The Concorde legacy and its effect on all aviation

@ Tony

Good points. BA was actually planning to add more perks to the Concorde program and steamline a few things. Air France killed it. They should have both commited to NY-London. Period. The jets were built already. That cost was covered. So the jets existed anyway, why not make money with them ?

The US was trying to build a mach 3 , 300 seat machine with swing wings and the rest of it. They bit off way more than they could chew. So they turned over the chess board by banning the Concorde over land.

@Cream

Thank you for your link to the proposed Concorde B which is very interesting with lots of information and comparisons between Concorde A and B.

With an extended range to 4000 to 5000 miles and more efficient engines in the proposed Concorde B other airlines might have gone for it and air travel may have developed in a different way!

The Air France Concorde accident was due to debris on the runway and not a defect of the plane….that was the beginning of the end.

I did not know that British Airways made £0.75 billion revenues from Concorde (will be more in today’s money)…..at one time the 7 Concordes on the lucrative London- New York route (a tiny portion of its huge fleet as one of the largest airlines in the world) were making a quarter of British Airways’ profit!

Your link confirms Concorde take off noise was 119.50 dB (I had guessed around 120 dB from memory) and this would have been reduced to 109 dB in Concorde B…..still loud!

The other interesting thing is Concorde flew for three hours straight at Mach 2 without afterburner which is true supercruise…..the SR-71 Blackbird flew with afterburners on all the time!

The Americans have been subsidising their own planes for years and trying to kill off competitors in Europe and Canada (e.g. killed off the Avro Arrow interceptor)…..President Kennedy promised the US government would pay for three-quarters of the development cost of an American supersonic airliner but the paper projects of Lockheed and Boeing (both Mach 3 and 270 passengers) did not go any further…..JFK’s younger brother Edward Kennedy (a big honcho in the US Congress) in the 1970s told Pan Am (then largest airline in the world) if you want an SST it must be American and not Concorde! (I will try to find the link for that quote).

Aerospatiale had planned a less noisy and more economical version of the Concorde while keeping the same line of prodution, the Concode B, but because of the lack of Concorde orders this was never been done.

http://www.concordesst.com/concordeb.html

From the article (behind a registration wall):

The U.S. ban on overland supersonic flight, in place since 1973, is the culprit for the recent decades of aviation stagnation. It not only has crippled investment in the technologies needed to revive progress, it has bred a complacent mindset among today’s airframers, content to compete for market share in a static Mach 0.85 world. It is urgent that the ban be repealed.

Some say there is not enough data to support lifting the speed limit. Fortunately, that is not so. Sonic booms have been extensively studied over the last 60 years—there have been more than three dozen supersonic flight-test programs in the U.S. alone. Some of the literature is hard to find—yours truly physically had to go to the Library of Congress to read one report—so lack of awareness is understandable. Taken as a whole, the data show there are levels of sonic boom that simultaneously are economically viable in an airliner today and would be acceptable to the public.

Some say there is not enough data to support lifting the speed limit. Fortunately, that is not so. Sonic booms have been extensively studied over the last 60 years—there have been more than three dozen supersonic flight-test programs in the U.S. alone. Some of the literature is hard to find—yours truly physically had to go to the Library of Congress to read one report—so lack of awareness is understandable. Taken as a whole, the data show there are levels of sonic boom that simultaneously are economically viable in an airliner today and would be acceptable to the public.

Aviation enthusiasts know about the 1964 Oklahoma City tests, in which the U.S. Air Force, NASA and FAA were run out of town after exposing the public to eight Concorde-level booms per day. Less familiar is the 1968 report of experiments conducted at Edwards AFB, California, in which 98% of respondents rated sonic booms only 10-dB quieter than the Concorde’s as “acceptable” or “very acceptable.” The 1968 study also found that small changes in sonic-boom levels have a large effect on acceptability, meaning incrementally tiny further reductions would go a long way.

It therefore will be an enormous missed opportunity if the U.S. does not remove the overland speed limit in this year’s FAA reauthorization. For Boom’s Mach 2.2 airliner to serve the overland market by the mid-2020s—flying routes such as New York-Los Angeles in only 2 hr. and 30 min.—we need to know what law applies in time to influence the design.

Tomcat

Great article. I want to invest in Boom. Im a true believer that this will be profitable and this will make aviation great again.

Im not however, interested in these hyper sonic ideas floating around. That sounds to complicate, expensive and risky. And crazy. I dont want to board some rocket ship. Just a beautifully sleek overpowered jet is fine by me and that’s what it looks like Boom is doing.

On aviationWeek, Eli Dourado of Boom Supersonic has his take

And then, progress stopped. Only 14 units of the Mach 2 Concorde ever saw service. Today’s airliners fly slower than the Boeing 707, introduced in 1958[…]
It therefore will be an enormous missed opportunity if the U.S. does not remove the overland speed limit in this year’s FAA reauthorization.[…]
Without congressional action, it will take up to a decade for the law to be settled—for new NASA data to come in, international consultations to take place and regulations on overland supersonic flight to be adopted. A new supersonic airliner built on this protracted time line is unlikely to reach the market before the mid-2030s. Business as usual therefore represents at least a decade’s unnecessary delay in introduction of supersonic transcontinental flights. Another decade of no progress in speed, another decade of lost possibilities. If we want to return to a pace of change that will make our industry proud, we cannot afford to squander this opportunity.

