[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Concorde (Page 1 of 4)
Posted: 5/9/2015 1:33:30 AM EDT
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Air Bus was NOT the maker.....
Interesting story. Was it missing spacers and tires bursting, or bad design? Was it the metal strip? |
| The Concorde was a joint venture of Aerospatiale and BAC.. Airbus didn't exist at that time. The fire was caused when the airplane ran over a piece of metal that fell off of a Continental AL DC-10 and the piece caused a tire to rupture which in turn caused a fuel tank on the Concorde to rupture. If memory serves, the metal strip was. PMA part used on the DC-10's thrust reverser. |
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the plane would expand a foot or so in flight due to the heat of the fuselage. it would create a gap in the instrument panel the flight engineer used.
on the retirement trips, many of them placed their hats in the gap and let the plane contract and keep them in place. 
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The Concorde was a joint venture of Aerospatiale and BAC.. Airbus didn't exist at that time. The fire was caused when the airplane ran over a piece of metal that fell off of a Continental AL DC-10 and the piece caused a tire to rupture which in turn caused a fuel tank on the Concorde to rupture. If memory serves, the metal strip was. PMA part used on the DC-10's thrust reverser. Up until then had never had a single loss. One of the best safety records. An amazing piece of design. Didn't one of the NASA moon guys say something like going to the moon was easy, if you want to try something hard Build a supersonic passenger plane. |
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Up until then had never had a single loss. One of the best safety records. An amazing piece of design. Didn't one of the NASA moon guys say something like going to the moon was easy, if you want to try something hard Build a supersonic passenger plane. Quoted:
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The Concorde was a joint venture of Aerospatiale and BAC.. Airbus didn't exist at that time. The fire was caused when the airplane ran over a piece of metal that fell off of a Continental AL DC-10 and the piece caused a tire to rupture which in turn caused a fuel tank on the Concorde to rupture. If memory serves, the metal strip was. PMA part used on the DC-10's thrust reverser. Up until then had never had a single loss. One of the best safety records. An amazing piece of design. Didn't one of the NASA moon guys say something like going to the moon was easy, if you want to try something hard Build a supersonic passenger plane. This. It never was profitable from a commercial standpoint, but what an engineering marvel. As an expression of National will, it was a success. |
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I flew back from London on one of British Air's about 25 years ago. An experience of a life time. How was the actual flight compared to other planes ? Other than the actual flight time, was there and difference in going 500 mph in a standard airliner and going supersonic in the Concorde ? |
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This. It never was profitable from a commercial standpoint, but what an engineering marvel. As an expression of National will, it was a success. Quoted:
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The Concorde was a joint venture of Aerospatiale and BAC.. Airbus didn't exist at that time. The fire was caused when the airplane ran over a piece of metal that fell off of a Continental AL DC-10 and the piece caused a tire to rupture which in turn caused a fuel tank on the Concorde to rupture. If memory serves, the metal strip was. PMA part used on the DC-10's thrust reverser. Up until then had never had a single loss. One of the best safety records. An amazing piece of design. Didn't one of the NASA moon guys say something like going to the moon was easy, if you want to try something hard Build a supersonic passenger plane. This. It never was profitable from a commercial standpoint, but what an engineering marvel. As an expression of National will, it was a success. |
| Design flaw. A bursting tire should never cause as much damage and bring down an airplane. A blown tire is a common occurrence on airplanes. May get a damaged flap or gear door out of it but nothing else. Usually all the fuel tank plates in this area are impact resistant for just such an occurrence. A burst tire scenario should have been factored in to the original design and testing and never was. The manufacturer at the time was more interested in getting the plane to market as fast as possible to beat out the competition and the nay sayers from the governments that where fronting the money to build it. The Continental lawsuit was a smoke screen to cover the original design and manufacturing flaws as well as short commings of the Concorde. Frenchie national pride was at stake here. The plane should have been parked years earlier do to inherit design flaws and loosing money. |
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The Soviet version TU-144
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-144 |
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I have a bud of mine from the UK who was a Concorde pilot for BA for a good chunk of it's service life there.
