
Concorde ‘B’ (2014) - ricardomcgowan
https://www.heritageconcorde.com/concorde-b
======
nogabebop23
>> This was the aircraft the airlines really needed and the aircraft the
manufacturers wanted to build.

This is largely revisionist history. The reality was that logistics of flying
the Concorde (routing, timing, airport services) combined with the experience
(speed over comfort) made it expensive and just not that desirable. The plane
was conceived in the era of big government bankrolled air travel and doesn't
have a role in the reality of flying buses we see today.

~~~
reaperducer
I think you've just illustrated revisionist revisionist history.

The original text is true. The Concorde _was_ what the airlines, aircraft
makers, and the public wanted. It was fast. It was expensive. It was a trophy
project. All things that appeal to one or more of those segments.

What changed was that fuel got too expensive, deregulated airlines started
cutting corners everywhere, and people's priorities changed.

The world went from people wearing their Sunday suits to embark on a flight to
people piling into Southwest air buses in their pajamas without bathing.

So the history is correct. It's just that the world has changed.

/Flew on the Concorde in the mid-1990's.

~~~
Someone
Reading
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concorde](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concorde),
it was partly the world changing, but also budget overruns and the sonic
booms. Also, part of “the world changing” was that the 747 appeared, a plane
that Concorde couldn’t really compete with, economically.

Also, it seems the bill for development of the Concorde was paid for by the
governments of Great Britain and France, and wasn’t fully accounted for in the
unit price.

If so, that made it a much more attractive proposition. I also would think
some airlines placed pre-orders in a defensive move (if it had become wildly
successful, airlines flying slow planes could get in trouble)

I doubt any manufacturer would have dared to design and build a supersonic
plane if they had to have to pay for all development (Boeing had a competing
project
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_2707](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_2707)),
but that, too, seems to have been heavily government sponsored)

~~~
eternalban
The Shah flew the Concorde and apparently liked it so much, ordered 3
(Condorde 'B') on the spot. Typically ahead of his time, his vision was for
making Iran a major hub along the lines of what Dubai and Qatar have done in
the interim.

Interesting to note that China apparently also ordered Concordes.

[https://www.nytimes.com/1974/06/29/archives/shah-of-iran-
rep...](https://www.nytimes.com/1974/06/29/archives/shah-of-iran-reported-to-
shift-to-firm-orders-for-concordes.html)

~~~
Someone
I wouldn’t use the Shah of Iran‘s intents as indicator of economical
feasibility.

And that’s ignoring the possibility that that order was in return for other
transactions (for example, they got enriched uranium from France
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France–Iran_relations#Nuclear_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France–Iran_relations#Nuclear_program)
says they refused to continue to provide Iran with enriched uranium after the
1979 Islamic revolution, so they must have been delivering it before) and the
technology to make it ([https://foreignpolicy.com/2010/12/29/the-shahs-atomic-
dreams...](https://foreignpolicy.com/2010/12/29/the-shahs-atomic-dreams/)) and
hundreds of Chieftain tanks from Britain
([https://www.offiziere.ch/?p=33866](https://www.offiziere.ch/?p=33866))

~~~
eternalban
The Shah of Iran bailed out France's nuclear industry. _That_ is why Islamic
Republic has shares in a French nuclear fuel processing concern.

[https://www.nytimes.com/1991/10/26/world/france-and-iran-
men...](https://www.nytimes.com/1991/10/26/world/france-and-iran-mend-rift-
over-loan-granted-by-shah.html)

> I wouldn’t use the Shah of Iran‘s intents as indicator of economical
> feasibility.

Or people who post from surface knowledge. Sure.

\-- ps --

In 1975 Sweden's 10 per cent share in Eurodif went to Iran. The French
government subsidiary company Cogéma and the Iranian Government established
the Sofidif (Société franco–iranienne pour l'enrichissement de l'uranium par
diffusion gazeuse) enterprise with 60 and 40 per cent shares, respectively. In
turn, Sofidif acquired a 25 per cent share in Eurodif, which gave Iran its 10
per cent share of Eurodif. Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi lent 1 billion dollars
(and another 180 million dollars in 1977) for the construction of the Eurodif
factory, to have the right of buying 10 per cent of the production of the
site.

"President Gerald Ford signed a directive in 1976 offering Tehran the chance
to buy and operate a U.S.-built reprocessing facility for extracting plutonium
from nuclear reactor fuel. The deal was for a complete 'nuclear fuel
cycle'."[27] The Ford strategy paper said the "introduction of nuclear power
will both provide for the growing needs of Iran's economy and free remaining
oil reserves for export or conversion to petrochemicals."

A 1974 CIA proliferation assessment stated "If [the Shah] is alive in the
mid-1980s ... and if other countries [particularly India] have proceeded with
weapons development we have no doubt Iran will follow suit."[28]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_nuclear](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_nuclear)

------
billclerico
Boom is a YC company building a modern, supersonic passenger airliner:
[https://boomsupersonic.com/](https://boomsupersonic.com/)

