WI The Concorde had Combination Engines ?

[Riain]

Yes, fixed development costs spread over miniscule production run. But when the 2 govts involved just wrote those losses off the Concorde did well enough.

 

[Michel Van]

Yes, fixed development costs spread over miniscule production run. But when the 2 govts involved just wrote those losses off the Concorde did well enough.

it save Concorde for be cancelled by Labor goverment in 1960's.
France imposing heavy penalties in case of a cancellation !

ood is that BAC look for international co-operation. they approaches a number of countries,
but only France showed real interest.
i demand wat if happend Germay or Japan or even USA joint the offer?

so WI the Concorde Combination engine design is with 200 passengers ?
can this fly economically ?

 

[terence]

it save Concorde for be cancelled by Labor goverment in 1960's.
France imposing heavy penalties in case of a cancellation !

ood is that BAC look for international co-operation. they approaches a number of countries,
but only France showed real interest.
i demand wat if happend Germay or Japan or even USA joint the offer?

so WI the Concorde Combination engine design is with 200 passengers ?
can this fly economically ?

Origin
The Concorde had its genesis in the mid 1950s. Several aircraft companies were toying with Supersonic passenger transport, most notably Bristol Aviation who were developing the Olympus engines for the Vulcan Bomber and had a hand in the TSR-2 advanced Strike Bomber. A major aim was to take the highly costly cold-war aircraft technology and make it pay from commercial use.

Initial approaches were made to US Aircraft manufacturers, principally Lockheed. Lockheed were currently exploring secret high-speed flight that culminated in the SR-71 and proposed as a goal a Mach 3 aircraft. The British teams thought this a goal-too-far as, yet to be developed titanium alloys and engine intake design would need to be developed entailing perhaps a decade of experimental work. Talks broke down.
It has also become clear in hindsight that the US aircraft industry was actively seeking the destruction of any European competitors. The US government witheld NATO funding on several European military aircraft contracts and put up huge barriers to the operation of European aircraft sales to US Airlines.

Finally getting a partner with Sud Aviation, Bristol produced designs for the Concorde. The final design was publicised in 1962 for a 4500 mile range aircraft seating 90-100 pax to trave at a cruising speed of Mach 2. At that time transatlanic air travel was still relatively exclusive and the Concorde's passenger load of 90-100 (120 to 128 in high-density configuration) was not out of line with the contemporary Boeing 707 110-127 pax, the VC 10s 120 and the DC-8's 124 ( all pax capacities were stretched over the years).
There were no wide-bodies or even thought of them at the time and Trans-Pacific or Trans-Indian Ocean routes were, at the time, unimportant.
Once the Anglo-French consortium received British and French state funding and the project became real there was a panic--especially in America. Juan Tripp, head of Pan Am, placed an order for 6 the same as BOAC and Air France with a commitment for a further 9. Other American airlines, TWA, Braniff, United, Continental also placed orders-- BAC/ Aerospatiale as the manufacturers became, had 100 orders on the books.
President J.F Kennedy placed a personal call to Juan Trippe in 1962 demanding to know why he intended to buy a' foreign' aircraft. Trippe told him--give me an American SST and I'll buy it!
In June 1963, Kennedy formed a government run organisation to produce a civilian SST with taxpayer's money (unheard of in US civil aviation).
A design competition came up with the Boeing 2707 that featured a 'droop-snoot' nose as per the Fairy Delta-2 and Concorde and variable wing geometry, as per the British Swallow and TSR2 ( at that time US manufacturers had no experience with either technology). The design called for a 250 seat aircraft that would travel at Mach 2.5-3.0 for 4000 miles. From winning the design competition to the final proffered design, Boeing changed the specification considerably and regularly--the Swing wing and Droop-Snoot were too heavy for the GE4 proposed engine which, in any case, was incapable of the Concorde's Olympus supercruise. Wing-tunnel testing showed that the aerodynamics were all wrong. New metal technologies would have to be developed. In 1969 the project was two years behind schedule and only two wooden mock-ups of cabin interiors had been produced, while Concorde was already undergong prototype test flights. In 1971, with Boeing in possession of only the mock-ups and a desktop model, but claiming a 1975 certification--government funding was cut and the project died.
The cost to Boeing and the US taxpayer has never been fully quantified, but it was enough to cause Boeing to lay off 60,000 workers and look set for bankruptcy until saved by the launch of the Boeing 747--a failed entry into a military airlift design contest and no more hi-tech than the 10 year old 707.
With the failure of the US effort-the forces of sour grapes and reaction swung into play. US authorities ran 'sonic boom' saturation tests over one US City (Oklahoma City) in Operation Bongo & came up with several reason why supersonic overflight should not be allowed within the continental US. ( The same tests were run in the UK and France and no one actually had a problem.). Spurious scientific evidence was published on how the Concorde would destroy the World's ozone layer.
A 'Stop the SST' lobby was founded to besiege BOAC and Air France offices and picket airports and US government officials.
The Concorde was therefore denied landing rights initially in the US and the first services were London-Bahrein and Paris-Caracas in January 1976. After six months of operation flights were permitted into Dulles airport Washington DC and in July 1977, after a court case where key American activists were shown to have falsified noise rating for the Concorde ( it was quieter than some sub-sonic jets), into JFK.
A four times a day service then ran from Heathrow and Charles de Gaulle to JFK for 23 years without incident and at a profit--yet when the first major accident involving a Concorde occurred in Paris in 2000, American pundits flooded the airwaves with "We told you wasn't safe!".

Despite one of the best safety records and the wet dream of every air traveller--the Concorde finally succumbed to the K-Mart Kids in 2003. RIP

There was in the 1990s a proposal for a Concorde replacement from BAC/ Aerospatiale, but instead of a full-on ommercial airliner, it would be an extra-large executive jet carrying say 20 pax, but at Mach 3.

 

[Michel Van]

thanks for deep inside history of SST, terence

there is a little Unknown Detail in this Story
1964 Douglas & Philip Bono proposed the Suborbital passenger flights !
you Reads correctly Suborbital

Pegasus (based on Bono ROMBUS Concept)
A reusable Rocket for intercontinental flight
170-260 passengers and 33.5t-13t of cargo from Vandenberg to Singapore in 39 minutes. (over 12,000 km)
or payload 90 tons in a 560 km Orbit or as a soldier intercontinental troop transport! called Ithacus Jr.
while Boeing or Lockheed SST have a weight of 300 tons
bringts Pegasus 1520 tons on launchpad
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/pegvtovl.htm

on Pegasus R&D, launch cost or ticket prise (in 1966 U.S. Dollar)
$3 bilion R&D as Launch Rocket for US Spaceprogam and SST
$48 milion on Flyaway cost
Ticketprise (on 260 passengers) per person $185000 in today Dollar: around $1 mio
not very economic...