4 ms·

I'll believe it when I see it. For now it's some companies that have never delivered a production aircraft promising that they'll do something great. Meanwhile,

I'll believe it when I see it. For now it's some companies that have never delivered a production aircraft promising that they'll do something great. Meanwhile, on paper, it's less efficient, more expensive, less practical, more dangerous, and the benefit over regular flight is questionable (cut flight times in half? Is it really worth the effort?)

jen20 4y ago
"More dangerous" probably warrants some investigation given the stellar safety record of Concorde compared to almost any sub-sonic commercial airliner flying today.
- TremendousJudge 4y ago
  I didn't mention Concorde specifically, but supersonic flight in general. But anyway: the "stellar" safety record of Concorde is: 20 were built, 1 crashed and burned killing all on board. Let's compare it with a plane that has been flying since the same year: the Boeing 737. Of the more than 10,000 that were built, there were about 185 hull loss accidents, of which 83 included fatalities [0]. That's a ratio of less than 0.0083, compared to 0.05 for Concorde. Not exactly great. I'm pretty sure that if you compare it with deaths by trip or by distance traveled it's gonna be even worse. I think Concorde was pretty cool, but let's not kid ourselves. And I'm not even gonna mention the track record of the Tu-144. [0] https://www.quora.com/How-many-737-planes-of-all-models-have-crashed/answer/Cameron-Fraser-4 https://www.quora.com/How-many-737-planes-of-all-models-have...
  - iancmceachern 4y ago
    Yeah but that's not how statistics work. 20 concords isn't a large enough sample size to pull statistically signifigant conclusions from. Furthermore, the crash you reference was not a result of a design flaw or the "suoersonic-ness" of Concorde but a combination of human error (they took off too heavy for the conditions) and an accidental strike of an object on the runway left by the previous (Boeing) plane. It's no doubt that several of the accidents you reference in your stats are design flaws, it only takes one to make it worse than the concords perfect record (excluding the one crash because it was a combination of human error and failure of another plane). So in reality, adjusting for non-design related failures, the concord has a better safety record than any other commercial airliner.
    - TremendousJudge 4y ago
      That's my point. Comparing the safety record to other commercial planes is kinda pointless, since so few were built and they were used so little (and even then, one managed to crash and burn). If the 737-MAX had seen the same use, I'm sure we'd never had uncovered the design issue that caused the crashes either. And "any other commercial airliner" includes planes like the 787 and the A380, which have literally never had an incident with fatalities.

jen20 4y ago

"More dangerous" probably warrants some investigation given the stellar safety record of Concorde compared to almost any sub-sonic commercial airliner flying today.

TremendousJudge 4y ago
I didn't mention Concorde specifically, but supersonic flight in general. But anyway: the "stellar" safety record of Concorde is: 20 were built, 1 crashed and burned killing all on board. Let's compare it with a plane that has been flying since the same year: the Boeing 737. Of the more than 10,000 that were built, there were about 185 hull loss accidents, of which 83 included fatalities [0]. That's a ratio of less than 0.0083, compared to 0.05 for Concorde. Not exactly great. I'm pretty sure that if you compare it with deaths by trip or by distance traveled it's gonna be even worse. I think Concorde was pretty cool, but let's not kid ourselves. And I'm not even gonna mention the track record of the Tu-144. [0] https://www.quora.com/How-many-737-planes-of-all-models-have-crashed/answer/Cameron-Fraser-4 https://www.quora.com/How-many-737-planes-of-all-models-have...
- iancmceachern 4y ago
  Yeah but that's not how statistics work. 20 concords isn't a large enough sample size to pull statistically signifigant conclusions from. Furthermore, the crash you reference was not a result of a design flaw or the "suoersonic-ness" of Concorde but a combination of human error (they took off too heavy for the conditions) and an accidental strike of an object on the runway left by the previous (Boeing) plane. It's no doubt that several of the accidents you reference in your stats are design flaws, it only takes one to make it worse than the concords perfect record (excluding the one crash because it was a combination of human error and failure of another plane). So in reality, adjusting for non-design related failures, the concord has a better safety record than any other commercial airliner.
  - TremendousJudge 4y ago
    That's my point. Comparing the safety record to other commercial planes is kinda pointless, since so few were built and they were used so little (and even then, one managed to crash and burn). If the 737-MAX had seen the same use, I'm sure we'd never had uncovered the design issue that caused the crashes either. And "any other commercial airliner" includes planes like the 787 and the A380, which have literally never had an incident with fatalities.