10 ms·
The Concorde is one of those early implementations that is just big enough to barely work, yet never really succeeds, while also sucking all the air out of the
by johngalt 11y ago
The Concorde is one of those early implementations that is just big enough to barely work, yet never really succeeds, while also sucking all the air out of the room for any other ideas. The aviation fan side of me would love to see the Concorde fly again but my gut says that trying to resurrect the Concorde will only delay any chance of regular supersonic flights in the future.
- Turbo_hedgehog 11y agoReading the article, it's not headed back to commercial service but instead for air shows and private charters.
- idlewords 11y agoThere's nothing about Concorde that ruined it for anyone else. The problems that killed SST programs—high fuel costs and noise—remain unsolved. The plane was a pretty remarkable piece of engineering given the physical constraints.
- qq66 11y agoOne more thing that shut down the Concorde was the post-9/11 increase in security procedures at airports, greatly diminshing the relative advantage of supersonic flights. If getting on the plane takes an extra (unpleasant) 45 minutes on each end, then the percentage time savings from supersonic flight is reduced.
- zrail 11y agoConcorde tickets require global entry or your country's equivalent. Problem solved.
- 15155 11y ago> require global entry It's not a matter of people delaying or impacting flights, it's a matter of the flight being less appealing with inevitable security wait times. Requiring anything like this will only make an already niche service less accessible with no benefit.
- dalke 11y agoSome airports have special priority lines for the business and first-class passengers. There are no security wait times if you have the money to skip the lines. Eg, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/01/AR2005080101435.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08... and http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/magazine/11wwln-lede-t.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/magazine/11wwln-lede-t.htm... . And Concorde passengers had the money.
- InclinedPlane 11y agoGlobal entry is easy to get and cheap compared to the cost of concorde travel.
- toomuchtodo 11y agoStupid easy. $100 fee for five years, background check, and a digital record of your fingerprints are kept on file.
- darklajid 11y agoI hope you missed the /s tags. A background check and your fingerprints, because ..? I recently landed in Heathrow after a looong time staying in Europe (yes, England's not Europe) only. I was literally shaking when I saw all the people going through a random scanner, looking into a camera, providing their fingerprints. Ignoring that the system didn't even work half the time while I was watching and that it needed a supervisor that reset everything, brought the people back out of the 'check zone' to .. turn it off and on again: That's insane. This is the amount I'm willing to pay to a crappy government to go easy on me: This is the list of governments that are allowed to take my fingerprints outside of a criminal investigation(* ): Again, I really really hope you were just kidding and making fun of a bad situation. *: The next time my German ID runs out I _might_ have to do that for my own home country - and I still try to figure out ways to avoid that/let the ID run out (illegal) without a renewal etc. And I try to vote for the parties that aren't insane.
- hn9780470248775 11y agoAre post-9/11 security times really longer? Security screening actually seems pretty efficient (i.e. quick) to me. Even before 9/11 we had baggage x-ray and passenger metal detection. These measures were introduced in December 1972.
- miah_ 11y agoYes. I have to opt-out every time I fly now which adds ~20-30 minutes to my visit to security.
- hughes 11y agoOpt-out of what?
- diyorgasms 11y agoPresumably the millimeter wave body scanners, which are both invasive and relatively unstudied in its health effects.
- toomuchtodo 11y agoApparently millimeter wave radiation can be ionizing under the right circumstances. That's sort of terrifying. http://arxiv.org/abs/0910.5294 http://arxiv.org/abs/0910.5294
- oakwhiz 11y agoThe paper you referred to doesn't make any claims with regards to ionization - the effects considered are mainly having to do with the molecular dynamics behaviors of DNA.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- throwketchup 11y ago
- Spooky23 11y agoThe other thing for the super-rich is fractional jet ownership. If your flying to dinner in London from NYC, Your concierge experience at Teterboro to hop in a Gulfstream with nominal security is way more pleasant than facing the masses of wannabe VIPs at the big airport.
- techdragon 11y agoWhich is why there is continued work on "affordable" supersonic flight in the private business key industry and has been for decades.
- aianus 11y agoIs that it, though? I was under the impression that the rich flew private for time savings not because they actually enjoy the flight that much. Put me in a cattle car for an hour over a private jet for seven hours any day.
- bwilliams18 11y agoNo security at Teterboro. Or most other private airports for that matter. Just a Customs check if you're going international.
- youngtaff 11y agoAirbus withdrawing support for it was what really killed it - BA wanted to carry on flying them but couldn't
- peteri 11y agoFrom memory at LHR Concorde had dedicated check in and lounge (this was in 2003). I'm pretty sure we went through dedicated security for Concorde (might have been VIP) I certainly don't remember hanging around much. Can't say what JFK on the way was back like as I flew to Barbados, where facilities were a little more basic. There are still ways to get faster through security, London City airport always feels fast when I fly through it and one day I will do the BA001 flight (Concordes old number) to JFK where again I suspect time spent in security theatre will be small.