So, we might see the emergence of sonic corridors, ballistic flight path (wing unloaded=a less noisy bang) or even seeding aircraft pulverizing aircraft path in front of supersonic airframe etc… Anyhow, innovation should move on.

@Tomcat & halloweene

Like Swerve I lived under its flight path to Heathrow for the 20 years it operated until it retired…..twice a day it would shake the house and I had to stop telephone conversations until it passed.

While it was good to see it fly overhead the UK government relaxed the landing and take off noise levels at the airport to allow the Concorde fleet to operate….other planes were quieter then and were under the noise limits I believe around 118 dB or 120dB….modern planes are even quieter.

The reason for the noise was not the sonic boom when going supersonic…..it would fly high at Mach 2 at more than 60,000 feet….the noise that was so horrendous was from the four giant Olympus turbojets on afterburner which were used at low level on take-offs and landings….anyone under for many miles under its flight path would not enjoy that! Today hundreds of jets land every day at Heathrow but you can’t hear them!

As Eagle said the Valkyrie had six turbojets on afterburners which would have made it even noisier!

The main point is Concorde was stopped on purely commercial reasons and not for environmental reasons (KGB you still have not recognised this!)
BA was making an operating profit on the New York – London route (I remember there was a Concorde flight to Singapore which stopped off at Bahrain and had BA livery on one side and Singapore Airlines livery on the other….I don’t believe (unlike the New York to London route) there are enough Chinese businessmen today willing to pay a few thousand dollars on a longer route from China or Asia to Europe to cut their flight time to a few hours instead of taking all day to Europe)….BA could have carried on with Concorde for a few more years but the cost of maintaining it was getting more expensive and they decided to cut their losses and stop operating it.

@ KGB you have not quite accepted what Swerve and others were saying…..even if certain routes are profitable you have to make enough money to also pay off all the development costs and Concorde was simply not making enough money to cover both operating costs (which were covered on profitable routes) and also development costs….the development costs were ultimately covered by the British and French governments for a fleet of about 20 planes (many airlines had options but did not take them up).

@Tomcat much of the aviation development costs are borne by governments….what do you say abut the contention that the $600 billion USA annual military budget is just effectively just a system of subsidies to US companies…..especially the contracts on a “cost” + guaranteed profit! There is no shareholder risk for the US manufacturers under these type of contracts and a side effect is to kill or wipe out competitor companies in Europe and elsewhere that cannot compete against these subsidised American companies? Ultimately, the poor taxpayer in every country loses out because they have to pay more in a monopoly market when you’re the only show in town….only the shareholders in those companies benefit to the detriment of the national interest. Talking of monopolies when you’re the only show in town the good news is after the F-35 debacle there will be no more “joint” fighters that compromise USAF mission requirements for say a VTOL for the Marines using the same airframe because it turned out there is no upside cost reduction in commonality (for example much of future software development and maintenance cost is not yet known with a fleet of only 150….when there are 2,400 flying we can talk then).

Mach Boom. Mirage IV (FAS)
There was a lot of training area around.

It was louder (i lived in Dakar at the time, loved to see it). ButTomcat i yhink the bangs you are talking about were engine blades ones no?
IV?

Studies showed that it wasn’t actually much louder than anything else. Cant believe we have aviation fans buying into this scam. It was a green scam.

This is not true. Simply not. A large supersonic airplane not designed for smoothed sonic bang will scare the hell out of any civilians.
We had bangs over my city when I was kids (Jags and IV).
Read post from Swerve also.

KGB:
It was not standard practice to give away new jets. Subsidies were common, but not on the scale of those for Concorde. It was very expensive to develop.

Its appeal was largely because of its rarity. Positional goods – desirable because limited. Make it more widely available & you risk a fall in demand.

It lasted as long as it did because of what TooCool says. Operating a small number was good for the image, even if they didn’t make any money.

Wasn’t actually much louder? How long did you live under its flight path? For me, it was 20 years, until it was retired. It was a hell of a lot noisier than anything else. I remember pausing phone calls because of the noise, & hearing it both overhead & through the phone of the person on the other end. I didn’t mind that twice a day, but any more & despite it lifting my heart to see it fly, I think I’d have been joining protests against it.

You’ve not addressed its physical limitations, in range & capacity. Flying between New York & Paris or London was one thing: flying to Tokyo with a refuelling stop in Siberia, or to Rio de Janeiro with a stop at Dakar or wherever en route, would have been much less comfortable, & lost a lot of the speed advantage.

the value was in marketing terms… Air France several times stated that Concorde flights made no benefits as such, but contributed to the prestige image of the company

The question I have for the economics fundamentalists is why did it last as long as it did, if it was as bad on the books as we are led to believe.

Also. Richard Branson looked into the possibility of buying them. He said that having the Concorde would be a huge advertisement for his company. It would have added value to his brand.