~~~
tbrock
The name is both great and awful at the same time.

~~~
lostlogin
Will it be the passengers or the employees that get referred to as ‘Boomers’?

~~~
Koshkin
Yeah, they should have simply named the company Zoomersonic.

------
jansan
In the Technical Museum Sinsheim (Germany) you have the Concorde A next to the
Tupolev Tu-144 on display. This is quite a spectacular view, and you can enter
both and take a look at the inside.

[https://sinsheim.technik-
museum.de/assets/uploads/images/27/...](https://sinsheim.technik-
museum.de/assets/uploads/images/27/tupolev-tu-144-2.jpg)

~~~
andi999
Coincidentally I went there last sunday. I was surprised about the large
amount of dials and gauges in the cockpit.

------
mikepurvis
Wasn't it the ticket price and crowded cabin that killed the Concorde? With
even business travelers having to arrive 90+ minutes early to the airport for
international travel anyway, the value proposition of being in the air for a
shorter time just isn't really there, especially if the longer flight puts you
on a lie-flat bed in a widebody.

~~~
thatfrenchguy
I’m not sure at that time it was 90+ minutes. It’s not 90+ minutes today if
you go business class either

~~~
gambiting
I mean, there certainly is a class of travellers who are absolutely willing to
pay extra for time, as proven by BA's direct London to New York flight, that
is very unusual in that

1) it's serviced directly from London City airport, which is tiny, but also
closest you can get to the city centre by air

2) because of how short that airport is, BA ordered special shortened Airbus
A318 that is only made in a full business class configuration(only 32 seats)
and it only ever flies on that one route. And even then it's actually too far
for its range, so it makes a quick stop in Ireland to refuel before crossing
the Atlantic first.

I'm reasonably certain that paying extra for this special flight saves you
more than 90 minutes compared to taking a conventional one from Heathrow, no
matter which class you'd travel.

~~~
gsnedders
> 2) because of how short that airport is, BA ordered special shortened Airbus
> A318 that is only made in a full business class configuration(only 32 seats)
> and it only ever flies on that one route. And even then it's actually too
> far for its range, so it makes a quick stop in Ireland to refuel before
> crossing the Atlantic first.

It's only too far for its range when flying from an airfield _with a runway
the length of City_. From Heathrow it could do the flight non-stop: it just
can't take off with so heavy from City.

~~~
dmurray
I suppose it would raise a few eyebrows to take off from City and do its
refueling stop 20 miles west in Heathrow.

Of course Heathrow is also far busier than Shannon and far more likely to have
delays.

~~~
gsnedders
Heathrow also doesn't have US preclearance which it relies on to justify the
longer flight time due to the stop. (And it would be an utter waste of a slot
at Heathrow: why would you use up one of your slots at Heathrow for a
refuelling stop when you could instead fly to an airport which isn't slot
limited?)

