AHC: Save the Concorde!

A simple question: is there a way to keep supersonic Trans-Atlantic flight alive into the present?

With the Concorde? Not really. They are old, and ever increasing maintenance costs eat away at it's economics.

Now, new SSTs are easier, but still hard. A more efficient SST means even more efficient sub-sonic planes. But if you want to, you need to keep fuel cheap, and tickets more expensive. Avoid the 70s oil crisis, and maybe keep China isolated. Since hundreds of millions of Chinese becoming rich enough to buy cars will drive up fuel costs. Also avoid airline deregulation. That helped push ticket prices lower, and if airlines are less able to compete via prices they will in other ways, like reducing flight times with an SST.
 
My best bet would be an earlier service delivery and the production of the Concorde B with slightly more range and better performance at other speeds. I think earlier service entry would lead to a larger fleet because orders would have been placed prior to the oil crisis, and the longer range B would make other routes viable which again would keep the fleet in service.
 

GarethC

Donor
A simple question: is there a way to keep supersonic Trans-Atlantic flight alive into the present?
I'm thinking it needs a vanity project. Concorde came about because the British and French governments threw a lot of money at its development which was written off, and their national flag carriers flew it.

So to me the question seems much more a political one than either a profitability or aeronautical engineering issue.

I can't see that happening in the US - subsidizing air travel to Europe is not a vote winner, and Boeing already gets lots and lots of pork through military contracts.

On the aeronautical engineering side, though, a new SST would really benefit from having the range to do a lot of PacRim routes - which a European governmental project behind Airbus might not really want to pay for all that much.

Additionally, wouldn't the governmental subsidy required be illegal under some EU treaty or other?
Would it not also result in Boeing renting sufficient congressfolk to get a WTO challenge to it?

So, what I'm concluding is, a vanity project requiring political subsidy and with political obstacles in the US and legal ones in the EU means a Chinese SST. Well, Japan, Taiwan, and the ROK could all reasonably contribute value to such a project, and derive both prestige and profitable operation from it, but there are too many pairings that can't happen politically for a wider consortium to form.
 
What would make continued SST's more viable is of Concorde wasn't such a commercial flop, the irony was that when British Airways discovered the right business model for Concorde it effectively became a license to print money, by the late 80's BA's 7 Concordes generated 25% of its profits, if this can be shown early enough then other airlines would probably have bought it, there's more than enough mega rich and transoceanic routes to make it work.

Something else that would have helped overcome Concorde's noise and economy problems would have been different engines. I read an article about Concorde in my University library years ago that in the early 1960's BAC told the British Government that if Concorde used turbofan engines itwould be quieter and more economical but this would mean reducing the maximum speed to Mach 1.3. However the Government insisted on the Mach 2 requirement which could only be reached with Olympus turbojets.
 
Something else that would have helped overcome Concorde's noise and economy problems would have been different engines. I read an article about Concorde in my University library years ago that in the early 1960's BAC told the British Government that if Concorde used turbofan engines itwould be quieter and more economical but this would mean reducing the maximum speed to Mach 1.3. However the Government insisted on the Mach 2 requirement which could only be reached with Olympus turbojets.

At Mach 2 speeds, the Turbojets are far more efficient than turbofans, and noise is always gonna be a problem for an SST, so realistically the best engines would be ones powerful enough to maintain the Mach 2 speed without afterburners. The Concorde B design proposed did that, as well as slightly increasing fuel capacity and using a number of aerodynamic improvements, which all helped to considerably reduce noise and increase the range.

Perhaps one other option is another couple friendly nations buy the Concorde B version? It's not gonna be for-profit companies, of course, but British-friendly flag carriers like Air Canada and Qantas I can see flying the Concorde, if it has enough range to work well on longer routes. I can see a Qantas route going Sydney-Singapore-Bahrain-London, as well as routes to other places in Asia. Air Canada would probably first go for trans-Atlantic routes, Montreal and Toronto to several European capitals.
 
No 9/11 and Concorde might still be flying.

Because development costs were written off, indeed it was a license for BA to print money. But it depended a lot of regular repeat passengers, a surprisingly large proportion of whom died in the WTC.
 
On the aeronautical engineering side, though, a new SST would really benefit from having the range to do a lot of PacRim routes - which a European governmental project behind Airbus might not really want to pay for all that much.

Can Australia, Hong Kong, and Singapore cooperate in on this? "London to Hong Kong, Singapore, and Sydney overnight!"
 
But it depended a lot of regular repeat passengers, a surprisingly large proportion of whom died in the WTC.

Huh, that's pretty intriguing. I thought 9/11's damage to the airline industries in general had something to do with the growing unprofitability of the Concorde, but I had no idea there was a hit to BA revenue as immediate as that.
 
Huh, that's pretty intriguing. I thought 9/11's damage to the airline industries in general had something to do with the growing unprofitability of the Concorde, but I had no idea there was a hit to BA revenue as immediate as that.

Apparently some guys specialising in selling bonds used Concorde a lot since this way they could sell bonds in New York before these were sold in London or something like that.

A lower speed might save Concorde indeed, but overall and unless fuel costs are a lot lower than what they became post oil crisis I doubt that the plane has any chance of selling by the hundreds.

Crucially it is worth remembering that neither Air France nor British Airways wanted Concorde in the first place. They both wanted an Airbus instead to cater for future demand. Had it not been for Concorde, we would have had Airbus a few years earlier and a purely Anglo-French one instead of the "European" thingy we got instead ...

Airlines from the US dropped their orders before the oil crisis began, which tells that they were not too keen on the concept either.
 
Crash in Paris? The concorde did not crash in paris but in the small town of Gonesse.

Don't be so pedantic Xgentis, it would be like telling to someone from abroad that you are from Ixelles instead of Brussels or from Ougrée when you are from Liège ;).
 
Can Australia, Hong Kong, and Singapore cooperate in on this? "London to Hong Kong, Singapore, and Sydney overnight!"

That was my thought, too. The speed advantage of SSTs is great for Transatlantic routes, but its that much better for Transpacific ones. That's why I had the idea of Qantas going for it. "Good morning in Sydney, good night in London. Make it possible with the Concorde!"
 
Don't be so pedantic Xgentis, it would be like telling to someone from abroad that you are from Ixelles instead of Brussels or from Ougrée when you are from Liège ;).
It's not the same place at least Ixelles is inside Brussels. Gonesse has like 10km separting it from Paris. And Ougrée is not even in Liege but Seraing. It is maybe pedentic but I like exactitude in geography.
 
I blame the 22nd Amendment.


If Ike had gotten three terms, presuming that his successor more or less followed his lead, the Vietnam War would have been a much much smaller involvement for the United States of America. This would have freed up personnel and material resources as well as political capital for things like an American SST (and more Apollo too.)
 

NothingNow

Banned
A lower speed might save Concorde indeed, but overall and unless fuel costs are a lot lower than what they became post oil crisis I doubt that the plane has any chance of selling by the hundreds.
Actually, anything under m1.8 would be a waste of fuel, thanks to transsonic turbulence and drag affecting the fuselage. But something capable of M2.0+ with Supercruise would be much more efficient. Hell, something the size of the 2707 with seating for 200 passengers would be much better in terms of efficiency and cost per seat-mile.
 
Perhaps in a TL where the XB-70 Valkyrie was mass produced, similar designs for commercial air travel may have survived and mass implemented?
We have a non-ICBM TL in this board already progressing, perhaps create a spin-off from that?
 
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