I see him every year at the Reno Air Races, we speculated one year that he probably has more time in a plane supersonic than the rest of the entire crowd combined ( it would depend if there was any long haul astronauts attending ). He has some of the best stories. Amazing aircraft. |
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Concorde is one of those things Europeans are incredibly proud of, but really aren't that good.
It was a complete financial failure, heavily subsidized by the British and French governments. Only 14 ever entered service. It's often called a "marvel of engineering", but there are some very serious issues, and really isn't that impressive compared against other craft of that era. The treaty to develop Concorde was signed on Nov 29, 1962, a few months after Kennedy's go to the Moon speech that launched the Apollo missions. Concorde first flew in 1969 and entered service in 1976. In that same period the US government designed the Apollo craft, put one on the Moon, did the same thing FOUR more times, got bored with that, put up Skylab, then started the Shuttle program and got first flight shortly after Concorde entered service but only taking 5 years from concept to flight. During the 14 years Concorde took to enter service, Boeing concepted, built, tested, and entered service the 747 in just 5. It serves essentially the same long haul markets as Concorde, except it was profitable to run and took a few extra hours to get there. The 747 outsold Concorde by over 100-1 in airframes and easily several times that in passenger miles. I don't have any hard numbers but I wouldn't be surprised if the 747 has over 1000 passenger miles for every 1 of Concorde. So yes, it was impressive compared to the other stuff Europe was putting out at the time, but completely outclassed by good old American engineering. |
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Concorde is one of those things Europeans are incredibly proud of, but really aren't that good. It was a complete financial failure, heavily subsidized by the British and French governments. Only 14 ever entered service. It's often called a "marvel of engineering", but there are some very serious issues, and really isn't that impressive compared against other craft of that era. So, it was basically their Space Shuttle, is what you are saying. 
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So, it was basically their Space Shuttle, is what you are saying. Quoted:
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Concorde is one of those things Europeans are incredibly proud of, but really aren't that good. It was a complete financial failure, heavily subsidized by the British and French governments. Only 14 ever entered service. It's often called a "marvel of engineering", but there are some very serious issues, and really isn't that impressive compared against other craft of that era. So, it was basically their Space Shuttle, is what you are saying. See part in red. |
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See part in red. Quoted:
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Concorde is one of those things Europeans are incredibly proud of, but really aren't that good. It was a complete financial failure, heavily subsidized by the British and French governments. Only 14 ever entered service. It's often called a "marvel of engineering", but there are some very serious issues, and really isn't that impressive compared against other craft of that era. So, it was basically their Space Shuttle, is what you are saying. See part in red. The Apollo program was the ultimate in heavy-lift rockets. The fact the we are essentially returning to that technology, 30 years after the shuttle, is proof of that. The Apollo comparison is exactly analogous to his (silly) comparison of the Concorde to the 747. |
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Quoted: Design flaw. A bursting tire should never cause as much damage and bring down an airplane. A blown tire is a common occurrence on airplanes. May get a damaged flap or gear door out of it but nothing else. Usually all the fuel tank plates in this area are impact resistant for just such an occurrence. A burst tire scenario should have been factored in to the original design and testing and never was. The manufacturer at the time was more interested in getting the plane to market as fast as possible to beat out the competition and the nay sayers from the governments that where fronting the money to build it. The Continental lawsuit was a smoke screen to cover the original design and manufacturing flaws as well as short commings of the Concorde. Frenchie national pride was at stake here. The plane should have been parked years earlier do to inherit design flaws and loosing money. |
| The accident with the ruptured fuel tank that destroyed the plane was actually the second time it happened. The first time they just had damage. Engineers wanted to use Kevlar to shield the tanks after the first time but the company did not want to. After the accident they did exactly that but when they were ready to resume flights the company retired the plane. |
