Poor old Concorde...
Discussion
Been working down at LHR this week, stayed at Jurys Inn and just outside my window was G-BOAB. We got talking to the maintenance guys who told us she's in a right old state... no engines, cockpit stripped out, all seats gone... the interior is trashed now as the door seals had perished and during the heavy rains earlier this year the cabin fille dup with water and there's algae growing all ove the place. Also water has got in where the plane expands and closes up during flight, so a lot of internal spaces are going to be corroding away.
Ironically when the other planes were given away (including the Barbados one) a condition was that they were given dedicated storage facilities. Barbados didn't, just left it outside and apparently the plane sank into the tarmac. Some others - Edinburgh(?), Manchester, have their planes covered. Boeing's has pride of place between the test-bed 747 and the original Air Force 1 707.
Incidentally we twisted their arms to take us onboard a 747 (never been on one), got shown all the bits Joe Public never gets to like the crew bunk rooms(!) and even got to sit in the lefthand chair
It's a bloody long way up. We also got to sit in those funky recliners up in 1st Class, at £8K a ticket it's the only way I'll ever do it! Amusing how the toilets up there have fake burr walnut trim, it was like being in a TVR 
I was also impressed at how accurately the instruments are portrayed in MS Flight Sim (even down to the font on the radio displays!); I could easily identify most of the major bits...
Standing in front of the engine nacelles and spinning the fan by hand was er, 'cool'...
how something so big moves so freely is gorgeous. An hour later we came back and that engine was in bits 
The one disappointment was that we didn't get to go up the fin; the service hangars have two huge platforms that swing down from the roof to allow full acccess to the fin, rudder and tailplane but they hadn't moved it into place... it gives a spectacular view of the plane (from about 90 feet up!).
Next week I'll see if they'll let me take some piccies...
Ironically when the other planes were given away (including the Barbados one) a condition was that they were given dedicated storage facilities. Barbados didn't, just left it outside and apparently the plane sank into the tarmac. Some others - Edinburgh(?), Manchester, have their planes covered. Boeing's has pride of place between the test-bed 747 and the original Air Force 1 707.
Incidentally we twisted their arms to take us onboard a 747 (never been on one), got shown all the bits Joe Public never gets to like the crew bunk rooms(!) and even got to sit in the lefthand chair
It's a bloody long way up. We also got to sit in those funky recliners up in 1st Class, at £8K a ticket it's the only way I'll ever do it! Amusing how the toilets up there have fake burr walnut trim, it was like being in a TVR I was also impressed at how accurately the instruments are portrayed in MS Flight Sim (even down to the font on the radio displays!); I could easily identify most of the major bits...
Standing in front of the engine nacelles and spinning the fan by hand was er, 'cool'...
how something so big moves so freely is gorgeous. An hour later we came back and that engine was in bits The one disappointment was that we didn't get to go up the fin; the service hangars have two huge platforms that swing down from the roof to allow full acccess to the fin, rudder and tailplane but they hadn't moved it into place... it gives a spectacular view of the plane (from about 90 feet up!).
Next week I'll see if they'll let me take some piccies...
Wedg1e said:
Been working down at LHR this week, stayed at Jurys Inn and just outside my window was G-BOAB. We got talking to the maintenance guys who told us she's in a right old state... no engines, cockpit stripped out, all seats gone... the interior is trashed now as the door seals had perished and during the heavy rains earlier this year the cabin fille dup with water and there's algae growing all ove the place. Also water has got in where the plane expands and closes up during flight, so a lot of internal spaces are going to be corroding away.
Ironically when the other planes were given away (including the Barbados one) a condition was that they were given dedicated storage facilities. Barbados didn't, just left it outside and apparently the plane sank into the tarmac. Some others - Edinburgh(?), Manchester, have their planes covered. Boeing's has pride of place between the test-bed 747 and the original Air Force 1 707.
Incidentally we twisted their arms to take us onboard a 747 (never been on one), got shown all the bits Joe Public never gets to like the crew bunk rooms(!) and even got to sit in the lefthand chair It's a bloody long way up. We also got to sit in those funky recliners up in 1st Class, at £8K a ticket it's the only way I'll ever do it! Amusing how the toilets up there have fake burr walnut trim, it was like being in a TVR
I was also impressed at how accurately the instruments are portrayed in MS Flight Sim (even down to the font on the radio displays!); I could easily identify most of the major bits...
Standing in front of the engine nacelles and spinning the fan by hand was er, 'cool'... how something so big moves so freely is gorgeous. An hour later we came back and that engine was in bits
The one disappointment was that we didn't get to go up the fin; the service hangars have two huge platforms that swing down from the roof to allow full acccess to the fin, rudder and tailplane but they hadn't moved it into place... it gives a spectacular view of the plane (from about 90 feet up!).
