4 ms·

This is a terrible article. It presents no arguments, only meaningless statistics quoted out of context. "The costs are astronomical, too. The British governme

This is a terrible article. It presents no arguments, only meaningless statistics quoted out of context. "The costs are astronomical, too. The British government’s financial contribution to the project is just a small fraction of the billions needed to complete it." They conveniently don't mention that every new airplane design costs billions to start producing. This is true even for mundane passenger jets, never mind anything new and experimental (the B2 bomber cost $45 billion to develop - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-2_Spirit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-2_Spirit). Without technically lying, they make it sound like this project in particular is outrageously expensive, which (as far as I can tell) isn't actually true, compared to other new aircraft designs. "It was one of the greatest economic boondoggles of all time." Of all time? Really? The Concorde (cost: a few billion) is now in league with the 2008 financial crisis and dot-com bubbles (cost: trillions upon trillions)? Evidence presented for this claim: none. In fact, we know it was profitable on its NYC - London and NYC - Paris routes (http://news.google.co.uk/newspapers?id=VAQkAAAAIBAJ&sjid=MO4DAAAAIBAJ&pg=6783,4192544&dq=concorde+braniff&hl=en http://news.google.co.uk/newspapers?id=VAQkAAAAIBAJ&sjid=MO4...). "Very few people could afford a $12,000 round-trip ticket.... " This is true for every elite airline service. Ask anyone who travels a lot - most of those in international first class are using miles, or are on a corporate travel program. "Not to mention the environmental waste—more than 6,800 gallons of fuel per hour." More meaningless numbers designed to look scary. Doing some math, if the Concorde had 100 passengers and flew at 1,350 mph, that's 135,000 / 6,800 = 20 passenger-miles per gallon. Better than most SUVs. "In spite of its well-earned reputation as one of the great economic debacles of the 20th century..." Evidence presented: none. In fact, when the Concorde was retired, Richard Branson offered to purchase the fleet and continue service "for many years to come" (http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-109201077.html http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-109201077.html).

