

The Concorde’s Cousins - jseliger
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/transportation/2013/08/will_the_skylon_be_the_new_concorde_the_obstacles_for_supersonic_planes.single.html

======
apsec112
This is a terrible article. It presents no arguments, only meaningless
statistics quoted out of context.

"The costs are astronomical, too. The British government’s financial
contribution to the project is just a small fraction of the billions needed to
complete it."

They conveniently don't mention that _every_ new airplane design costs
billions to start producing. This is true even for mundane passenger jets,
never mind anything new and experimental (the B2 bomber cost $45 billion to
develop - see
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-2_Spirit](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-2_Spirit)).
Without technically lying, they make it sound like this project _in
particular_ is outrageously expensive, which (as far as I can tell) isn't
actually true, compared to other new aircraft designs.

"It was one of the greatest economic boondoggles of all time."

Of all time? Really? The Concorde (cost: a few billion) is now in league with
the 2008 financial crisis and dot-com bubbles (cost: trillions upon
trillions)? Evidence presented for this claim: none. In fact, we know it was
profitable on its NYC - London and NYC - Paris routes
([http://news.google.co.uk/newspapers?id=VAQkAAAAIBAJ&sjid=MO4...](http://news.google.co.uk/newspapers?id=VAQkAAAAIBAJ&sjid=MO4DAAAAIBAJ&pg=6783,4192544&dq=concorde+braniff&hl=en)).

"Very few people could afford a $12,000 round-trip ticket.... "

This is true for _every_ elite airline service. Ask anyone who travels a lot -
most of those in international first class are using miles, or are on a
corporate travel program.

"Not to mention the environmental waste—more than 6,800 gallons of fuel per
hour."

More meaningless numbers designed to look scary. Doing some math, if the
Concorde had 100 passengers and flew at 1,350 mph, that's 135,000 / 6,800 = 20
passenger-miles per gallon. Better than most SUVs.

"In spite of its well-earned reputation as one of the great economic debacles
of the 20th century..."

Evidence presented: none. In fact, when the Concorde was retired, Richard
Branson offered to purchase the fleet and continue service "for many years to
come"
([http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-109201077.html](http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-109201077.html)).

~~~
tanzam75
British Airways' profit on the Concorde was an accounting trick. They took a
100% writeoff of all Concorde capital investments in 1979, and another 100%
writeoff in 1983. Write-offs are not charged against operating expenses, but
show up as "Other expenses." This made the airplanes essentially "free." They
still had maintenance expenses, but the capital cost was zero.

And that's just the money that British Airways spent on it. The British and
French governments also subsidized the project. Thus, looking purely at
British Airways' accounting profit is ignoring the actual costs of the
Concorde project.

Most jetliners are more efficient than an SUV. It's not hard, because SUVs are
so incredibly inefficient. The proper comparison is to other jetliners. The
Boeing 747 gets about 100 passenger-miles per gallon. That's 5x as efficient
as the Concorde, at 20 passenger-miles per gallon.

When the Concorde was retired in 2003, Jet-A cost $1 per gallon. Today,
aviation kerosene costs $3.50 per gallon.

~~~
bluedino
>> Most jetliners are more efficient than an SUV. It's not hard, because SUVs
are so incredibly inefficient. The proper comparison is to other jetliners.
The Boeing 747 gets about 100 passenger-miles per gallon. That's 5x as
efficient as the Concorde, at 20 passenger-miles per gallon.

The Concorde was twice as fast - which is why it was worth a premium over a
747. Just like it costs more to send a package next-day than it does grown.

It's also 'worth' the fuel penalty. Just like you car burns twice as much gas
going 100mph as it does 65mph, but you get there faster so it could be 'worth'
it if you're in an emergency, or poor planner.

Speaking of efficiency, what does a Greyhound Bus or Amtrak train get as far
as passenger miles/gallon?

~~~
tanzam75
> _Speaking of efficiency, what does a Greyhound Bus or Amtrak train get as
> far as passenger miles /gallon?_

The DOE has calculated normalized energy usage among the various modes to BTUs
per passenger-mile.

Data for 2011:
[http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/pub...](http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_04_20.html)

    
    
      Amtrak: 1628
      Airlines (domestic): 2597
      Airlines (domestic): 3519
      Automobiles (short wheel base): 3898
      Automobiles (long wheel base): 5479
      Transit buses: 3343
    

This summary data must be interpreted with caution. "Intercity bus" does not
get a listing, only "Transit motor bus." Long wheel base automobiles includes
SUVs as well as minivans.

Amtrak operations include both diesel and electric trains, and count only the
actual electricity drawn -- not the heat required to generate that power.
(Most of Amtrak's electric operations are in the northeast, which gets a lot
of its electricity from nuclear and gas.)

Interestingly, domestic airline operations are more efficient than
international. This is likely due to the reduced fuel loads, increased load
rates, and the greater efficiency of turboprops.

------
nolok
As a french, the Concord was a great thing and I am truly sad that it had to
go (especially the way the existing plane were dealt with, what with the
airlines refusing to sell them to another operator and destroying them
instead). I don't know much about the economics of it, and I know it wasn't
very good money wise to keep the line open for the airlines which made them
pretty much relieved to have an excuse to close it, but still this article
throw around "facts" and "numbers" to give an highly exaggerated and misguided
view of it.

And even if, it was important because it was something great we could do.
Supersonic passenger plane ? Yes, we can do that. In fact, we did it, and not
just a prototype, a real regular line. I didn't think much about it at the
time it closed (I was too busy enjoying high school), but nowadays all I can
hear our politics and many countrymen say of my country is "no we can't do
that", "that's not possible", "be realistic", ... If you have that attitude,
you fail before you even start, and Concord was in the exact opposite
direction, it was doing something not because it made economic sense or
because you needed it, but to prove a point: yes, we can do that, and we're
going to prove it to you.

Frankly we need a lot more of that today. I'm tired of all the negativity.

I think that's also a huge part of why, despite being a joint FR/UK project,
both side kind of think of it as "their" plane.