- superuser2 11y agoWhat do delays at the arrival end of your trip have to do with 9/11? Customs screening for international flights has always existed; only security on the departure side has gotten slower, and this is a problem you can solve with not very much money by enrolling in pre-check. Your air travel experience will be much more pleasant if you exclusively do carry-on. I've never needed more than a backpack and a suitcase. Most destinations have laundry machines. My understanding is that weather, taxi gridlock, and under-provisioned gates are the primary drivers of slowness in airports.
- bwilliams18 11y agoPre-Check is great, when you have it, and did not exist from 2001 until the concorde shut down in 2003, thus was a significant factor. It is probably safe to say that almost anyone flying on the concorde at the time would have pre-check today.
- greggman 11y agoIs the noise truly a probably or was that just lobbying by Boeing to make sure it didn't succeed?
- mshook 11y agoAt the time it was built, it was a little bit noisier than the 707. The only issue is that while planes got much quieter (as the 707 was retired for example and new ones appeared), Concorde kept on flying... So in a way, it got louder with age.
- protomyth 11y agoYep, it is a problem (though not on the ocean flight obviously). I'm pretty sure Boeing would have liked to sell a SST given what they spent back in the day and their teaming with NASA to figure out a way to reduce the sonic boom. http://www.nasa.gov/aero/centers_tackle_sonic_boom.html http://www.nasa.gov/aero/centers_tackle_sonic_boom.html
- idlewords 11y agoHere's what it sounds like to have a supersonic Concorde fly overhead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=annkM6z1-FE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=annkM6z1-FE And here's what it sounds like on takeoff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1ShTUVIzCI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1ShTUVIzCI Note that it sets off nearby car alarms.
- gsnedders 11y agoTurbojets are truly that much louder than the turbofans we're now used to. At the time it was only a bit louder than contemporary aircraft, but everything else got far quieter. Concorde is more comparable in engine noise to a modern fighter jet than it is to most commercial aircraft.
- brc 11y agoIt's always been seen to me as a supreme irony that a country that sells two-stroke leaf blowers and line trimmers by the chinese-container load was worried about a 4-times-day distant thunder-like rumble. Much more is understood about the noise footprint now than in the '60s.
- dragonwriter 11y ago> The problems that killed SST programs—high fuel costs and noise—remain unsolved. Reducing sonic boom noise is something we do understand.
- gsnedders 11y agoSonic booms are far better understood now than they were back then — the research done on the basis on the XB-70 (i.e., the Oklahoma City sonic boom tests) is arguably less relevant than ever, as we understand better than ever how to effect sonic booms, especially with shape of the aircraft.
- brc 11y agoThe fuel costs are just a function of ticket prices. The passenger pays the fuel prices. Once BA worked out that most Concorde passengers didn't buy their own tickets, they increased pricing dramatically. The passengers didn't drop off. In some markets, higher prices signal certain status which then allows even higher demand. Same with exclusive real estate, jewellery, artwork, etc. As long as supply is limited it's not necessarily a problem.
- yardie 11y agoI can confirm. My SO is cabin crew. One of her trips is London, UK to Lagos, Nigeria. The passengers manage to buy out all the duty free onboard. This is in addition to the gifts in the luggage hold. She has actually seen arguments take place over duty free, i.e. someone buys up all the Taittinger, others would like a few bottles but are now locked out.
- sandworm101 11y agoIs there any real advantage for 'regular supersonic flights' these days? Shaving an hour or two off the flying time is all well and good, but on nearly every trip I spend more time in the airports and taxis than in the air. Perhaps greater time savings could be made elsewhere and with far less effort.
- dalke 11y agoFWIW, this article doesn't concern regular supersonic flights but 'fly-pasts at air shows and made available for corporate and special events, as well as for private charter.' As to your question, it rather depends on the cost, doesn't it? To start with, it saved about 4 hours on the Paris/NYC connection, not "an hour or two." If it were only $400 more to save 4 hours of overseas travel, then many would jump at it, and find it a real advantage.
- mshook 11y agoI really wonder how they could even do fly pasts at air shows. The only technical reason (technical not economical) Concorde doesn't fly anymore is because the type certificate, aka the airworthiness of the aircraft, was surrendered by Airbus, hence grounding all the fleet and making it unlawful to fly it. So to fly it, they would need that to be reinstated. For the Avro Vulcan, they went through a different aerospace company for that. I'd love to be wrong, but I doubt Airbus would let anyone fly one of its Concorde...
- dingaling 11y agoThey could still fly the aircraft within the UK on a restrictive Permit to Fly, rather than on a type certificate. That does not require manufacturer support, it's similar to US Experimental classification. But it would not permit carriage of passengers.
- gsnedders 11y agoAs far as I'm aware, XH558 flew on a Permit to Fly from the CAA, hence why it never left the UK. Note that being on a Permit to Fly restricts it to VFR.