Why did they stop Concorde flying

One crash in all those years. A magnificent triumph of man over technology That was a sad day

My in laws are seeing it in a few weeks at Manchester.

They get a Vulcan flying, why not Concord just for shows

Imagine four RR Pegasus Engines on full re-heat over Biggin Hill (for example)

I think various people (read greens, people living under the flightpath etc) had wanted to see it go for years and years as it was hugely uneconomical (think both financially and economically) and blimmin loud even at subsonic over land. The excuse to put more pressure on finally came for them on that sad day.

I believe it was because the airframes had run out of flying hours (they're only allowed to fly for a certain number of hours) ... whereas wasn't the Vulcan decommissioned because they just didn't want it anymore ...


... we're getting to a similar point with Tornado GR4's, which is why when the whole Alexander Litvinenko was kicking off the Russians would fly just outside our airspace, we had to launch our GR4's thus reducing there life ... the Russians knew this ...

Anyone remember the Tupolov TU - 144 Russian copy coming apart at Paris (IIRC)??

I was driving on M25 by Heathrow years ago when Concorde took off right overhead. Incredible sight and could feel the road vibrating. Bit dangerous as everyone was watching it and not where they were driving...including me !

These are purely my own thoughts but, I think that post 9/11 Concorde became a real and obvious threat to where ever it flew,This aircrafts speed and operational range was superior to anything else out there, it to me was an obvious terrorist threat or mode of transportation. I cant believe that after the Paris crash that B.A. and Air France would invest all that money to redesign and strengthen the area under the wheels area just to fly the plane a few months more. If BA and Air France did not want the aircraft why was Virgin not allowed to buy them and furthermore all the Concordes that had been in service have had their engines removed and all have been disabled.

Engineering at its best - even to this day and it was first flown back in late 60s!

I was lucky enough to be handed two tickets (some friends won a lot of tickets and had 2 spare, I was 6 years old) for my mum and I to go to Lapland on Concorde - there is an experience I will never forgot even from that age.

Tragic that its been taken out of the skies. I think its down to money (as most things are at the end of the day) as the crash I think I remember being due to debris being left on the runway in Paris?

Jeremy Clarkson wrote a piece on the grounding of Concorde in one of his books - tis a good read.

I went to see it land at Birmingham airport when it did it's last tour thing before being de-commissioned, I really really really regret not staying around and watching it take off. Feels like we reached the pinnacle (sp) of futuristic engineering in the 70's / 80's. For instance the Apollo missions looked all promising for future generations, and then suddenly stopped.

I worked on the Concordes.
It was a sad day when they stopped flying, but the real shame is that there isn't anything to take over from it, & there's not likely to be for a hell of a long time.
Yes, the airworthiness licences were expiring & essentially, it all comes down to money, mores the pity. It was probably possible to get the airworthiness extended, but the cost was prohibitive & spare parts were getting rare.
Letting Branson get hold of one would have been a crime. He knew he couldn't ever have flown them on a commercial basis & was just using the moment for peurile maximum publicity, as he tends to do.
The parallel with the Vulcan is interesting, & one day, it may be possible to get one in the air again for shows, etc. Never say never.
Money & politics buggers up many things, & Concorde is definitely one of them.
Matt.

Imagine four RR Pegasus Engines on full re-heat over Biggin Hill (for example)

Sorry to be anally pedantic (you really don't want to know how much it hurts!), but Concorde had 4 Olympus 593 engines. Peggy engines are what keeps the Harrier from falling down.

I think the official reason for grounding Concorde permanently was "running costs" and the lack of renewable spares (they'd just about cannibilised all the spares from the grounded airframes). Think they decided that after spending a fortune on lining the tanks that enough was enough. (Bl00dy bean counters again).

i think even if the crash had never happened in 2000, the credit crunch would've killed off concorde as big businesses start to cut back on expenditure. such a shame, as it's one of the most beautiful pieces of engineering i've ever had the pleasure of seeing. AONW are doing a meet at the manchester airport aviation viewing park in a couple of weeks, concorde is there on display and i'll be booking myself on the full guided tour complete with flight deck access

i remember being on holiday in zante, greece when the crash happened - sitting by the pool i saw the front page pic on somebody's paper of it in flames with the headline 'doomed!'. i could scarcely believe it, any plane crash is obviously a shock but to see concorde go down was on a different level. didn't branson try to lease a couple of them to fly under the virgin flag but BA declined?

Originally Posted by Sloucher

Sorry to be anally pedantic (you really don't want to know how much it hurts!), but Concorde had 4 Olympus 593 engines. Peggy engines are what keeps the Harrier from falling down.

My bad. I actually new that too The same basic engines are on the Vulcan IIRC but are without re-heat?

air france and airbus are mostly to blame, they pulled the plug on their spares contract, the airfrance crash was the catalist though.

BA wanted to carry on but air france lost interest after the crash and BA just couldnt keep the airbus contract on the go by themselves.

the way the planes were given to various museums is criminal, especially the number that went to the US, they were responsible for concorde not being the sucess worldwide that it should have been, would they have stopped a boeing supersonic plane from flying over the US? of course not.

i went to new york in '04 and there is a concorde on a barge next to the USS intrepid slowly rusting into the sea if the state of the SR-71 is anything to go by there will be nothing left of it in 10 years time dont know where the engines are though, they certainly werent on the plane, hopefully BA withheld them from the yanks, they are still some of the most technologically advanced civilian engines around.

i very much doubt we will ever see a concorde flying again, its like the lightning, just way too risky to allow it into private hands.

talking of lightnings, did anyone see the program on the beeb during the week about the earths atmoshere? they went up in one of the lightnings at thunder city in SA, went up to about 50 000 feet, and went supersonic, lucky sod, thats first on my 'ive just won the lottery' shopping list.

For anyone interested in supersonic aircraft, take a look at this beast. It was developed after the ill fated TU 144 - I would love to see this in the air - but not overhead, armed and ready to go!!!
Tupolev Tu-160 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The same basic engines are on the Vulcan IIRC but are without re-heat

Yup, thats quite right.

Adopts nerdy voice - The Vulcan was/is powered by 4 Bristol Siddeley non-reheated Olympus 301 engines (20000 lb full rating (well it was for the Falklands Operation Black Buck) currently rated at just 18000lb). Early Vulcans had Oly 201 engines (17000 lb).

If thats not nerdy enough , this is a good place: CONCORDE SST : Powerplant

Coughs and reverts back to non-nerd mode. Another good looking 'plane in my opinion, still looks good at 50 plus - just like me

Not sure it's a triump of man over technology , but yeah, shame it's gone