Concorde memories

[RogerS]

Nice pictures, p111dom. I especially like the touchdown one.

 

[woodbloke]

I think it's a shame they scrapped it - I will always regret never having travelled in it. Still, at least my son, Scott, has a cardboard cut-out on his wall 8)

Cheers :wink:

Paul

I continue to be a fence sitter on this one, it was a huge technical achievement but a commercial disaster for most of it's working life...airlines buy and run aeroplanes to make money and this one didn't.
My overwhelming memory is when I went up the steps at the pointy end, I happened to glance to my right and spotted an engineer belting hell out of the landing strut with a big lump hammer :shock: As we sauntered around the base, my old dad (who was a BA engineer at the time) and who gave me the private guided tour, said that "we didn't want to have a look at this bloody thing...that's what you want to see" and he pointed across the ramp to a 707 (or similar) decked out in the private livery of a gulf oil sheik. We weren't of course allowed anywhere near that one but had to make do with Concorde (spelt with an e Dom...thank Tony Benn for that :wink The other thing I recollect is that the interior was narrow and very sparse...like sitting inside a long cigar tube.
I can't help but wonder that if it were still flying today and given BA's lamentable performance of late, whether if would have been the first to go against the wall...and I also wonder if it contributed in any way (probably not, I suspect) to the current plight that BA finds itself in at the moment -
Paul - I would have thought Scotty could have found something more entertainig to put on his wall :wink: :lol: - Rob

 

[p111dom]

The point being that comercial sucess or not that wasn't really the achievement of the aircraft. It was a cold war gamesmanship sucess just like the moon landings which similarly acomplished very little other than giving a justifiable reason to say that the West was better than the Reds. This was the point for which Concorde got government financial backing. Oddly there was also inter West competition with the USA who were considering and working on a SS civilian project which never happened. The rumour was that the Russian were fed disinformation in the form of blue prints of Concorde complete with fatal design flaws. The Russians fell for it making Condordski which subsequently crashed at the Paris air show in 1973. In propeganda value alone, the govt at the time probably considered it cheap.

 

[newt]

The thing is, if we did not attempt difficult problems and succeed technically, we would not be a great nation. Perhaps thats not important anymore

 

[Paul Chapman]

The thing is, if we did not attempt difficult problems and succeed technically, we would not be a great nation.

I agree, Pete. Sometimes it's worth doing things just because we can 8)

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[Gower]

I loved the idea of Concorde and its great engineering achievements but the thing I miss most is its daily flypast over my home (Cardiff) when it was still traveling sub sonically. I used to get the binos out and show it to my grand kids and boast about its attributes. Pride in it being British (well, part British) and something the Yanks didn't do. Cant help but think that was part of the reason they tried to ban it - yes, I know it was noisy. I think a bit more pride in our country by a lot of folk these days would not go amiss.

 

[newt]

Yes I get the feeling pride is dwindling a bit, we are becoming to risk averse.