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CCairns
Steam fanatic
Joined: 24 Apr 2007
Posts: 1298
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
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 Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 12:54 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | the prototype Concorde |
It is actually the 2nd prototype, No. 002. 001 is of course in France.
| Quote: | | so all I know is that it is a Rolls Royce engine |
| Quote: | | The engines are Rolls Royce Phantoms i beleive. |
The engine chosen was the twin spool Rolls-Royce/Snecma Olympus 593, a version of the Olympus originally developed for the Vulcan bomber, developed into an afterburning supersonic engine for the BAC TSR-2 strike bomber and then adapted for Concorde.
| Quote: | | they only had 1 single fatal crash and thats why they were brought out of service |
Wrong. The French grounded their fleet straight away, but the British Airways fleet continued to fly for a few more days, before also being grounded. Expensive modifications, including kevlar lining in the fuel tanks and specially-developed burst-resistant tyres, soon had it flying again.
Rising maintenance costs and a slump in flying after the American 9/11 were cited as the reasons for Air France & British Airways to retire Concorde.
However there are some other theories as well -
Branson wrote in The Economist (23 October 2003) that his final offer was "over £5 million" and that he had intended to operate the fleet "for many years to come." Any hope of Concorde remaining in service was further thwarted by Airbus' unwillingness to provide maintenance support for the ageing airframes.
It has been suggested that Concorde was not withdrawn for the reasons usually given, but that during the grounding of Concorde it became apparent to the airlines that they could actually make more revenue carrying their first class passengers subsonically.
Rob Lewis suggested that the precipitous Air France retirement of its own Concorde fleet was the direct result of a secret conspiracy between Air France Chairman/CEO Jean-Cyril Spinetta and then-AIRBUS CEO Noel Forgeard, and stemmed as much from a fear of being found criminally liable under French law for future AF Concorde accidents as it did from simple economics. Further, on the British Airways side, a lack of engineering (maintenance) commitment to Concorde by then-Director of Engineering Alan MacDonald was cited as undermining BA's resolve to continue operating Concorde from within.
Basically it was another of those Anglo/French deals that went south, but at least we had the opportunity to see it in operation.
I was fortunate to get a champagne flight on Concorde going down to the Scilly Isles from Heathrow to achieve Mach 2.01, but could not get through on the phone when they were selling off the seats on the last flights.
| Quote: | | and either cut up or turned into restaurants |
All but 2 of the original 20 Concordes still survive, with the missing 2 being the crashed Air France one plus a 2nd French Concorde which was used for spare parts before being scrapped in 1994. They are either on display at Airports worldwide, or in Museums, but none are restaurants that I'm aware of.
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Chris Cairns.
http://www.freewebs.com/chriscairnssteam/
http://christophercairns.fotopic.net/ |
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pauly
Hero Steamer
Joined: 11 Apr 2008
Posts: 1826
Location: middlesbrough
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| Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 10:47 am Post subject: |
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wow you are a man who knows his stuff all above is probably correct but I can imagine that the crash was a big nail in the coffin
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knowledge is power
is something lost if you know where it is
'no
'oh then its not lost, its in the lake
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CCairns
Steam fanatic
Joined: 24 Apr 2007
Posts: 1298
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
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| Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 1:18 pm Post subject: |
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Being a pilot, Aviation has been a hobby as well as my full time employment.
We used to have a good Airshow at Prestwick Airport (now Glasgow Prestwick International, but quite a distance from Glasgow!), and these were around the time that Concorde was being test flown up the West Coast of the UK, so we used to get it flying past during these Airshows.
And for those who are watching the 'Warship' series on Channel 5 at present, about HMS Illustrious, if you watch last week's episode you will see them changing one of its engines, which is a marine version of the Concorde engine.
Although the primary cause of the Paris Concorde crash was a piece of metal from a previous departure, which punctured the wing's fuel tank leading to the spectacular fire, there were other less obvious causes as well, including possibly being slightly overweight, taking off downwind, and critically a vital spacer missing from one of the undercarriage legs which caused the aircraft to veer sideways across the runaway, causing it to rotate early and never achieving the safe climbing speed for a single or double engine failure. Thus it stalled (stopped flying) into the hotel building. Had it achieved this safety speed it may have reached Le Bourget for an emergency landing.
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Chris Cairns.
http://www.freewebs.com/chriscairnssteam/
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