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 Withdrawn after a handful of flights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...
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.
Jeremy Clarkson would love this thread 
- I'm sure it was him masquerading as Flashy at one point.
I'm with TJ in the begrudgers corner. Yeah, lovely, gorgeous, blah blah but technology hasn't taken a step backward because a non-viable beautiful thing is sat on the ground.
Lucky? 
to make a bike analogy, would you say bike technology hasn't move forward from hardtail to full suss just because the full suss isn't economically viable for lots of people and not particularly needed for many of the trails everyone rides there 6 inch travel sofa on? just because it isn't need doesn't mean its not innovative or a step forward.
TandemJeremy - MemberSo what innovations did it have that are on other aircraft now?
Ogival wing design, - F22
Adaptive fuel system for balance and cooling - Almost everything flying
Sustained supersonic flight - F22, F35, T50, Eurofighter
Topology optimised internal wing structure - A380, 787, A350 XWB
Area ruling for fuselage on a commercial aircraft - 787, A350 (wing root only)
High altitude cabin pressurisation and electrical system config, - Dunno TBH...
Adaptive engine air inlets - X35b et al
Bypass flow - ALL modern military Turbofans
RS- agree totally has technology gone backwards because Marzocch don't make the 12 inch travel MTB fork any more and the most travel they have is 8 inches?
technology gets pushed on when we see how far we push it and then reign it back in and find something that works for the norm rather than the top end
Daffy - I defer to your fine display of plane geekery there. 
Its still not a massive amount of innovative tech passed over into mainstream airliners is it? And how much of than was new on concorde?
I think the bike analogy would be more with something like the whyte with the funny front suspension? an excursion down a dead end that did not have great effects on the mainstream.
Don't get me wrong - I think it was a great plane and the world is a poorer place for its passing. However it proved to be an expensive irrelevance in the end. A step forward does not go down a dead end. It becomes the mainstream like disc brakes or oil damped forks
No, a better bike analogy would be carbon monocoque time trial bikes - eg Hotta, Lotus etc. A step forward in technology, but killed off because the rules changed.
I did some contracting work not far from the end of the runway at Heathrow for about 15 weeks. Every evening we always stopped what we were doing to watch her go.
Amazing sight and noise. It made me feel proud somehow.
I wonder if the French have a better runway cleaning regime these days? I blame them 100% for the mass grounding of Concordes. Tw4t5
I remember in the early 90s, when I moved to Farnborough and was working on the A331: Every morning, at about 11am IIRC, there was that distant, menacing, growing rumble as Concorde arced across the sky
Every day, every single person working on site would pause, shade their eyes and look up, mostly in silence.
To me, for what Concorde did, what it meant, and most importantly, the grace it did it all with, was second to none. Without a doubt the most beautiful machine ever created IMO, and I don't think we'll ever get close again..... 
Wasn't Concorde the first fly by wire plane? something that is used in almost all modern airliners?
Conc was kind of fly by wire. It passed electrical signals directly from the control inputs to the control surfaces rather than using a mechanical system.
A modern FBW control system processes the signal as well (or the pilot moves the controls which tells the computer what what to do to the control surfaces).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ro3QVMCG-aY
Feel the hairs fly off the back of your neck. Starched collars and a stiff upper lip are mandatory. And there's Raymond Baxter. They should make this vid part of the 'British Citizenship' test.
Just try and ignore the bit about BA standards of service at the end.
TandemJeremy - Member
Daffy - I defer to your fine display of plane geekery there.Its still not a massive amount of innovative tech passed over into mainstream airliners is it? And how much of than was new on concorde?
Teej, seeing as Daffy hasn't answered, I'll do it for him. Those bits of tech were massive steps forward. In paticular the adaptive fuel system is used everywhere. It's a bit like a genius ltd. Massively expensive and over performing for most people, but the tech trickles down to most things eventually.
Oh, and all those things Daffy listed were new on Concorde and hadn't been done before.
Ta Tree
Every day, every single person working on site would pause, shade their eyes and look up, mostly in silence.
I never tired of looking at Concorde, and would always stop for a moment and gaze up when it flew overhead.
"Without a doubt the most beautiful machine ever created"
Yep for me too.