| I have been in a Concorde on ground display. I was shocked by how small it was. All seats were called first class but the spacing felt about like today's economy class. The taller people in our group couldn't even stand up straight in the aisle. They were comfy once you sat down, though pretty narrow. For a round trip ticket of around $10k I expected more room. |
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Quoted: What's silly about the comparison? They were the flagship of their respective continents. They're not the same design but the 747 could serve every route Concorde could, plus others. |
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Umm, the Concorde was all about speed. Supersonic speed. If you wanna talk economic viability, well that's another story. Quoted:
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What's silly about the comparison? They were the flagship of their respective continents. They're not the same design but the 747 could serve every route Concorde could, plus others. No, Concorde was designed as a trans-Atlantic transport. At the time it was believed supersonic was the best way, everyone else was doing the same, and they didn't want to be kept out of the market. It was meant as a common, mass market plane. Concorde and the 747 had roughly the same number of preorders before launch. Most of Concorde's backed out and 747's increased rapidly once they got going. The mystique of speed(as opposed to ordinary selling point) was added later. |
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Concorde is one of those things Europeans are incredibly proud of, but really aren't that good. It was a complete financial failure, heavily subsidized by the British and French governments. Only 14 ever entered service. It's often called a "marvel of engineering", but there are some very serious issues, and really isn't that impressive compared against other craft of that era. The treaty to develop Concorde was signed on Nov 29, 1962, a few months after Kennedy's go to the Moon speech that launched the Apollo missions. Concorde first flew in 1969 and entered service in 1976. In that same period the US government designed the Apollo craft, put one on the Moon, did the same thing FOUR more times, got bored with that, put up Skylab, then started the Shuttle program and got first flight shortly after Concorde entered service but only taking 5 years from concept to flight. During the 14 years Concorde took to enter service, Boeing concepted, built, tested, and entered service the 747 in just 5. It serves essentially the same long haul markets as Concorde, except it was profitable to run and took a few extra hours to get there. The 747 outsold Concorde by over 100-1 in airframes and easily several times that in passenger miles. I don't have any hard numbers but I wouldn't be surprised if the 747 has over 1000 passenger miles for every 1 of Concorde. So yes, it was impressive compared to the other stuff Europe was putting out at the time, but completely outclassed by good old American engineering. Oh look, it's a butthurt Colonial. |
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So, it was basically their Space Shuttle, is what you are saying. Quoted:
Quoted:
Concorde is one of those things Europeans are incredibly proud of, but really aren't that good. It was a complete financial failure, heavily subsidized by the British and French governments. Only 14 ever entered service. It's often called a "marvel of engineering", but there are some very serious issues, and really isn't that impressive compared against other craft of that era. So, it was basically their Space Shuttle, is what you are saying. With the safety record the space shuttle wishes it had 
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With the safety record the space shuttle wishes it had
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Concorde is one of those things Europeans are incredibly proud of, but really aren't that good. It was a complete financial failure, heavily subsidized by the British and French governments. Only 14 ever entered service. It's often called a "marvel of engineering", but there are some very serious issues, and really isn't that impressive compared against other craft of that era. So, it was basically their Space Shuttle, is what you are saying. With the safety record the space shuttle wishes it had
The body count was a whole lot higher on Concorde. |
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The Concorde was a joint venture of Aerospatiale and BAC.. Airbus didn't exist at that time. The fire was caused when the airplane ran over a piece of metal that fell off of a Continental AL DC-10 and the piece caused a tire to rupture which in turn caused a fuel tank on the Concorde to rupture. If memory serves, the metal strip was. PMA part used on the DC-10's thrust reverser. Came to post this, IIRC, shit fell off of a POS DC-10 and caused the crash, before that perfect safety record. |
