Concordes final resting in New York

No reason to be shouted down Gordo(I’d disagree about East Fortune not being very well known).Concorde, whatever the politics and economics, was a massive technological achievement, and now we can all see what it was all about.

I know I’m going to get shouted down here when I say this but here goes:

For 99% of the the UK public, the icon of Concorde symbolises British Aviation, Making sure that we go out of our way to open these up and put them on display in our museums ensures we get the chance to education these members of the public on other important areas of our aviation heritage, who otherwise would never be in a position to be taught.

As an example take East Fortune. a small, not very well know museum with some fantastic exhibits, put in a Concorde and you put the place on the map with massive visitor numbers, allowing future investment in the interpretation of our heritage.

On the Scottish example, I visited recently for the first time in a couple of years, and have to say the car park had far more cars in it than Ive seen on a normal day (ie with no special events on).All the passes for getting on board were sold out by lunchtime. You dont need to pay more to go and see the aircraft, just to get inside it.
Dont see transport as an issue as its a stone’s throw from the A1.
If you want to know more about M.O.F’s plans, why not ask Radar Archive?. He’s on the staff and is a very helpful bloke.

Not only did it not sell well but it was never a financial success either. It was built to be an airliner and it never was able to fill that role without the financial support of the airlines operating them. As an aircraft it was a success in that it met most of the original operational goals set but so do most aircraft. The largest operational shortcoming was its inability to meet its intended performance at a price that was suitable for mass market. It was unable to do that so its a airliner failure.

IMHO there are plenty of other more important airliners/aircraft that should be given the attention rather than wasting away the already limited monetary and space resources for aircraft preservation. The Concorde did little to change aviation and is more of an interesting footnote. Aircraft like the Constellation, DC-3, DC-6, Comet, B707, B737 and B747 not only were successful aircraft but their introduction changed the industry. I think the scale of the worldwide airline industry today is owed to a number of successful/groudbreaking aircraft over the last 60 years. Unfortunately, how many of those aircraft have seen or will see preservation?

I agree with kev35, perhaps 6 examples of the Concorde aren’t needed on display in the UK. Airliners on average are very large aircraft which limits the number that can be preserved due to money issues and who’ll have the space to do so. I’d hope that space would be given to other aircraft.

It didn’t sell well in the end but this was largely due to cancelled pre-orders from airlines, who were put under pressure from the growing environmental lobby in the early 70’s. You could suggest this lobby was aided and abetted by a US goverment and Boeing keen to launch it’s own, eventually cancelled SST project (anyone remember that huge swing wing mock up Boeing built?)

One can only speculate as to what the financial stats might have been, had Concorde production gone in to the 10’s and 100’s rather than the paltry amount of airframes constructed? I imagine Boeing would be considering the 747 a huge failure had they only sold a dozen, likewise any other type ?

As for Concorde being preserved at the expense of other types…? Well I don’t think there’s a huge shortage of the types you list WD, many of which are still flying in great numbers around the world. I had the pleasure of boarding a fully operational Constellation myself just last year, for example.

Perhaps it is important to keep all the Concordes, after all there really aren’t an awful lot of them are there ? How many DC-3’s, 707’s, 747’s etc were built and flew… hundreds of ’em. 😀

Lamenting lost opportunites to preserve once bountiful aircraft that are now scarce doesn’t really cut it with me either. As Moggy C has eluded to, how many classic war birds were disposed of by burial, smelting or at sea ? How many “preservationists” were offered the chance to have one on their back yard? Maybe we’ve learned the lessons of past mistakes, which perhaps is why we need to keep all of our Concordes for future generations to enjoy.

East Fortune’s Bird

Got anymore shots like that Gordon ???

East fortune should be ashamed by the way they display Concorde, They promised a £2m hangar for her , and yet she was squeezed into a ramshackle building , so what happened to this hangar, “we couldn’t get planning permission from Scottish heritage” but we spent the money on a new shop and got planning permission for that,and then charge you a fortune to get to see her

I vowed never to visit East Fortune until they keep their promise

kevin

I think if you do go Kevin you’ll be pleasantly surprised. 😀 As for visitor figures at East Fortune going up, I believe the figure being bandied about was something like 350% ? That’s a lot of people coming in, spending money and raising funds to get those other preservation projects going again.

Let’s face it, a clapped out Bristol Beaufighter frame was never going to prove much of a draw. Perhaps a restored one may though, along with a new hangar and a weather protected Dan Air Comet, Avro Vulcan etc etc… 😉

P.S On a slightly pedantic note…. It’s the USS Intrepid in New York not Invincible. 😀 :rolleyes:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4539633.stm

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=41511&highlight=East+Fortune

Brooklands’ is still in a lot of pieces

Not last time I looked :