Next week I'll see if they'll let me take some piccies...
Ironically when the other planes were given away (including the Barbados one) a condition was that they were given dedicated storage facilities. Barbados didn't, just left it outside and apparently the plane sank into the tarmac. Some others - Edinburgh(?), Manchester, have their planes covered. Boeing's has pride of place between the test-bed 747 and the original Air Force 1 707.
Incidentally we twisted their arms to take us onboard a 747 (never been on one), got shown all the bits Joe Public never gets to like the crew bunk rooms(!) and even got to sit in the lefthand chair
It's a bloody long way up. We also got to sit in those funky recliners up in 1st Class, at £8K a ticket it's the only way I'll ever do it! Amusing how the toilets up there have fake burr walnut trim, it was like being in a TVR I was also impressed at how accurately the instruments are portrayed in MS Flight Sim (even down to the font on the radio displays!); I could easily identify most of the major bits...
Standing in front of the engine nacelles and spinning the fan by hand was er, 'cool'...
how something so big moves so freely is gorgeous. An hour later we came back and that engine was in bits The one disappointment was that we didn't get to go up the fin; the service hangars have two huge platforms that swing down from the roof to allow full acccess to the fin, rudder and tailplane but they hadn't moved it into place... it gives a spectacular view of the plane (from about 90 feet up!).
Next week I'll see if they'll let me take some piccies...
That's really cool! Get some piccies of Concorde up... that's a childhood dream I'll never be able to realise now
Frankly, I wish you had not told us! To picture such a magnificent machine left to rot is so sad. Concorde truly was a stunning machine. Been on one although not during flight sadly. It was small and cramped but it had so much soul.
So sad that we seem unable as a nation to understand that our technology and engineering is as much a part of our heritage as our art and buildings etc.
So sad that we seem unable as a nation to understand that our technology and engineering is as much a part of our heritage as our art and buildings etc.
Pappa Lurve said:
Frankly, I wish you had not told us! To picture such a magnificent machine left to rot is so sad. Concorde truly was a stunning machine. Been on one although not during flight sadly. It was small and cramped but it had so much soul.
So sad that we seem unable as a nation to understand that our technology and engineering is as much a part of our heritage as our art and buildings etc.
Even worse is that all this crap pretending to be 'art' while the 'artists' laugh at the admirers/critics gets so much money. Concorde should be flying, even if it's wearing a Virgin badge.So sad that we seem unable as a nation to understand that our technology and engineering is as much a part of our heritage as our art and buildings etc.
Oh, another thing. The original plan was for the big C to have a 12,000 hour flying life, by which time 'Concorde 2' would have appeared. Except it never did, so they kept the original planes flying. Some of them went to over 20,000 hours. By the time they quit they were 27 years old, something of a record. Although planes like the 747 were around earlier and still fly, most of thoe you see are less than 10 years old and the oldest ones are rarely more than 20.
BA also never had a major accident with Concorde and that in itself is something of a record apparently as apparently there have been quite a few near-misses; one plane landed in (IIRC) the Far East with most of its rudder missing. Another landed at LHR with insufficient fuel and had to be towed off the runway. The plan was to divert to Shannon to refuel but the Captain said he'd never brought one in late and wasn't about to start The CAA tore him off a strip for endangering life...
One several occasions wing flaps and elevons fell to bits or dropped off (in fact there are a few x-rays up on the wall of the NDT centre of various parts that cracked up over the years)
Useless fact: Concorde was originally designed without windows, the fuselage being perfectly cylindrical. It was pointed out that Joe Public wouldn't like that, but the designer asked what the hell they needed windows for as there's nothing to see 12 miles up! Decency prevailed and the fuselage got a flat panel down the side with the windows in...
BA also never had a major accident with Concorde and that in itself is something of a record apparently
as apparently there have been quite a few near-misses; one plane landed in (IIRC) the Far East with most of its rudder missing. Another landed at LHR with insufficient fuel and had to be towed off the runway. The plan was to divert to Shannon to refuel but the Captain said he'd never brought one in late and wasn't about to start The CAA tore him off a strip for endangering life...One several occasions wing flaps and elevons fell to bits or dropped off (in fact there are a few x-rays up on the wall of the NDT centre of various parts that cracked up over the years
)Useless fact: Concorde was originally designed without windows, the fuselage being perfectly cylindrical. It was pointed out that Joe Public wouldn't like that, but the designer asked what the hell they needed windows for as there's nothing to see 12 miles up! Decency prevailed and the fuselage got a flat panel down the side with the windows in...
