Concorde....

[tinkerbell23]

What was so great about concorde??

Im not questioning its greatness by the way!!

But whys it so famous?

Just watching this prog on scary plane landings- its a lovely looking plane!!!!!!! X

[237SJ]

Unfortunately, the general concensus of opinion is that Concorde will never fly again.

[237SJ]

*consensus* whoops

[nungate]

A truly beautiful aeroplane, saw it fly many times, held me up at Glasgow airport once when it came in to land - we couldn't take off until it had landed, I also have some fab pictures of it flying over Edinburgh castle. One of them is in a museum about 15 minutes from where I live, it came up by sea if I remember rightly and was then driven across fields to the Museum site, personally I wish they were still flying.

[ChuckFickens]

If it wasn't for red tape at least one of them could be back in the air in a very short time....

http://www.concordepr...gship.com/welcome.php

[Ann]

This was the most emotional sight of Concorde I think - with the red arrows....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uu21rM9ahkY

[Clanad]

Couple of neat things to know about the Concorde... It never cruised "straight and level". After take off, it climbed steadily, but upon reaching maximum altitude (60,000 feet above mean sea level (MSL)) it immediately began a carefully planned descent so as to arrive at the approach altitude at a predtermined point about 100 miles out.
Additionally, it was originally planned without passenger windows, since a failure of one would be catastophic. It was planned for there to be TV cameras "looking out", but planning determined passengers would suffer from claustrophobia.
Had the aircraft been able to fly over land economically, it might still be around. However, it could only arrive at East Coast (US) cities, since the sonic boom while traversing the continental U.S. was unacceptable.
The Concorde normally measured 204ft in length - but stretched between six and ten inches in-flight due to heating of the airframe. (Which was the reasonl of course, for the 'drop nose shield... to protect the front windows from heat)...

Missed by all...

[deggers316]

Prudie
14 Concordes entered service in all compared to a few thousand 747s ??
theres bound to be more accidents on record obviously

[douglas9401]

We have one on display up here at The Museum Of Flight at East Fortune near Haddington. Well worth a look if you're in the area.

[DrFilth]

i think the aer lingus one looked the best

[Old_Geezer]

A passenger sized aircraft that could fly at Mach 2.02. How could that not be a great feat of engineering, not to mention a flight to be experienced and remembered for the rest of your life?

I watched the test flight take off, even took a photo, but it didn't come out well between the fence wire - niether fence nor plane was in focus :-(

[venator]

It was a major status thing to fly Concorde, just about everybody who was anybody flew it. It boosted our status in the USA and elsewhere enormously. You couldn't buy that kind of advert!

[Frank97]

A chap I know worked on the construction in Filton so was invited on one of the filghts out of Filton airfield, he told me that he intended to look out the window to get a view of Bristol, unfortunatly because of the short runway the plane had to use more than the usual power to get into the air so his head was wedged into the seat while looking at the isle so he didn't see anything.

[deggers316]

wedge in the seat ? rubbish its not a "typhoon fighter jet"why do people exaggerate so much

[deggers316]

i'm not saying it was not a great feat of engineering it certainly was and ive seen it close up and been on a walk through 001 and 002 but it had critical design faults from the start and by shear good luck it didn't hit the ground earlier

[Frank97]

You may be right. Oh how often have you flown out of Filton on Concord btw?

[237SJ]

Would you like to enlighten us as to what those critical design faults were?

[DTCwordfan]

such as? deggers...

[DTCwordfan]

the accident at CDG was an unfortunate string of coincidences as these things often are. Principally:

1. Bits of a Conti or someone else's plane lying on the runway
2. Concorde on the runway
3. Concorde laden down with a plane full of German tourists with their luggage, whereas if it had been a normal NY flight, the luggage compartment would have been relatively empty as many of the wealthy clients had accommodation either side of the Pond.
4. As a consequence of the flight distance, a full load of JetA1 fuel, so the plane was lower to the ground.

If it had been a normal flight, they calculated that there would have been a heavy "ding" fom the upcoming metal but no penetration of the skins into the fuel tank.....

The solution was relatively simple and low cost to implement and that was to line the tanks with a thin coat of Kevlar.....(like Teflon) to provide a stronger protection.

[237SJ]

DT it was the shredded tyre that pierced the fuel tanks (not the debris) Dunlop redesigned aircraft tyres after that incident so that they will never shred again.