This plane could cross the Atlantic in 3.5 hours. Why did it fail?

We had it. From January 21, 1976 to October 24, 2003 we had a supersonic commercial passenger

plane

called Concorde. Today it takes 7

hours

to fly from New York to London. On the Concorde it was around 3:30 (a little less than 3

hours

if it were a record time). A journey that would have taken the Titanic 137 hours had turned out to be barely enough to see it as it

cross

ed the Atlantic. The Concorde came to represent class, style and the miracle of engineering. Here is a normal

plane

landing and here is the Concorde landing. Which one are you looking at? With the Concorde, we all look up and point.

And then in 2003… it stopped. We had a commercial supersonic flight and we let it go. Because? Why did Concorde become a museum exhibit? This is the Smithsonian's Concorde, and the curator who got it also flew in it. “I saw the color of the sky at 60,000 feet. It is an intense violet color, very beautiful.” How did a breakthrough become a memory? The answer says something about how innovation really endures. And it's complicated. "I have a personal interest in the SST and I would like to tell you about it." SST is equivalent to supersonic transport, any transport that is faster than the speed of sound.

It became a dream after Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in 1947, and a technology race in the 1950s and 1960s, combining Cold War competition with a classic faith in mid-century engineering. . The Americans, Russians, and the British and French governments invested hundreds of millions of dollars in supersonic R&D. (Think rooms full of engineers in short sleeves and ties.) The then Seattle-based Boeing won the American design contract in 1967 (that's where a certain basketball team got its original name). "The Seattle Supersonics win the game!" But development was halted after a funding cut in 1971. The Russian model, the Tupolev Tu-144, flew but was grounded after an extraordinarily spotty record of just 55 flights.

But there was a winner. "Concord. The paper airplane conceived jointly by Britain and France to shrink the world and cut air travel time in half.” From the beginning, the Concorde was a marvel of design. It was not designed with computers, but through mathematics and trial and error. They had to constantly innovate to make a supersonic airliner possible. "The plane had to be very long and narrow to travel in supersonic comfort." And the paint was twice as reflective as other jets just to compensate for the heat from air friction. "Because you're traveling at Mach II, twice the speed of sound, even though you're at 60,000 feet... the airframe would actually heat up dramatically." “I actually knocked on the window. “It wasn’t hot, it was hot.” Fuel flowed around the plane during flight to adjust its center of gravity for takeoff, cruise, and landing. “So these pumps run the entire flight, but you can't tell.” But it was the beautiful wing that distinguished the Concorde among its biggest fans. "It's a hang glider, but it's called a pointed hang glider because of its unique shape." Delta because it was triangular, like the Greek Delta; ogival to refer to its curve.

The hang glider helped the Concorde rise on takeoff and limit drag during flight. The rest of the plane compensated. “The only compromise is that it required a very high angle of attack on takeoff and landing. Since the pilots

could

not see outside the plane due to the landing angle, engineers came up with a solution. "The Concorde featured a sagging snoot." Does the snout fall off? "The snoot would fall off." The snout fell. “The reason is that it was a Delta wing design and had a very high angle of attack when landing. So, in order to see, they were able to lower their nose.” It flew at Mach 2 (more than 1,300 miles per hour), faster than the Earth rotates. “You

could

n't know it; the only way to know you were doing Mach Two was that they had a Mach meter on the bulkhead.

Everyone was focused on that, because it would creep up. As soon as I got to Mach One, everyone burst into applause.” To minimize drag, it was raised so high that the curve of the Earth could be seen. The Concorde defined the glamor of high-speed flight: “Now

this

is a very important part of the seven-piece wardrobe,

this

washable dress that you wear in hot weather” And the admiration of celebrities like… Sting. "It's always exciting to fly Supersonic and it's always exciting to get to New York before you leave." It was a stratospheric cocktail. “Normally people complain about how bad airline food is...

I can attest, in this case, that was not true. This was one of the best meals I have ever had. It worked like a charm - a normal French meal lasts about 2.5-3 hours. When dinner was over, we were already here.” So what went wrong? On July 25, 2000, Concorde punctured a tire during takeoff of Air France Flight 4590. 113 people died. Although the

fail

ure occurred shortly after takeoff, it was due to a specific problem with the Concorde's tires. The plane was grounded until November 2001. By then, the 9/11 attacks had already depressed the industry. But while both tragedies affected Concorde, they are only a couple of parts of the fundamental challenges facing the plane.

Noise levels during takeoff were high. But the enormous sonic booms were unmatched. In the 1960s, the Air Force conducted a sonic boom test over Oklahoma City and residents reported hundreds of damaged windows and disturbing noises. All of that meant limiting supersonic flight to the surface of the ocean: there would be no New York until the Los Angeles Concorde. That's part of what quashed the U.S. supersonic experiment with Boeing and limited demand for supersonic aircraft in the first place. Noise concerns were combined with environmental concerns. "There will be serious environmental damage to the ozone layer." The plane's high flight pattern led scientists to think that its exhaust gases could be more threatening to the ozone than regular airplanes. “What was noticeable was that you kept going up, up and up.

We were flying much higher than a normal plane.” A massive fleet of supersonic aircraft would likely have caused real damage, raising warning signs for a supersonic future. Fuel needs also limited range to trans

atlantic

voyages, with no Trans-Pacific revenue streams. It consumed enough fuel that price fluctuations could hit particularly hard. With ticket prices as high as $12,000 per seat, that was a major risk. And the tickets had to be expensive, since the plane could only fit 120 passengers at most. He couldn't distribute the price. This was compounded by the need for specially qualified crew and maintenance that was very expensive.

And everything was for a very demanding audience. “Air France and British Airways had to place a spare Concorde in New York in case the flight had any problems. So there are planes parked on the ground, not making money, just in case. Because the passengers of the Concorde expect to get on it because they have paid a lot of money for it.” None of these factors stopped the Concorde, but they all boxed her in until she had no choice but to sink. When Air France and British Airways announced the closure of Concorde on April 10, 2003, it was not about the past, but about the future.

The manufacturer Airbus decided that supporting Concorde was impossible. An aging Concorde (it still had analog controls and a flight engineer, both newer planes had lost) would cost too much to upgrade or remake. In some ways, the economics of the Concorde were similar to the economics of this toy model. I bought it for ten dollars because the manufacturer could spread the cost of factory workers, tooling, and distribution over thousands of nice airplanes. Airbus loves to do the same with its family of aircraft. Even if a flight were profitable for an airline, it could not afford a new small batch of planes.

All the factors that influenced the Concorde kept it so small in scale that it would be wildly unprofitable to repair, rebuild, or revive it. The best option was to land permanently. We like to think that progress only ends because of disaster. With a crash. But they can fall short without causing disaster, despite an impressive wing or a jaw-dropping drop snoot. They have to come with a business model and a supply system, a political determination and an expansion plan. Even with future dreams for supersonic transportation still latent, all those questions about the business model remain unanswered. “They don't exist unless they make money... some people don't like that idea, but it's a reality.

They are there to make money. If they are making a product that doesn't make money, they will stop making it or go out of business. Or both. You never know." So the flight time to London can become double work again. But we lose something with the drudgery. Progress... slows down. And we have to wait until there is something else to look at. Something worth noting. So I absolutely fell in love with the Concorde, but it wasn't that comfortable of a ride. Bob told me that while the legroom was pretty good, the headroom wasn't and it wasn't. the width of the seat; it was like a coach seat.

And you can see that in this video of Sting. It looks pretty tight, especially for Sting.