Concorde has had more than one accident/crash. I remember being told of the wings coming off on landing. Another one is where they were on a test flight and the thing kept climbing, can't remember if it was 40,000 or 60,000 feet and climbing. Some fo the top engineers were aboard and they didn't have a clue what was wrong!
Another accident would be not opening the hanger doors, and trying to take her into the hanger... surprise surprise.... New wings please!
I'm lucky enough to have been on all of BA's Concorde's, although didn't get to fly, someone nicked my space to NY!
Watched it launch and land a few times at Manchester.
No that was the Fein Multimaster 
No seriously, the only plane I'd ever stop whatever I was doing and stare as it flew over.
mmmmmmm Concorde......was lucky enough to fly on it back from NY a couple of times. Didnt exactly feel like state of the art technology but boy oh boy that thing could move. Whole thing leant right back as it gained altitude.
Black space above, curve of the earth below, 3hr flight home, Dom Perignone, Jonny Walker Blue Label, lobster, caviar.....all at Mach 2.2
**** it who cares how much it cost, it was brilliant. And now it is gone.
Thank you all the TJs off the world as you lead us in the relentless pursuit of mediocrity.
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.
At the time of her ending service, wasn't she the fastest plane anywhere in the world, military or civil? She could certainly outrun the standard Mach 2 fighter...
Another accident would be not opening the hanger doors, and trying to take her into the hanger... surprise surprise.... New wings please!
Clearly the plane's fault then...
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...
Yep I flew on it to New York, also on G-BOAD actually, and as shown from the picture, it's not exactly "awful"! The windows are small yes, but so what.
Having also flown First on 777s and 747s I'd say if anything they're more claustrophobic, particularly in seats 1A/K on a 747 where you're staring straight at the bulkhead.
Being smack in the middle of the economy cabin isn't exactly pleasant either, I'll take Concorde over that thank you. And if you honestly think that's a nicer experience because the ceiling's further away then you sir, are a moron.
747s aren't exactly known for being able to fly everywhere, the whole c10000ft of runway is rather limiting! Yes it's proved more ecomically viable in the long run, but it wasn't as technologically advanced.
The TU-144 was killed off by horrendous fuel consumption. Th erange was so short, if it took off from Moscow, it couldn't leave the country without refuelling.
The US took an example of the Tu-144 and put the best US engines available in it. It still wouldn't work. It looked like Concorde but it was a poor imitation. That's the danger of looking over someones shoulder but not understanding what you see.
Branson should have been allowed to take them over; but the politics killed them stone dead.
I live in hope that there will be one resurrected, like the Vulcan. It serves no purpose except to make peoples jaw drop when they see it in action.
That, and the whole 'blowing up infront of a large crowd at the Paris air show' thing...
McBoo - I didn't say don't do it, I didn't say mediocre was best. I said I believed it to be a dead end
There was one other quite famous incident with Concorde when a fuel leak developed over the Atlantic. The pilot refused to land at Shannon to refuel and carried onto Heathrow. The engines failed on the runway as it taxied to the terminal although BA covered it up very well by claiming it was due to the angle of the fuel tanks as the plane was on the ground and there was actually enough fuel for a further 20mins of flight.
The best 24hrs of my life was an all day mid-summer bar crawl around Greenwich Village and Soho, clubbing all night, unbeatable New York deli breakfast then straight to JFK. Barely able to stand at check-in I had a regular business ticket on a 747......
"We have a Concorde flight leaving at the same time. Shall I transfer you across Sir?"
oh Sir says yes.......got home hours early to Mrs McBoo (then g/f) she had a load of pals round for a BBQ, weather was fantastic.....more beers, wine.....
You just dont get weekends like that under socialism......
One of them there 'normal' planes pottering along in the same direction 20000 ft below (same direction). Sorry for the crappiness of the pic but it was moving across the window from right to left at the same apparent speed as it does when looking up from the ground. Wish I'd videoed it.
EDIT - Mcboo - love that story.
looks effin awesome, sadly never had a go in one.
depressed to see photo above, where all the usual suits are onboard, and everyone in picture is head down working on their laptops.
business men eh? where's the excitement?
or maybe they are on STW discussing being on concorde with each other?
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