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The article describes Concorde as "ill-fated". Is that accurate?

by nbevans 11y ago

mikeyouse 11y ago
I mean, they only built 20 planes in total, so 5% suffered catastrophic failures with complete loss of life. Over the life of the program there were numerous 'near-misses' with rudders and control surfaces breaking off the plane at >Mach 1. The tire problem that brought down AF4590 wasn't an isolated incident whatsoever, there were dozens of blown tires including at least one other one that punctured a fuel tank and nearly brought down that plane. So yeah, 'ill-fated' seems fair.
- Retric 11y ago
  Only 14 entered airline service, but they made it from 1976 to 2003 which is not that bad. For comparison 3% of 747's (53) have been a total hull loss. But, the Boeing 707's had 17% hull-loss occurrences and 246 major aviation occurrences out of 1,010 built (172) which is arguably a better comparison.
Pitarou 11y ago
I'm sure there are many engineers who are extremely proud of their work on Concorde, but overall it could hardly be called a successful programme. It was just about profitable at the margins, but only after the enormous development costs had been written off entirely. As the fleet aged and safety fears mounted, it became uneconomic to run, and was retired.
- TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
  Concorde was a brilliant corporate welfare boondoggle that might have become profitable if the US aerospace corporates hadn't tried quite so hard to kill it by lobbying - successfully - for limited access to US airports. It helped give Airbus a technological start, which was probably the only thing that allowed Airbus to become globally competitive. So politically it wasn't necessarily a failure at all. It's not easy to assess the true economic return on a megaproject, especially one that lasts for decades. Something that looks like a disaster on the profit and loss account can still provide big benefits. The US space program is a more obvious example. The direct economic return on bringing a few rocks back and developing giant booster rockets wasn't great. But there were significant spin-off multipliers that provided a significant lift to whole sectors of the economy. If you try to imagine the state of US computing and aerospace without Apollo, and British and French aerospace without Concorde, it should be clear the money wasn't just thrown away for nothing.

The article describes Concorde as "ill-fated". Is that accurate?

by nbevans 11y ago

The article describes Concorde as "ill-fated". Is that accurate?

I mean, they only built 20 planes in total, so 5% suffered catastrophic failures with complete loss of life. Over the life of the program there were numerous 'near-misses' with rudders and control surfaces breaking off the plane at >Mach 1. The tire problem that brought down AF4590 wasn't an isolated incident whatsoever, there were dozens of blown tires including at least one other one that punctured a fuel tank and nearly brought down that plane. So yeah, 'ill-fated' seems fair.

Retric 11y ago
Only 14 entered airline service, but they made it from 1976 to 2003 which is not that bad. For comparison 3% of 747's (53) have been a total hull loss. But, the Boeing 707's had 17% hull-loss occurrences and 246 major aviation occurrences out of 1,010 built (172) which is arguably a better comparison.

Pitarou 11y ago

I'm sure there are many engineers who are extremely proud of their work on Concorde, but overall it could hardly be called a successful programme. It was just about profitable at the margins, but only after the enormous development costs had been written off entirely. As the fleet aged and safety fears mounted, it became uneconomic to run, and was retired.

TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
Concorde was a brilliant corporate welfare boondoggle that might have become profitable if the US aerospace corporates hadn't tried quite so hard to kill it by lobbying - successfully - for limited access to US airports. It helped give Airbus a technological start, which was probably the only thing that allowed Airbus to become globally competitive. So politically it wasn't necessarily a failure at all. It's not easy to assess the true economic return on a megaproject, especially one that lasts for decades. Something that looks like a disaster on the profit and loss account can still provide big benefits. The US space program is a more obvious example. The direct economic return on bringing a few rocks back and developing giant booster rockets wasn't great. But there were significant spin-off multipliers that provided a significant lift to whole sectors of the economy. If you try to imagine the state of US computing and aerospace without Apollo, and British and French aerospace without Concorde, it should be clear the money wasn't just thrown away for nothing.