concorde (commercial, engines, Boeing)

[hifijohn]

while technically is was an amazing plane I wonder if it ever would have been commercial successful?
My guess is no.I think the brits/french wanted a supersonic version of the ford/toyota but it was really a supersonic version of a ferrari or lamborghini. cool looking exotic but expense to buy and maintain and not very practical.Im sure some of the bigger airlines would have bought one just for the status, so I cant image more than hundred or so ever being sold, and I think they need to sell well over 200 just to break even.

[MountainBiking]

The Concorde made profit on its London to NYC/DC and Paris to NYC/DC routes. Since only 20 were built this proved too costly for the Concorde program. The manufacturer never broke even. If more airliners around the world would have purchased a Concorde I'm pretty sure they would still be in service today. The planes were actually subsidized by the French and British governments. Perhaps in the future there will be a way to improve the fuel consumption dramatically and the Concorde form and design can return to service by someone . The crash in 2000 and 9/11 basically put an end to this magnificent bird... not to mention Airbus. Awesome looking aircraft!!



-Cheers.

[Jezer]

We've had threads along these lines before I think, but no matter.

I'm not sure about the profitability of the aircraft given that the British and French governments (ie taxpayers) absorbed much of the development costs.

When British Airways was looking to pull the plug on Concorde Richard Branson of Virgin Airways offered to take them over.

BA refused to let their small but deadly rival have anything to do with it and made sure that that would never happen.

It still saddens me that I'll never see that gorgeous aircraft in the air again.

When it was launched it injected vital pride into the people of Britain at a time when they needed it.

[in_newengland]

from my husband, a fan of the Concorde--

Hopefully they're all being looked after like the one at Manchester International, UK, where the airport spent just short of a million pounds on a hanger and restaurant and visitor facilities.

It wasn't the airline that refused them to Branson, it was the government. They had so much stake in them. There were engines developed by Rolls that would have been quiet enough to allow it to fly into any airport worldwide. (Having flown on it from London to Cairo and return for the princely sum of $399 pounds, which was good value for money and a marvelous experience.)

And to say that you were traveling twice the speed of sound, you would never know!

[Magnum Mike]

One factor that led to the demise of the Concorde over 10 years ago, and Boeing's SST project in the early 1970s, was their own technological feature, super-sonic speed, at Mach II and altitudes below 40,000 feet, the sonic boom would crack windows so they would only be permitted to fly at Mach II and higher over bodies of water, otherwise if they were to fly over land, their super-sonic capability would be useless and no matter how advanced they are, nothing could change the laws of physics. It would not have been feasible for most airlines to operate such SST aircraft. I'm sure if anyone has flown on the Concorde across the Atlantic would tell you that it wasn't for the typical average consumer. If I remember correctly the price of a one-way trip was somewhere around $6,000.

[Oildog]

With all the US to MEA flights and probably EUR to SA its day may come again.

[BLS2753]

Fuel prices and the environmental movement. Both were unforeseen when Concorde and the proposed American SST's were conceived.

Any new SST will require some breakthrough technology, that makes it economically and environmentally viable. I don't think it will be an "airplane".

[in_newengland]

It may fly for show on special occasions. I think something is in the works.

[caverunner17]

There was three glaring issues with the concord program:

1. Requires the use of turbojet engines. Pretty much all planes these days use turbofan engines which create more thrust, much more economically, fuel wise and are much less nosily. But Turbofans lose efficiency above Mach 1, so turbojets are required

2. Cost for tickets - at somewhere around $6k each way, shaving off ~3 hours of flight time came at a significant cost over normal business class tickets

3. Limited usage/Range: Generally TATL flights between (or via) US and LHR/CDG. A good market would have been LAX-JFK. Even better would be LAX-NRT, but the range isn't there for that trip.

[Dale Cooper]

I always yearned to take a little ride in a Concorde. My favorite airplane.