tanzam75 13y ago
British Airways' profit on the Concorde was an accounting trick. They took a 100% writeoff of all Concorde capital investments in 1979, and another 100% writeoff in 1983. Write-offs are not charged against operating expenses, but show up as "Other expenses." This made the airplanes essentially "free." They still had maintenance expenses, but the capital cost was zero. And that's just the money that British Airways spent on it. The British and French governments also subsidized the project. Thus, looking purely at British Airways' accounting profit is ignoring the actual costs of the Concorde project. Most jetliners are more efficient than an SUV. It's not hard, because SUVs are so incredibly inefficient. The proper comparison is to other jetliners. The Boeing 747 gets about 100 passenger-miles per gallon. That's 5x as efficient as the Concorde, at 20 passenger-miles per gallon. When the Concorde was retired in 2003, Jet-A cost $1 per gallon. Today, aviation kerosene costs $3.50 per gallon.
- bluedino 13y ago
  >> Most jetliners are more efficient than an SUV. It's not hard, because SUVs are so incredibly inefficient. The proper comparison is to other jetliners. The Boeing 747 gets about 100 passenger-miles per gallon. That's 5x as efficient as the Concorde, at 20 passenger-miles per gallon. The Concorde was twice as fast - which is why it was worth a premium over a 747. Just like it costs more to send a package next-day than it does grown. It's also 'worth' the fuel penalty. Just like you car burns twice as much gas going 100mph as it does 65mph, but you get there faster so it could be 'worth' it if you're in an emergency, or poor planner. Speaking of efficiency, what does a Greyhound Bus or Amtrak train get as far as passenger miles/gallon?
  - tanzam75 13y ago
    > Speaking of efficiency, what does a Greyhound Bus or Amtrak train get as far as passenger miles/gallon? The DOE has calculated normalized energy usage among the various modes to BTUs per passenger-mile. Data for 2011: http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_04_20.html http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/pub... Amtrak: 1628 Airlines (domestic): 2597 Airlines (domestic): 3519 Automobiles (short wheel base): 3898 Automobiles (long wheel base): 5479 Transit buses: 3343 This summary data must be interpreted with caution. "Intercity bus" does not get a listing, only "Transit motor bus." Long wheel base automobiles includes SUVs as well as minivans. Amtrak operations include both diesel and electric trains, and count only the actual electricity drawn -- not the heat required to generate that power. (Most of Amtrak's electric operations are in the northeast, which gets a lot of its electricity from nuclear and gas.) Interestingly, domestic airline operations are more efficient than international. This is likely due to the reduced fuel loads, increased load rates, and the greater efficiency of turboprops.
- apsec112 13y ago
  Those are totally reasonable arguments, but the original article didn't make them.
morsch 13y ago
They do mention that regular engines are also billion USD territory in the next sentence after the one you quoted: “Just to do a run-of-the-mill, state-of-the-art subsonic aircraft engine, you’re talking a $1 billion bill,” says Stephen Trimble, an editor at the industry publishing site Flightglobal. Most kinds of mass transport are going to be more fuel efficient than an SUV (and many regular cars). Airplanes are however unique in that they enable people to travel thousands of miles in a few hours. The alternative to flying Paris - London for a week long trip or a weekend is not going there by SUV (or boat), it's not travelling Paris - London for a week long trip.
- notahacker 13y ago
  The alternative to flying Paris/London - New York on Concorde would be flying the same route on a regular widebody, potentially for less than $1000 return, whereas some crude maths suggests the cost of the written-off development subsidy for Concorde worked out at around $2k per passenger per flight in 2013 dollars. It's not that developing Concorde was unusually expensive, at around $10bn in 2013 dollars. It's that because they were so hideously expensive to fly the entire programme resulted in less than 90,000 flights, including test flights (Delta has individual DC-9s approaching 70k flight cycles). That doesn't compare favourably with a $1bn engine programme that sells hundreds at $15million+ a pop and millions of dollars worth of replacement parts. ($10bn of taxpayer money across 90k flights works out at over $100k per flight. According to their stats BA carried around 50 passengers per flight - around 50% full - so assuming Air France had similar load factors that's a $2k subsidy per passenger.)
dalke 13y ago
"... conveniently don't mention that every new airplane design costs billions to start producing" The author does. In the sentence immediately after what you quoted. The British government’s financial contribution to the project is just a small fraction of the billions needed to complete it. “Just to do a run-of-the-mill, state-of-the-art subsonic aircraft engine, you’re talking a $1 billion bill,” says Stephen Trimble If the engine is $1 billion then it's easy to infer that "every new [state-of-the-art] airplane design costs billions to start producing."
philwelch 13y ago
I wouldn't characterize recessions as "boondoggles". A boondoggle is a failed project that overruns cost and schedule, like the Big Dig or the Vietnam War. A recession is a temporary economic correction.
notahacker 13y ago
Sorry, but the financials of the Concorde programme are indefensible, except perhaps as a bold, Apollo-mission-style experiment. It sold 14 aircraft total, to two operators politically invested in its development and receiving discounts on the models that wouldn't shift, despite being the only aircraft in its category. The Skylon is completely different in that supersonic speed is a prerequisite for space launch, it aims to vastly improve on the economics of a well-established demand for satellite launches, and could theoretically dominate the sector (or totally fail: space programmes are very all-or-nothing)
- youngtaff 13y ago
  The number sold was partly down to politics, the fact it could only fly supersonic over sea and cost. Whether it could have been viable from a cost perspective if it could fly more routes we'll never know.

tanzam75 13y ago

British Airways' profit on the Concorde was an accounting trick. They took a 100% writeoff of all Concorde capital investments in 1979, and another 100% writeoff in 1983. Write-offs are not charged against operating expenses, but show up as "Other expenses." This made the airplanes essentially "free." They still had maintenance expenses, but the capital cost was zero. And that's just the money that British Airways spent on it. The British and French governments also subsidized the project. Thus, looking purely at British Airways' accounting profit is ignoring the actual costs of the Concorde project. Most jetliners are more efficient than an SUV. It's not hard, because SUVs are so incredibly inefficient. The proper comparison is to other jetliners. The Boeing 747 gets about 100 passenger-miles per gallon. That's 5x as efficient as the Concorde, at 20 passenger-miles per gallon. When the Concorde was retired in 2003, Jet-A cost $1 per gallon. Today, aviation kerosene costs $3.50 per gallon.