@Swereve

All the arguments that it was killed by regulation, or airlines were subsidised anyway, deny the facts

Nobody is denying that it was subsidized. But ALL air travel was subsidized at that time. All of the major carriers were state owned. Most of the manufactures rely on state funds to this day/ To this day Boeing has its own US government backed bank. Its called the Ex Im bank.

the few Concordes that entered service had to be given away,

Standard practice for new jets. The Concorde was always going to be a niche product. It was never going to sell like a white elephant. Canada is giving away C series right now.

but given the chance of much more comfort & much more space at the same or even a lower price, how many would choose it?

Read the vanity fair article. Tons of rich people loved it and flew it all the time. It was part of being rich.

The Concorde is where Paul McCartney led his fellow passengers in an impromptu sing-along of Beatles tunes; where Phil Collins collected himself between performances on the London and Philadelphia stages of Live Aid; where Malcolm Forbes treated his friends to a supersonic cocktail party in the late 1970s; where Miramax boss Harvey Weinstein sheepishly fessed up to sneaking a cigarette in the lavatory; where Rupert Murdoch, Robert Maxwell, Henry Kravis, John Gutfreund, and George Soros met up and talked shop in the pre—Gulfstream V days of the 1980s; where the Queen Mum celebrated her 85th birthday by strapping herself into the cockpit’s jump seat and watching the pilots throttle that baby past Mach One.

o even if it was allowed to make sonic booms over populated areas

Studies showed that it wasn’t actually much louder than anything else. Cant believe we have aviation fans buying into this scam. It was a green scam.

Directly financing an aircraft that costed far beyond anything seen before (to achieve the set of performances required) knowing that it will never reach anything like a sustainable economical model was a direct cutout from an exemplary model: it was an anachronism, a beautiful and fast like hell anachronism, but something that cut the aviation industry from their natural goal: flying masses farther and faster more economically.

Absolutely right. I loved it, but it was crazy. All the arguments that it was killed by regulation, or airlines were subsidised anyway, deny the facts: the few Concordes that entered service had to be given away, & even then, they were only marginally profitable. A few people would pay a lot of money to get somewhere faster in a crowded, noisy, aeroplane, but given the chance of much more comfort & much more space at the same or even a lower price, how many would choose it?

And its range was limited, so even if it was allowed to make sonic booms over populated areas, it was severely constrained. Anything much longer than London/Paris-New York & it would have to land & refuel.

There is considerable nuance to this:
1. There were reports in the early 70’s that the U.S. had tried to kill Concorde to protect it’s aircraft industry. Several British officials refute those reports. Here is a NYTimes article from ’76 related:
http://www.nytimes.com/1976/05/07/archives/briton-says-us-tried-hard-to-halt-concorde-project-in-1964.html
2. As far as the CIA trying to kill the Concorde, that is a bit exaggerated. The U.K. was in a financial pinch in the ’60’s and relied on US aid. The CIA repeatedly warned the UK that the project would be a financial failure due to the technical hurtles they had already identified. Basically warning the UK that the project was going to be more difficult and more expensive than envisioned, that the U.S. would be unable to aid in overcoming the technical hurdles due to the wording of the agreement between France and UK, and that even if the project succeeded, it would be of dubious economic value.

“Kill”? or try to influence a major partner to join them on a costly project? C’mon John Hollow le Carré, using both words “Kill and “CIA” in the same sentence on the internet sounds rather a free call to the conspirationist, would you agree?

The french word used in the Challenge report, citing the Financial Times, is “Pression” = putting pressure on someone. That’s a strong words but still another thing.

Le Financial Times est revenu jeudi 20 juillet sur les pressions de la CIA sur le projet du Concorde à travers la publication de documents déclassifiés.

Edit:
Obviously nothing against John Le Carre that stand as a master author in the espionage genre.

Sorry, but with declassification of many documents from CIA, it is now a proven fact that CIA tried to kll Concorde (even BEFORE its birth) https://www.challenges.fr/entreprise/aeronautique/la-cia-a-t-elle-tente-de-saborder-le-supersonique-concorde_488588

there were playing with CG and lift vector… on the low speed, small scale model… stating that they learned something. In other words, they are far from anything like starting an aircraft project.

The Spike S-512 is a projected supersonic business jet, designed by Spike Aerospace, an American aerospace manufacturer firm based in Boston, Massachusetts.[2] If produced, it would allow long flights for business and private travelers, such as from New York City to London, to take only three to four hours instead of six to seven.[3][4] The company planned to promote the project with an exhibit at the 2014 EAA AirVenture Oshkosh airshow.[5]

The aircraft will not have windows for the passengers, instead it will be lined with tiny cameras sending footage to thin, curved displays lining the interior walls of the fuselage and Spike originally expected to launch the plane by December 2018.[6] Spike Aerospace expects to fly a subsonic scale prototype in summer 2017 to demonstrate low-speed aerodynamic flight characteristics, followed with a series of larger prototypes and a supersonic demonstrator by the end of 2018 and expects to certify the S-512 by 2023