------
PaulDavisThe1st
Years ago I saw a nice comparison between optical computing and supersonic
flight. The gist of it was that they would both only ever be widely used by
the military/government. The specific benefits of both are real, but very
costly and thus the use tends to be reserved where you absolutely need it.

For the general public, electronic computing and subsonic flight both work
fine, are not tremendously expensive and don't require ongoing complex
maintainance and engineering.

I would guess this analysis is still mostly true today.

~~~
LyndsySimon
To put it a slightly different way: existing technology is such that it is not
profitable for them to be deployed at scale. I expect supersonic travel will
eventually supplant our existing infrastructure (at least for long routes),
but it's just not going to happen while it's multiple times more expensive to
operate and has significant downsides like sonic booms over populated areas.

I believe the sonic boom problem has been at least partially solved, but the
economics still don't work out. One day, they will. Likewise with optical
computing - either ownership costs will fall to the level that they're
acceptable for general use or advancements in parallel fields will make it
impractical.

~~~
selectodude
Even with all the technology in the world, the laws of thermodynamics hold.
Going faster raises friction losses requiring either a smaller plane or a
larger amount of fuel. Either way, the price goes up. SST will never supplant
subsonic transport on a large scale level, even accounting for the elimination
of sonic booms.

------
melling
The addition of the Pacific routes might have helped.

Those are some long flights. LA to Tokyo or Beijing in half the time, with a
quick stop in Hawaii.

~~~
Scoundreller
LA to Tokyo would allow for more supersonic flight too. They avoided that over
landmass to avoid sonic booms over inhabited areas. Which covers a good chunk
of territory if they take the shortest route:

[http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=lhr-jfk](http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=lhr-jfk)

------
valuearb
This seems to ignore the fact that on a passenger mile basis the Concorde was
one of the most unsafe passenger jets of all time.

------
PaulHoule
Something like the Boeing 2707 might have had a better chance of success:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_2707](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_2707)

Part of the pitch for Concorde was that an SST would have greatly reduced
capital costs since it could fly at least twice the number of flights in the
same unit of time. It wasn't really fast enough to do this on the routes that
it flew, so this benefit wasn't realized.

A Mach 3 airliner (SR-71 class!) is fast enough to realize better capital
efficiency, and can do better on fuel consumption than a Mach 2 airliner. Some
fuel is spent fighting air resistance, but some is fighting "induced drag"
which produces lift. If you spend less time in the air you need less lift, and
fuel efficiency improves.

The only problem is that aluminum would melt in a Mach 3 airliner so you need
some revolution in materials to make it practical.

~~~
moonbug
The "only" problem.

------
makerofspoons
Would range have mattered as much to make the Concorde more palatable for
airlines and travelers? I have always been under the impression the main
reason the Concorde didn't see more commercial success was because the cabin
was small. It seems like what was really needed was a design that could hold
more passengers.

~~~
cameldrv
I don't think that the cabin size per se really made that much difference.
Supersonic flight is always going to cost a lot more than subsonic, so you're
targeting the segment that wants the speed/prestige of going Mach 2 and is
willing to pay. There aren't that many of these people, and they tend to be
sensitive to schedule, so you have to run the service fairly often. That means
that you either run a small airplane or give away a lot of seats (even with
100 seats, at least towards the end, British Airways was giving free upgrades
to Concorde for a large fraction of the seats).

I think that today the supersonic airliner market is still quite tough,
because first class has gotten so good. For transatlantic, you only save four
hours, and you can spend that sleeping fairly comfortably or using your
computer with provided power and pretty good Wi-Fi.

Where there is more legitimate value is transpacific, where supersonic might
shave 10 hours. However, due to the higher fuel burn, there's almost no way to
avoid stopping for gas, which erodes the advantage both in time and comfort.