We taxied past the one at BAE Filton after landing there on Wednesday evening. It was great to see a Concorde again, and that one still looked OK (albeit from a distance). Such a shame we'll never see one in the air again. As for the Heathrow Concorde; utterly disgraceful that it's been allowed to deteriorate to that extent. They'll probably end up scrapping it because it's become unsafe.
How many of us wanted to ride in her,(sexy beast she was). Travesty, she should still be in flight and "yes" where is the next lady to come from? not a damn airbus (damn that dollar) LOL
We were her life the english have so much going for us, why do we put ourselves down, we require concorde back in the air, she is needed and emblem to us all.
We were her life the english have so much going for us, why do we put ourselves down, we require concorde back in the air, she is needed and emblem to us all.
moleamol said:
Pappa Lurve said:
Frankly, I wish you had not told us! To picture such a magnificent machine left to rot is so sad. Concorde truly was a stunning machine. Been on one although not during flight sadly. It was small and cramped but it had so much soul.
So sad that we seem unable as a nation to understand that our technology and engineering is as much a part of our heritage as our art and buildings etc.
Even worse is that all this crap pretending to be 'art' while the 'artists' laugh at the admirers/critics gets so much money. Concorde should be flying, even if it's wearing a Virgin badge.So sad that we seem unable as a nation to understand that our technology and engineering is as much a part of our heritage as our art and buildings etc.
First he'd have had to bribe BA pilots to work for him as nobody else is certified (apart from a couple of Frenchies, obviously...). Then he'd have had to buy BA's maintenance staff, because nobody else knows the plane. Then he'd have had to fuel it, find spares, tooling... and find ways to get new pilots certified before the old ones retire, train new techies as a lot of them are getting on a bit (sorry guys
)... fight the international environmental numpties and finally: find customers to fly on it. There were only ever 5000 scheduled passengers a year, and a lot of those were the same people. Video conferencing means you don't even need to get dressed to be in the office 3000 miles away, so apart from up-their-own-ringpiece 'celebs' you're down to charter passengers... and for BA that was what brought in the shekels. At one stage you could do Barbados for the weekend I was a very lucky lad, at 12 years old, to fly to Washington on Concorde.
I still have vivid memories of the trip. Seeing the Mach meter tick over to 2.00, seeing the curvature of the earth, the darkness of the sky even at mid day.
It's a travesty that it's not flying now, but understandable.
Knowing that you were travelling at 23 miles per minute was kind of cool.
That was 30 years ago!
I still have vivid memories of the trip. Seeing the Mach meter tick over to 2.00, seeing the curvature of the earth, the darkness of the sky even at mid day.
It's a travesty that it's not flying now, but understandable.
Knowing that you were travelling at 23 miles per minute was kind of cool.
That was 30 years ago!
moleamol said:
I really hope someone does a Vulcan style project and gets one in the air again, even if it's only for displays and not for passengers.
Unlikely. A lot of what was stripped from the Heathrow plane (and probably others) was auctioned or sold off (some for charity). Plenty of bits appear on Ebay, apparently. One guy has a Conc conk (nosecone) in his garden!ETA: Ironically the one owned by Boeing is likely to be the best-preserved in the long-term, they have the means and motivation.
Edited by Wedg1e on Saturday 24th November 00:31
Parrot of Doom said:
Concordes are no longer flying because theres no money in it.
As for maintaining them, that costs money too. Sad I know, but unless somebody is prepared to pay for it then they're going to fall to bits.
I think they were costly for AF, but BA regularly made profit from its Concorde London->NY route, didnt they? Branson offered to buy them for his Virgin fleet (not sure how serious that was), but it wouldnt have mattered once its CAA certificate was revoked. All for one FOD incident. I think Continental are still being chased over that one.As for maintaining them, that costs money too. Sad I know, but unless somebody is prepared to pay for it then they're going to fall to bits.
Regarding maintenence costs- a big empty hangar and a couple of heaters isnt that expensive.
It's all a bit of a shame, but the way I look at it the Typhoon is a bit of a Pheonix from the ashes.
I saw that for real at RNAS culdrose earlier this year, and that really was ballistic. I didn't think it was going to leave that night, so we were walking back to the carpark. I'd been walking for about twenty minutes, and we heard the roar, from the far side of a nearby field in which we were parked, and it was the ideal view.
The blooming thing seemed to make it to 10,000' in about ten seconds.
I saw that for real at RNAS culdrose earlier this year, and that really was ballistic. I didn't think it was going to leave that night, so we were walking back to the carpark. I'd been walking for about twenty minutes, and we heard the roar, from the far side of a nearby field in which we were parked, and it was the ideal view.
The blooming thing seemed to make it to 10,000' in about ten seconds.
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