Concorde, will one ever fly again?

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evilswans

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matthew toms
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Being a massive fan of Concorde over the years, i'm just wondering will one ever grace our skys again? Even if just for airshows, seems such a shame to see them grounded. Always used to remember the playground coming to a standstill as it went over, everymorning without fail. And then going out every evening to see it come over the house in the evening.

So yeah, are we likely to see on up in the skys again, i mean they got the vulcan back up in the air, so i guess concorde would be a feasable target? And if so would there be much backing to see one up in the skies again?

cheers matt
 
It would be great to see one fly again but havent most been broken for scrap
 
Dangermouse1964 said:
It would be great to see one fly again but havent most been broken for scrap
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I don't think any have been broken for scrap, though a number of the museum models were raided for spares when Concorde was still flying.

Quite early on there were more in museums than in service, and those in service just got shared out when the end came.

I read somewhere that 40% of Concorde's regular passengers died when the twin towers came down, and the rest simply stopped travelling for a while.

Airbus decided to stop supporting it and now it would never get an airworthiness certificate again.

I miss seeing them flying, it was always a bit of a buzz to see one when going round the M25.

I always wanted to take my mum on one of the short hops as she was in love with it but sadly it went before i got the chance.
 
Dangermouse1964 said:
Heres some interesting facts on Concorde

http://www.concordesst.com/faq.html
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The bit missing from that is one of my favourite bits.

There is an expansion joint in the fuselage which opened up a gap in the cockpit I believe during supersonic flight.

As each plane was removed from service it became tradition for the skipper to put his cap in the join, so that the cap would stay there when the joint closed up.

I don't know if every plane has a cap, but I know at least two of them do.
 
Maybe we could start a group to see if we could get one back in the air like they did with the Vulcan as that started out as a dream and became reality
 
But concorde was declared unsafe so would need to be redeclared by the aviation authority, the vulcan just stopped flying

would be purty to see though
 
david1701 said:
But concorde was declared unsafe so would need to be redeclared by the aviation authority, the vulcan just stopped flying

would be purty to see though
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I thought the point was that the safety mods had been made but there was no viable business plan. Airbus then removed their support which cancelled the airworthiness certificate.

It isn't unsafe as such, but without Airbus support I doubt anything could be done.

There are other problems too as I understand it, the Vulcan isn't a passenger plane so it has different criteria. What did for the Dakota was that all passenger planes (carring over 12) had to meet current regs. No doubt Concorde would progressively fall behind the regs over the years.
 
I thought they worked out the mods but never got approval so even they weren't officially safe

either way we're unlikely to see such a lovely plane flying again :(
 
david1701 said:
I thought they worked out the mods but never got approval so even they weren't officially safe
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They were grounded for a while and then restarted flying with a new airworthiness certificate two months after 9/11.

Sadly the world had moved on, and nearly half the customers were dead. The rest weren't flying anymore.
 
No...the airframes have been deemed unsafe and would cost millions to get them certified for taxi-ing, let alone flight status...
Remember how long it took that old Vulcan to get re-certified?

Unlike other machinery, aircraft have to be kept in use or they very quickly deteriorate... Most civil airliners spend no more than an hour on the ground throughout their entire lives aside from mandatory scheduled maintenance (though that's as much for economic reasons as anything else - a parked aircraft isn't earning money).

The RAF's fleet of VC10's despite being 40 years old still have less hours on them than most 5-year old 747s...and is one reason they're so prone to mechanical faults - the cycle of warm-up, flight, cool-down and then being parked for up to a week at a time causes condensation to form inside critical areas and results in more corrosion than experienced by civil aircraft than never get a chance to cool down...
The RAF ground crews spend most of their time just keeping them airworthy, even though they don't fly that often...

I was once on a flight to Africa from RAF Brize-Norton on a VC10 that had gotten damp inside over the course of a week sat on the pan and then frozen due to falling December temps...they couldn't switch on the cabin heaters as the huge amount of condensation inside would have killed the electrics inside the aircraft...so we sat on icy, damp, frozen seats for three and a half hours to Akrotiri in Cyprus where they say the aircraft in the sun for two hours longer than normal to dry it out inside...hideous...All of our 'cold' kit was in the hold and so we sat there getting pneumonia in tropical uniforms...
 
ah right Arkady, i didn't realise that was the case with concorde, such a shame :(as it really would be something seeing it back in the sky, ah well maybe one day hey!!

on that note anyone got any images they fancy posting of Concorde?

all the best
Matt :0
 
Yep, they just rust away when not in use lol !

aco.jpg
 
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Manchester Airport's Concorde.

thdsc_1104-web.jpg


Staff Edit : Images changed to clickable links. Pictures must not exceed current forum limits as per the rules.
Please feel free to replace this with a fresh/resized image and remove this text :)
 
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Did you know Concorde's design included mountings for ordnance racks...
 
desantnik said:
Did you know Concorde's design included mountings for ordnance racks...
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Wouldn't it make a pretty poor bomber? Not much payload and drinks enormous amounts of fuel when going subsonic?

Capable of throwing little bombs from very high up at high speed, so perhaps useful for Armageddon.
 
It wasn't supposed to be a tactical fighter :D

But indeed it was equipped for armageddon...
 
More chance of pigs flying in current economic state of this country
it would be great to see it in the air again though
 
I heard that up until sometime last year one of the Air France or BA Concordes was actually stored in a hangar, still connected to hydralic oil, etc to keep everything in the plane airworthy, however it was all removed, ending any chance of Concorde flying again.
Virgin did want them at the time but they decided to just retire them, seems a bit petty of BA to be honest.
 
I seem to recall that all the spare parts have been disposed of.
 
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