bluedino 13y ago
>> Most jetliners are more efficient than an SUV. It's not hard, because SUVs are so incredibly inefficient. The proper comparison is to other jetliners. The Boeing 747 gets about 100 passenger-miles per gallon. That's 5x as efficient as the Concorde, at 20 passenger-miles per gallon. The Concorde was twice as fast - which is why it was worth a premium over a 747. Just like it costs more to send a package next-day than it does grown. It's also 'worth' the fuel penalty. Just like you car burns twice as much gas going 100mph as it does 65mph, but you get there faster so it could be 'worth' it if you're in an emergency, or poor planner. Speaking of efficiency, what does a Greyhound Bus or Amtrak train get as far as passenger miles/gallon?
- tanzam75 13y ago
  > Speaking of efficiency, what does a Greyhound Bus or Amtrak train get as far as passenger miles/gallon? The DOE has calculated normalized energy usage among the various modes to BTUs per passenger-mile. Data for 2011: http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_04_20.html http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/pub... Amtrak: 1628 Airlines (domestic): 2597 Airlines (domestic): 3519 Automobiles (short wheel base): 3898 Automobiles (long wheel base): 5479 Transit buses: 3343 This summary data must be interpreted with caution. "Intercity bus" does not get a listing, only "Transit motor bus." Long wheel base automobiles includes SUVs as well as minivans. Amtrak operations include both diesel and electric trains, and count only the actual electricity drawn -- not the heat required to generate that power. (Most of Amtrak's electric operations are in the northeast, which gets a lot of its electricity from nuclear and gas.) Interestingly, domestic airline operations are more efficient than international. This is likely due to the reduced fuel loads, increased load rates, and the greater efficiency of turboprops.
apsec112 13y ago
Those are totally reasonable arguments, but the original article didn't make them.

morsch 13y ago

They do mention that regular engines are also billion USD territory in the next sentence after the one you quoted: “Just to do a run-of-the-mill, state-of-the-art subsonic aircraft engine, you’re talking a $1 billion bill,” says Stephen Trimble, an editor at the industry publishing site Flightglobal. Most kinds of mass transport are going to be more fuel efficient than an SUV (and many regular cars). Airplanes are however unique in that they enable people to travel thousands of miles in a few hours. The alternative to flying Paris - London for a week long trip or a weekend is not going there by SUV (or boat), it's not travelling Paris - London for a week long trip.

notahacker 13y ago
The alternative to flying Paris/London - New York on Concorde would be flying the same route on a regular widebody, potentially for less than $1000 return, whereas some crude maths suggests the cost of the written-off development subsidy for Concorde worked out at around $2k per passenger per flight in 2013 dollars. It's not that developing Concorde was unusually expensive, at around $10bn in 2013 dollars. It's that because they were so hideously expensive to fly the entire programme resulted in less than 90,000 flights, including test flights (Delta has individual DC-9s approaching 70k flight cycles). That doesn't compare favourably with a $1bn engine programme that sells hundreds at $15million+ a pop and millions of dollars worth of replacement parts. ($10bn of taxpayer money across 90k flights works out at over $100k per flight. According to their stats BA carried around 50 passengers per flight - around 50% full - so assuming Air France had similar load factors that's a $2k subsidy per passenger.)

dalke 13y ago

"... conveniently don't mention that every new airplane design costs billions to start producing" The author does. In the sentence immediately after what you quoted. The British government’s financial contribution to the project is just a small fraction of the billions needed to complete it. “Just to do a run-of-the-mill, state-of-the-art subsonic aircraft engine, you’re talking a $1 billion bill,” says Stephen Trimble If the engine is $1 billion then it's easy to infer that "every new [state-of-the-art] airplane design costs billions to start producing."

philwelch 13y ago

I wouldn't characterize recessions as "boondoggles". A boondoggle is a failed project that overruns cost and schedule, like the Big Dig or the Vietnam War. A recession is a temporary economic correction.

notahacker 13y ago

Sorry, but the financials of the Concorde programme are indefensible, except perhaps as a bold, Apollo-mission-style experiment. It sold 14 aircraft total, to two operators politically invested in its development and receiving discounts on the models that wouldn't shift, despite being the only aircraft in its category. The Skylon is completely different in that supersonic speed is a prerequisite for space launch, it aims to vastly improve on the economics of a well-established demand for satellite launches, and could theoretically dominate the sector (or totally fail: space programmes are very all-or-nothing)

youngtaff 13y ago
The number sold was partly down to politics, the fact it could only fly supersonic over sea and cost. Whether it could have been viable from a cost perspective if it could fly more routes we'll never know.