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Came to post this, IIRC, shit fell off of a POS DC-10 and caused the crash, before that perfect safety record. Quoted:
Quoted:
The Concorde was a joint venture of Aerospatiale and BAC.. Airbus didn't exist at that time. The fire was caused when the airplane ran over a piece of metal that fell off of a Continental AL DC-10 and the piece caused a tire to rupture which in turn caused a fuel tank on the Concorde to rupture. If memory serves, the metal strip was. PMA part used on the DC-10's thrust reverser. Came to post this, IIRC, shit fell off of a POS DC-10 and caused the crash, before that perfect safety record. Never crashing on your own fault is impressive, but remember the tiny sample size. Air France and British Airways each had 7 planes. If If wiki's numbers are accurate then AF only had around 90k total hours and BA around 150k. There are dozens, possibly hundreds of individual airframes of various models with close to or over 100k hours on them. Pick any 3 random Boeing or Airbus planes and see if they crash during their lives. Gives about the same statistical results. ETA: The Airbus A340, A380 and Boeing 787 have never had a fatality. 777 has had only 3 fatal crashes, one was pilot error in good weather, one was shot down, and one is still a mystery. All 757 fatalities were human error. 767 had 1 fatal crash due to plane issues, 2 pilot error, and 3 hijackings. |
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Design flaw. A bursting tire should never cause as much damage and bring down an airplane. A blown tire is a common occurrence on airplanes. May get a damaged flap or gear door out of it but nothing else. Usually all the fuel tank plates in this area are impact resistant for just such an occurrence. A burst tire scenario should have been factored in to the original design and testing and never was. The manufacturer at the time was more interested in getting the plane to market as fast as possible to beat out the competition and the nay sayers from the governments that where fronting the money to build it. The Continental lawsuit was a smoke screen to cover the original design and manufacturing flaws as well as short commings of the Concorde. Frenchie national pride was at stake here. The plane should have been parked years earlier do to inherit design flaws and loosing money. Those flaws could all have been fixed. It was the economic part hat did it in. it's too bad. I hate the long flights to Europe. I would visit family there more often if SSTs became affordable to book travel on. |
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Oh look, it's a butthurt Colonial. Quoted:
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Concorde is one of those things Europeans are incredibly proud of, but really aren't that good. It was a complete financial failure, heavily subsidized by the British and French governments. Only 14 ever entered service. It's often called a "marvel of engineering", but there are some very serious issues, and really isn't that impressive compared against other craft of that era. The treaty to develop Concorde was signed on Nov 29, 1962, a few months after Kennedy's go to the Moon speech that launched the Apollo missions. Concorde first flew in 1969 and entered service in 1976. In that same period the US government designed the Apollo craft, put one on the Moon, did the same thing FOUR more times, got bored with that, put up Skylab, then started the Shuttle program and got first flight shortly after Concorde entered service but only taking 5 years from concept to flight. During the 14 years Concorde took to enter service, Boeing concepted, built, tested, and entered service the 747 in just 5. It serves essentially the same long haul markets as Concorde, except it was profitable to run and took a few extra hours to get there. The 747 outsold Concorde by over 100-1 in airframes and easily several times that in passenger miles. I don't have any hard numbers but I wouldn't be surprised if the 747 has over 1000 passenger miles for every 1 of Concorde. So yes, it was impressive compared to the other stuff Europe was putting out at the time, but completely outclassed by good old American engineering. Oh look, it's a butthurt Colonial. Lol. Butthurt over what? That one plane? How's your country's space program working out? How's your country's global presence looking? How about your gun laws? Yep. |
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I have been in a Concorde on ground display. I was shocked by how small it was. All seats were called first class but the spacing felt about like today's economy class. The taller people in our group couldn't even stand up straight in the aisle. They were comfy once you sat down, though pretty narrow. For a round trip ticket of around $10k I expected more room. This. I walked through one of the original test aircraft at the Imperial War Museum at Duxford. I never would have imagined it was so small inside! NYC to London in a small seat stuck in a narrow little pipe like that? No thanks, I don't care if it's only 2-3 hours. I'll take a 747 for 6-7 hours please. Still a cool plane though. 