~~~
ragesh
I can't upvote this enough. As someone who was lucky enough to have flown on
Concorde 20 years ago (almost to the date), I'm extremely sad that it isn't
even an option anymore. The thrill of hitting mach 2 and being able to see the
curvature of the earth is something I'm going to carry to the grave. That's
just sad.

It simply feels wrong that we were able to make it happen and couldn't figure
out a way to make it sustainable in all this time.

~~~
switch007
Rich people got to fly quicker than they needed to and it was created with
public tax money, to the tune of over a billion pounds. If Concorde wasn't the
poster child of excess, I don't know what was.

Thank heavens we soon discovered we were destroying the planet and
environmentalism became a thing.

~~~
gambiting
Are you saying that it was a bad thing they tried to make it a reality?

~~~
switch007
No. I think it was an outstanding achievement. I'm proud it was (partly) a
British creation. It was an engineering marvel.

But was my summary inaccurate?

I find endless applauding of its greatness tough to stomach when it was just a
mode of transport for the mega rich and given how much it cost.

------
fedvasu
Not trying to play the authority card, but I am an Aerospace Engineer by
training. First thing first Concorde was a marvel of engineering and quite a
bit ahead of time as someone mentioned in the comments below it ultimately
boils down to economics, per-flight cost was enormous. Concorde effectively
gave a 6-hr gain on Trans-Atlantic flight. You need to spend a lot of fuel to
fly supersonic , even Concorde had an optimal sub-sonic cruise-point around
Mach-0.98. And It was allowed to fly supersonic only over uninhabited areas
(read Oceans).If you google around specific-fuel consumption charts for
various types of engines against mach number you'll know what I mean.(Also try
to search for specific Impulse characteristics for a feel for efficiency over
a mach number range)

------
chiph
Dad got to fly Concorde one time - he was trapped in Paris by a strike against
Air France. The business associate he was visiting went to the counter and
started yelling at the Air France attendant. In order to "make the problem go
away", the Air France guy gave dad the very last ticket on the Concorde.

He said the interior was cramped, but the food was amazing and watching the
Mach number climb past 1.0 was phenomenal.

------
DanBC
People are involved in more interesting things, such as silent flying for
passenger planes.

This would have a dramatic effect. People hate planes and airports because of
noise[1] so having very quiet aircraft would reduce opposition and allow
longer operating hours for airports.

([http://silentaircraft.org/](http://silentaircraft.org/))

[1] among other reasons.

~~~
rdl
I'd be ok with even really mundane things -- great video on demand, Internet
access, and a marginally more comfortable seat (Economy Plus or old style
business class) would be worth more to me on most flights vs. a faster
journey. There are even routes where if I could get a real bed onboard and a
shower _at the airport in arrivals_ (so, cheap), I'd take twice as long a
flight (turning a late night flight into a true redeye).

Being productive onboard and immediately on arrival (which, for domestic
routes, is actually more about the airport than the aircraft) would make up
for a lot.

------
stcredzero
_> “Trying to change a law to allow very, very rich people to go a lot faster
than less rich people over the same airspace—it’s not the easiest one to
justify,”_

But it's very likely that the price will be paid for the representatives to
vote for it. I could see it being rolled into a bill meant to eliminate some
red tape for commercial space entrepreneurs. (And tha would be a good thing n
the whole.)

EDIT: Fuel costs made the Concorde uneconomical. Is there a way we can
eventually get around this? What about using beamed power to launch vehicles
above the atmosphere on ballistic trajectories? There would be tremendous
infrastructure and R&D costs up front, but eventually, such a system would
blow way aircraft for very high speed personnel and package transport over
long distances.

------
Keyframe
Reportedly, supersonic transport also has an effect on the ozone layer - which
might have something to do with it too.

------
digikata
I've been anticipating companies like Virgin Galactic would prove out hardware
& know-how with sub-orbital tourist trips, then move on to sub-orbital travel
legs. That possibility seems nearer term than Skylon.

~~~
snowwrestler
That is the expressed goal of the Scaled Composites "Tier Three" platform,
which is what will follow the Virgin Galactic platform, which is Tier Two.
(Tier One was the X Prize platform.)

------
elchief
[Musk] elaborated just a tiny bit on his future plans to build a “Hyperloop”
that would be a “cross between a Concorde and a railgun and an air hockey
table”.

There ya go.

------
moocowduckquack
The Skylon is not in the same bracket as Concorde. Concorde was largely an
expensive route between London and New York, not an attempt to lower the costs
to orbit, the economics of the situation are completely different.

If the Sabre engine does ever get used on a passenger plane, it will not be
until after it has proven itself at getting into space, as getting into space
is the job it is designed for.

~~~
supergauntlet
The SABRE's primary goal seems to be to get an SSTO (single-stage-to-orbit)
into space. Anything else looks secondary.

~~~
moocowduckquack
There is the Lapcat
[http://www.reactionengines.co.uk/lapcat.html](http://www.reactionengines.co.uk/lapcat.html)
which would be comparable to Concorde and uses a Sabre variant called
Scimitar, however the article never mentions it.

Personally I think whoever wrote the article did almost no research and just
conflated the Skylon and Concorde in their heads, then just wrote down why
what they had imagined did not make any sense without realising that it was
not in fact what was being proposed.

edit - thinking about it, they also only used the mach 5 number in the
article. The Skylon is designed to go five times that fast to get to low earth
orbit, the mach 5 figure is just the speed while air breathing.

~~~
akiselev
Par for the course in science journalism.

