Concorde

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Married to Night Train
Location
Salford, UK
Ive just been watching the Channel 4 programme on Concorde.

She may have been noisy, and thirsty, but god, she was beautiful.

I wish I'd flown on her.
 

Maz

Guru
It was just too expensive to keep it airborne, I guess.

I went on an aerospace course at Cranfield Uni a few years back. The course tutor told us that parts for Concorde were so scarce and expensive that universities and museums were approached by engine maintenance companies to see if they had the parts on their display models.
 

lukesdad

Guest
Remember seeing her at Farnborough first time she flew in public I think had twin Vulcan bomber engines then if memory serves me right. Awesome to an 8 year old.
 

TheDoctor

Europe Endless
Moderator
Location
The TerrorVortex
It's actually a source of pain to me that I never flew on Concorde, and now I never can.
I *know* 747s and A380s are better economically, but Concorde was wonderful.
In the 1970's we could go to the Moon, and we could fly at Mach 2.
Now we can't, and we've lost something that we'll probably never get back.
 

Yellow Fang

Legendary Member
Location
Reading
A couple of colleagues at my last workplace were project engineers. They earned so many air miles on their site visits abroad, they were able to cash them in for free tickets on Concorde. I think it was its last ever flight. I also know an aircraft maintenance engineer who worked at Heathrow. He said they were very unpopular to work on as it was cramped and all 60's technology. One of the things that killed it off was that all the engineers who were qualified to work on it were approaching retirement age; so when Virgin expressed an interest in taking them on, it wasn't really a viable proposition. They used to fly over Reading every day; they weren't half noisy. I suspect the reason there was no successor was that they weren't economical. They didn't carry very many passengers and their fuel consumption must have been astronomical.
 

bauldbairn

New Member
Location
Falkirk
It's actually a source of pain to me that I never flew on Concorde, and now I never can.
I *know* 747s and A380s are better economically, but Concorde was wonderful.
In the 1970's we could go to the Moon, and we could fly at Mach 2.
Now we can't, and we've lost something that we'll probably never get back.


Me too!!! I think it was Jeremy Clarkson who said "it's the only time man has evolved backwards."
We had a new benchmark and never bettered it - the "new generation" of planes should have been at least as fast as Concorde only bigger(more passengers) and obviously more economical.

I can't help think with all the new lightweight composite materials available we couldn't have made something better. Wasn't there once talk of plasma engines(rockets) to replace jets - whose technology is now almost 75 years old? I believe Britain once led the world in developement of hydrogen peroxide rockets(off on a tangent now - but you know what I mean, something different).
 

TheDoctor

Europe Endless
Moderator
Location
The TerrorVortex
Clarkson waxes lyrical about Concorde, certainly.
His 'I know you got Soul' is a cracking book - a mile away from the Top Gear Uberbloke persona, it's someone who cares about engineering and magnificent, fallible machinery.
The chapter about the Spitfire can genuinely move me almost to tears, it's so well written.
*sniffles*
 

buggi

Bird Saviour
Location
Solihull
my mum talk all of us (6 kids) to see Concorde at Birmingham airport when i was little. it was ace. i got all emotional at my mates tonight when i saw the guys talking about it with tears in their eyes. so what if they cost a lot... it was something to be proud of.

i've got a question tho... when you are on concorde, can you hear the sonic boom, or is it only something you can hear outside of concorde (e.g. on the ground). what i mean is, if they leave sound behind, can they hear the boom?

also, on you tube there are some pictures of plane's going through the sound barrier. it looks like they are passing through a kind of mist, almost as if they are travelling through time. is that for real? can you actually see it?
 

bauldbairn

New Member
Location
Falkirk
i've got a question tho... when you are on concorde, can you hear the sonic boom, or is it only something you can hear outside of concorde (e.g. on the ground). what i mean is, if they leave sound behind, can they hear the boom?

also, on you tube there are some pictures of plane's going through the sound barrier. it looks like they are passing through a kind of mist, almost as if they are travelling through time. is that for real? can you actually see it?


I don't think they did here it on Concorde because they were travelling faster than it, so it never caught them up.
If that was the case they must have heard it when it slowed down?

I remember seeing the land speed record being broken in the states(by a Brit) and you could see the shockwaves on the nose as the car went through the sound barrier.
 

Foghat

Freight-train-groove-rider
Not usually one for such associations, but in an oddly Kennedyesque way, I always remember that I was in the (now closed) Blaencaron Youth Hostel in deepest Ceredigion, serendipitously conversing with a lady whom I'm 90% sure was Bettina Selby (only realised later after thinking "I recognise her from somewhere"), when the news about the Concorde Paris crash was announced.

Cracking location for a hostel, but now a private residence.

And an interesting lady. Can't remember her views on Concorde now, although we discussed it at some length and I vaguely recall they were rather stern, but she did talk about the origins of the Spanish lisp......

Monty Python were always on about "ici, le naughty Brian Trubshaw", too, for some reason.

Nice crate, anyway.
 

longers

Legendary Member
We were nicely placed for a quick walk from work up a hill to see Concorde when she made her last flight into Manchester. Shame about all the cloud that meant we could see precisely bugger all.

There was/is a wicker model down at the plane spotting area at Manchester airport, that's pretty cool too.
 
I used to live' not very far' from Heathrow and the noise of Concorde was fantastic. 11:00am and 18:30 each day, I think. Super to see it banking and elegant to watch disappearing into the atmosphere after takeoff. The picture shows Big on a Bianchi's personal jet with my old Look in attendance!
 

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Spinney

Bimbleur extraordinaire
Location
Back up north
also, on you tube there are some pictures of plane's going through the sound barrier. it looks like they are passing through a kind of mist, almost as if they are travelling through time. is that for real? can you actually see it?

The shock wave causes (is?) a sudden drop in air pressure, and if the air is moist then you get condensation in the low pressure area - this is what causes the mist. So you can sometimes see it, depending on how damp the air is. (I have never seen it, other than in videos).

It may have been possible to see it from inside Concorde in the right conditions (although most of the videos you will have seen are probably of military jets, going supersonic at low altitudes - Concorde would have gone supersonic much higher up, where the air is drier, so the mist may not have formed very often anyway).


The 'mist' on a military jet:


View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ta14puDV0VI&NR=1


Concorde 'coming home'


View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PycQR_eAj9I&feature=related


[wipes tears and tries to get on with work...]
 
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