Concorde

The last commercial flight of the Concorde (BA) will take place
tomorrow when bird returns to England from the US.

Lets all have a moment of silence for the passing of an era.

Big John

--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Concorde passed over my house tonight at 18.23Z on her last flight to New
York. The noise was terrific. She was a bit late as she normally comes over
during supper at about 17.50Z.

Whatever we stop eating and say she is on time, she late etc.

I can honestly say that I never got bored with Concorde or found the noise
intrusive.

Far more irritating is the whiny turbofans in the anonymous spam can
airliners from Boeing and Airbus.

I am sorry to say that Concorde is the last of the airliners with character
and style where air travel might still have been a bit of a pleasure rather
than just a cramped and crowded bus ride.

All that left now is to see three Concordes land in sequence tomorrow at
15.00Z as they return from New York, Edinburgh and a staff round the Bay
trip from LHR.

It is just a shame that Concorde will not be flying on 17th December.

Dave
"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:nKWlb.11021$e01.22531@attbi_s02...
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Dave" wrote in message


It is just a shame that Concorde will not be flying on 17th December.

I understand there is a chance of that happening.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/...de_retirement/

--
John T
Pics/video of Concorde in Washington, DC:
http://tknowlogy.com/tknoFlyer/flights.asp#031014
http://tknowlogy.com/tknoFlyer/flights.asp#030612
__________

"Big John" wrote in message
news
The last commercial flight of the Concorde (BA) will take place
tomorrow when bird returns to England from the US.

Lets all have a moment of silence for the passing of an era.

Big John

Absolutely.

A sad day indeed.

At the risk of being premature...

I cant help but wonder what comes after Concorde. Is that really it for
civilian supersonic travel? Surely all those in the fortunate position of
being able to afford it will still want/need a 3hr flight across the
Atlantic.

So does anyone know if there are any serious proposals for developing a
replacement or will they just wait for a civilian low orbit space shuttle??

Oops sorry you did request a moment of silence.

OK....

Rob

"Rob K" wrote in message

"Big John" wrote in message
news
So does anyone know if there are any serious proposals for developing
a replacement or will they just wait for a civilian low orbit space
shuttle??

Civilian sub-orbital is pretty close and the FAA is (or has) allowed
certification of X-Prize entrants so that occupants don't have to be trained
to near astronaut-level proficiency. I read a link recently
(Transterrestrialmusings?) talking about this and that it would help clear
the way for sub-orbital commercial flights between, say, LA and Tokyo.

Of course, that was just one man's opinion.

--
John T
http://tknowlogy.com/tknoFlyer
__________

Rob K writes:

I cant help but wonder what comes after Concorde. Is that really it for
civilian supersonic travel? Surely all those in the fortunate position of
being able to afford it will still want/need a 3hr flight across the
Atlantic.

Boeing seems convinced that greater speed (as opposed to greater
capacity) is what passengers will want in the future, and I agree.
Going supersonic, though, requires a staggering amount of development
and research ($34 billion was a figure I saw for the development of the
Concorde). It can be done. You have to get past the environmental
objections (most of which are bogus). The technical obstacles to making
it economical are substantial, although an aircraft that flies high
enough and fast enough would require less fuel than a conventional jet
(this is true for the SR-71, for example). Hypersonic aircraft might be
the next step, instead of supersonic, but who knows?

In any case, since current jets work "well enough," I don't think that
anyone will be sinking money into supersonic development any time soon.
Even the military has only limited use for supersonic aircraft.

--
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

"Rob K" wrote in message
I cant help but wonder what comes after Concorde. Is that really it for
civilian supersonic travel? Surely all those in the fortunate position of
being able to afford it will still want/need a 3hr flight across the
Atlantic.

flying across to Europe from California once in a while, my take is that
I don't think getting faster aircraft is going to make much of a difference:
a significantly higher amount of time (and disconfort) could be saved by
improving the airports and routings.

I do not have the foggiest idea what needs to be done mind you, but on a
recent flight from San Jose (California) to Geneva (Switzerland), it
took 26 hours from the time I stepped in the starting point airport to
the time when I stepped out of the destination one (i.e., I am not
even counting the time to get to/from these airports which
would add an additional couple of hours); no major delays or problem, but
for some reasons, it stopped via two intermediate airports on its way and
that was enough; much worse delays are not uncommon; had the aircraft
flown twice as fast, it would have saved an insignificant amount of that
time overall, hardly worth bothering with faster aircraft; I am not
convinced that bigger aircraft is the answer either, it is painful enough
to wait for a couple hundred passengers and their luggages to be screened
by security, multiple times, loaded and unloaded, and screened again
by custom at the destination; I don't even want to think about standing
in line with another seven or eight hundred fallow passengers enroute via
the same flight (seems this is the kind of figure the latest Airbus
project is aiming for...);

I reckon that what saved time when flying Concorde was not much the
speed of the thing, but the fact that (i) all passengers were flying
first class (with the more expeditious handling that it affords) and (ii)
that only a small number of them could fit in the thing.

--Sylvain

In article ,
(Sylvain) writes:

flying across to Europe from California once in a while, my take is that
I don't think getting faster aircraft is going to make much of a difference:
a significantly higher amount of time (and disconfort) could be saved by
improving the airports and routings.

This reality is what doomed the "sonic cruiser" which would have been less than
15% faster than conventional airliners. Under the hub & spoke concept of air
travel these days, there are relatively few trip where a passenger spends more
time in the airplane than they spend in, or getting to-from terminals.

John

Videos

http://www.britishairways.com/travel...m/public/en_us



"Big John" wrote in message
news
The last commercial flight of the Concorde (BA) will take place
tomorrow when bird returns to England from the US.

Lets all have a moment of silence for the passing of an era.

Big John