Concorde RIP

When the Yanks were haggling about landing permission at JFK there was a
televised open forum with all the major players invited plus a few
extra.

The Yanks had already had the windows reduced in size or they wouldn't
certify it.

They wouldn't let it fly supersonic in the super sonic corridor across
the states.

They would only let it use JFK if the ticket cost was twice that of the
most expensive American carriers first class ticket cost.

etc etc etc.

Freddy Laker stood up and declared to the meeting that his engineering
staff had come up with a low cost solution to over coming the sonic boom
and the noise of the engines in afterburner take off. This would meet
all of the requirements of the FAA and take away any objection to
Concorde landing at JFK.

Lots of noise, puzzled looks, etc and the head of the FAA stood up and
asked how he proposed to do that when the design engineers couldn't.

It's simple said Freddy. You paint the word BOEING on each side.

Meeting then broke down in a mixture of applause, the shaking of heads
and most of the Yanks walking out.

 

Des, you have "NO F*CKING IDEA"..

Mutter mutter mutter....................

 

The landings are supposed to be on TV later (anybody know what time?).
Though I'll probably be at work - anybody know if there are plans for
repeats later on?

 

[snip]

[snip typical anti-foreign-competition]

If it's even half true, that's absolutely brilliant!

 

The reason Concorde was a failure (besides the massive cost overruns)
was that it couldn't fly most routes. It barely managed London/Paris
to New York/Washington and couldn't fly from Frankfurt to the US. What
airline in its right mind was going to buy the thing?

It's a nice aeroplane but it's useless and would never have gone into
service if it had had to carry its full costs.

 

Oh it's true all right!

 

It's Friday, FFS why aren't you working from home? )

 

There's a special on BBC2 and News24 at 3.30, with the planes expected to
land around 4pm. That said, the Edinburgh flight was meant to take off at
10am and it didn't get airborne til about 10.30 so what time things will
actually happen is anyone's guess.

If they come down before 4 I'll be pissed off cos I'll still be on the M4.

 

You're forgetting who my manager is.

Shove a tape in for us willya?

 

<nods>

Bye bye, Speedbird. (

 

All three[1] should arrive at around 4pm.

I suspect Sky News will show it until you'll actually get sick of
seeing it )

[1] One from New York, one from Cardiff and one from Heathrow[2].
[2] A supersonic flight over the Bay of Biscay round-trip.

 

[snip]

The fact that it pissed fuel everywhere probably didn't help things. I
remember being told about the time when Concorde was flown to Miami airport.
Forgetting to tell the ground crew that they should only fill Concorde up
just before take off, they had prepared it the night before. Come the
morning, Concorde (and the surrounding area) was awash with fuel[1]. Choice
words were uttered to the effect of "Never bring Concorde back here again".

[1] It leaks quite badly you see

 

That, of course, should read Edinburgh /

 

BAE at it's own cost were prepared to install extra tanks to enable
longer loiter and longer range. The British government by declaring it a
military project forbade BAE from changing any of the design ensuring
its marketing failure for the Frankfurt run and the airports further
into the states.

If BA had flown it as often as they do their 747s (as it was capable of)
it might just have paid for itself. The enforced 'twice the cost of a US
carriers first class fare' tag that was part of the deal to it getting
landing permission at JFK restricted it's ticket sales for the Atlantic
run

 

Nope, it's Scotty, he's never there so how on earth can he complain!

Due to the recabling nonsense I've not been in in 4 weeks, back on
Monday or Tuesday though! /

Don't see why not.
<goes to have a look when it's on>

 

Presumably only while on the ground, the slack being sorted by expansion
when in flight?

Didn't the SR-71 do pretty much the same thing?

 

Erm...no actually; I think it leaks worse in flight (although I may be
wrong). They actually compensate for the predicted leakage in their initial
fuel load.

 

SR-71s do that as well. Presumably it's a expansion due to heat
at supersonic speeds sealing things thing?

 

It made a handy alarm clock at the Reading Festival each year. About 10.30am
the thing would roar across the sky and any attempt to sleep through a
hangover would come to an abrupt end.

 

do you *ever* go into work? ;-)