attention grabbers. The aerodynamicists certainly learnt an awful lot from it – much of that knowledge I'm sure has eventually worked its way through to the designs for Airbus.

That was the 747s innovation. It was bigger. Have any of you been on Concorde? It's awful, really cramped, you put up with it simply because you could go to JFK and be back in time for tea, not because it was a nice place to be. But a 747 (especially in 1st) is a very very nice place to be, and it can go to all the airports that Concorde can't and it was a fraction of the cost, and you could get more self loading cargo on it, and it was cheaper to run…

The fight was faster or bigger..Bigger won

No sure about knowledge working its way through to Airbus designs TBH, aracer. Subsonic and supersonic flight are two very different soups…

But back to the OP and the title question: I reckon they'll all agree it was simply an awful tradegy and let everyone off cos Concordes were simply ace.

Or might that be simplifying it a little too much…?

I was lucky enough to fly to new york on her…

Arguably mind, the Tupolev TU-144 was ahead of Concorde, it flew first, it flew supersonic first, and it flew Mach 2 first! It also crashed first…

Charger doesn't even get to the table:

1. Industrial Espionage
2. Suffered horribly with porpoising
3. Unreliable
4. Concorde entered service first
5. Withdrawn after a handful of flights

I guess it is like Apollo 11, it wasn't really needed after all was it? 😯

I hope one day they bring the Big Bird back. With newer engines etc but supersonic nonetheless.

Subsonic and supersonic flight are two very different soups…

Well of course they are, but just because the plane is subsonic that doesn't mean all the airflows are (conversely not all the airflows on a supersonic plane are supersonic). A lot of the difficult stuff is to do with the transition between the two.

BA002 JFK to LHR on 29th April 2003 (G-BOAD).

Flippin loved all 195 minutes of it never mind 4 days in New York beforehand positively weeing myself about going home.

Shame.

Also lucky enough to be on Filton airfield for the last ever landing of a concorde in the world. Ever.