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Lol. Butthurt over what? That one plane? How's your country's space program working out? How's your country's global presence looking? How about your gun laws? Yep. Quoted:
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Concorde is one of those things Europeans are incredibly proud of, but really aren't that good. It was a complete financial failure, heavily subsidized by the British and French governments. Only 14 ever entered service. It's often called a "marvel of engineering", but there are some very serious issues, and really isn't that impressive compared against other craft of that era. The treaty to develop Concorde was signed on Nov 29, 1962, a few months after Kennedy's go to the Moon speech that launched the Apollo missions. Concorde first flew in 1969 and entered service in 1976. In that same period the US government designed the Apollo craft, put one on the Moon, did the same thing FOUR more times, got bored with that, put up Skylab, then started the Shuttle program and got first flight shortly after Concorde entered service but only taking 5 years from concept to flight. During the 14 years Concorde took to enter service, Boeing concepted, built, tested, and entered service the 747 in just 5. It serves essentially the same long haul markets as Concorde, except it was profitable to run and took a few extra hours to get there. The 747 outsold Concorde by over 100-1 in airframes and easily several times that in passenger miles. I don't have any hard numbers but I wouldn't be surprised if the 747 has over 1000 passenger miles for every 1 of Concorde. So yes, it was impressive compared to the other stuff Europe was putting out at the time, but completely outclassed by good old American engineering. Oh look, it's a butthurt Colonial. Lol. Butthurt over what? That one plane? How's your country's space program working out? How's your country's global presence looking? How about your gun laws? Yep. lol Thanks for proving my point. Your inferiority complex is obvious. |
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lol Thanks for proving my point. Your inferiority complex is obvious. Quoted:
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Concorde is one of those things Europeans are incredibly proud of, but really aren't that good. It was a complete financial failure, heavily subsidized by the British and French governments. Only 14 ever entered service. It's often called a "marvel of engineering", but there are some very serious issues, and really isn't that impressive compared against other craft of that era. The treaty to develop Concorde was signed on Nov 29, 1962, a few months after Kennedy's go to the Moon speech that launched the Apollo missions. Concorde first flew in 1969 and entered service in 1976. In that same period the US government designed the Apollo craft, put one on the Moon, did the same thing FOUR more times, got bored with that, put up Skylab, then started the Shuttle program and got first flight shortly after Concorde entered service but only taking 5 years from concept to flight. During the 14 years Concorde took to enter service, Boeing concepted, built, tested, and entered service the 747 in just 5. It serves essentially the same long haul markets as Concorde, except it was profitable to run and took a few extra hours to get there. The 747 outsold Concorde by over 100-1 in airframes and easily several times that in passenger miles. I don't have any hard numbers but I wouldn't be surprised if the 747 has over 1000 passenger miles for every 1 of Concorde. So yes, it was impressive compared to the other stuff Europe was putting out at the time, but completely outclassed by good old American engineering. Oh look, it's a butthurt Colonial. Lol. Butthurt over what? That one plane? How's your country's space program working out? How's your country's global presence looking? How about your gun laws? Yep. lol Thanks for proving my point. Your inferiority complex is obvious. "I'm made of rubber and you're made of glue! What you say bounces off of me and sticks to you!" You sound like a child Swede. Guilty of the same offense you proclaim to observe. |
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"I'm made of rubber and you're made of glue! What you say bounces off of me and sticks to you!" You sound like a child Swede. Guilty of the same offense you proclaim to observe. Quoted:
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Concorde is one of those things Europeans are incredibly proud of, but really aren't that good. It was a complete financial failure, heavily subsidized by the British and French governments. Only 14 ever entered service. It's often called a "marvel of engineering", but there are some very serious issues, and really isn't that impressive compared against other craft of that era. The treaty to develop Concorde was signed on Nov 29, 1962, a few months after Kennedy's go to the Moon speech that launched the Apollo missions. Concorde first flew in 1969 and entered service in 1976. In that same period the US government designed the Apollo craft, put one on the Moon, did the same thing FOUR more times, got bored with that, put up Skylab, then started the Shuttle program and got first flight shortly after Concorde entered service but only taking 5 years from concept to flight. During the 14 years Concorde took to enter service, Boeing concepted, built, tested, and entered service the 747 in just 5. It serves essentially the same long haul markets as Concorde, except it was profitable to run and took a few extra hours to get there. The 747 outsold Concorde by over 100-1 in airframes and easily several times that in passenger miles. I don't have any hard numbers but I wouldn't be surprised if the 747 has over 1000 passenger miles for every 1 of Concorde. So yes, it was impressive compared to the other stuff Europe was putting out at the time, but completely outclassed by good old American engineering. Oh look, it's a butthurt Colonial. Lol. Butthurt over what? That one plane? How's your country's space program working out? How's your country's global presence looking? How about your gun laws? Yep. lol Thanks for proving my point. Your inferiority complex is obvious. "I'm made of rubber and you're made of glue! What you say bounces off of me and sticks to you!" You sound like a child Swede. Guilty of the same offense you proclaim to observe. I'm not the one who brought up something completely unrelated in a thread about the Concorde. |