~~~
ghaff
Exactly. Even with modern first/business seating, subsonic trans-Pacific is
still a _long_ flight even from the West Coast even if the seating is
comfortable and the food is good. But as I recall you need something like 2x
the range of the Concorde even to fly a route like SFO-NRT. And, as you say,
if you need to fuel up in Anchorage say, you lose a lot of the time advantage.

~~~
cameldrv
Yeah, and the problem is that there is a range death spiral, so you can't just
scale up the plane. More range needs more fuel, which is more weight, so the
efficiency goes down, so you need more fuel... I don't think that supersonic
transpacific is really solvable with current technology. You either have to
refuel mid-air or go suborbital or use a different fuel.

~~~
ghaff
And at some point, if you can make 20 or 24 hours of flying comfortable enough
and maybe have good enough communication systems, who cares? (OK, there are a
few people who want to go back and forth to Japan in the least time possible.
But, let's get real. Air Force One isn't a supersonic jet.)

It's mostly a case of dialing in the space and price per passenger for the
market. Given enough space and entertainment options--hey, live performances
in the lounge!, celebrity chefs--very few of us really care that much about
getting to a destination 12 hours faster.

------
trboyden
Based on the trends in at least the US passenger industry, airlines seem to be
moving more towards smaller planes and shorter hops. I don't think a new
Concorde would have had any impact on that at all. If the airlines wanted a
long-range, faster plane, a manufacturer would have come along and built it by
now. But like the computer industry, air travel is driven to low-price
commodity service, and luxury high performance air travel doesn't fit in that
business model.

~~~
ghaff
>more towards smaller planes and shorter hops

Probably more precisely, they're moving towards more direct routes rather than
routing almost everything through some specific hubs.

------
hivacruz
I'm always sad when I think about the Concorde. It was such a great plane
ahead of its time when it came out. I wish I had the chance to fly on it once.

------
gorgoiler
Gosh, from Wikipedia’s section on Concorde design there is this set:

\- Concorde

\- Mini Cooper

\- Miniskirt

\- Spitfire

\- Tube Map

\- Jaguar E-Type

What could be added to this list to induce total industrial design hysteria?
InterCity 125? Instamatic? Mellor traffic lights?

~~~
ggm
Belisha Beacon

Bowler Hat

Wellington Bomber (geodesics)

Sinclair Calculator

------
CalChris
The only person I ever met who'd flown on the Concorde was the executive
secretary for a startup CEO who had _important_ meetings in Paris. Yes, this
was a Dot Com.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
I worked for a company that did those sort of things. It was bought by three
crooks who then spent a ton of VC money on themselves. Porsches in the carpark
and flights to New York on Concorde. Needless to say it didn't last long.

The only other person I know who flew on it was my wife (before we were
married).

------
dang
If curious see also

2018
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17012995](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17012995)

------
forgotmypwbctbi
[http://archive.is/E4QT8](http://archive.is/E4QT8)

------
ISL
How different are the fuel efficiencies per passenger-km for the Concordes (A
and B) and modern aircraft?

~~~
jjk166
The concorde was woefully less efficient than modern aircraft but this wasn't
because it flew supersonically but instead because it used turbojets. Modern
aircraft use turbofans which are far more efficient. The concorde was actually
designed to save fuel as supercruise is more efficient than transonic flight
for a given engine. Unfortunately turbofans for supersonic flight weren't
developed until the late 80s, by which point there was little demand for a new
SST.

------
kingkawn
interesting that the routes they were listing halfway through the article had
none that went over the arctic circle like they do today for flights from NYC
-> Beijing

------
brian_herman__
The background to this website is amazing!

------
gavribirnbaum
is the site down?

~~~
mnw21cam
Looks like a page with fluffy clouds and nothing else over here.

------
lisper
I had to stop reading before getting to the end because the cloud animation
was too distracting.

Web site designers please take note: just because you can doesn't mean you
should. Animated backgrounds are the <blink> tag of the 21st century.

~~~
dang
" _Please don 't complain about website formatting, back-button breakage, and
similar annoyances. They're too common to be interesting. Exception: when the
author is present. Then friendly feedback might be helpful._"

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
lisper
Heh. TIL. Sorry about that.

~~~
dang
It's a new guideline actually - I meant to mention that.

~~~
lisper
Ah. :-)

