WI Concorde was ready earlier?

I don't know if this has been done before. WI the Concorde was in production in 1970 or '71, before the oil crisis of 1973? IOTL with production starting after the arse fell out of the global economy only a handful were made and only London & Paris NY routes were profitable. But what if over 100 or so were delivered before the oil crisis dried up the market? Could it be made to work, perhaps in the Aisan 'tiger' economies and US west coast or the oil rich ME? Or would the price of fuel mean that airlines which bought them would mothball them regardless?

Concorde was too small to be economical and ran too loud, those was its biggest failures.

They needed it to be quieter and carry more passengers in order for it to be ultimately successful. The better bet for supersonic flight would be the Boeing 2707, only it would need to be large enough to carry 350-400 passengers.

When Nixon killed the 2707 project, Boeing lost 115 orders for it - and it nearly killed them. Mention Nixon around here and the killing of the 2707 makes people screaming mad.

IMO the main problem was the refusal of other countries to allow it to fly supersonically over their territory.

IIRC Concorde was economically competitive with larger aircraft at the time because although it had half as many passengers it flew more than twice as quickly, so it could fly (approx) twice as many sectors in the same amount of time.

Without being allowed to fly supersonically over land, it wasn't economic - until British Airways thought of running it as a super-premium service. Then it made money hand over fist for them, especially as their other premium classes also benefitted from a halo effect.

I don't know whether it was true of not, but there was a strong feeling in the British aircraft industry at the time that the Americans were jealous because their project had failed and so they thought up the 'sonic boom problem' out of spite.

As Shimbo says, the problem is with the regulations of various countries governing supersonic flight.

Concorde was actually used for a few years on the London-Singapore route but the service was stopped after Malaysia and India introduced such regulations.

I'm actually surprised that it was never used on the trans-Pacific Singapore/HK-Tokyo-LA/SFO route. That, like the transatlantic route would seem to be a logical route for Concorde as it would be able to go supersonic for most of the flight.

Flocculencio said:

As says, the problem is with the regulations of various countries governing supersonic flight.

Concorde was actually used for a few years on the London-Singapore route but the service was stopped after Malaysia and India introduced such regulations.

I'm actually surprised that it was never used on the trans-Pacific Singapore/HK-Tokyo-LA/SFO route. That, like the transatlantic route would seem to be a logical route for Concorde as it would be able to go supersonic for most of the flight.

Click to expand...

Once again when that was suggested potential competitors put every possible regulation on any aspect of operations in the way to stop it from happening. Unfortunately I think Shimbo is correct when he suggests other manufacturers and operators did not want Concord to succeed.

As probably the only member off this forum who has both flown in and worked on Concorde, hers my two bobs worth.

Concorde was to high speed commercial flight, what the Comet 1 was to jet powered commercial flight, a nice first try but not the answer.

She was far too small, at 6’3’’ when I sat in the window seat; I had my head cocked to one side at all times. There wasn’t much room between you and the seat in-front, which meant that you were having a tray services like in economy, but paying more then you do in first. So even though the food and drinks were stunning, they were only doing about 250 covers a day, the feeling of luxury just wasn’t there.

To work on she was a bitch, the forward hold was so small that the only way I could work in it was to lay on my side, not fun when you are stacking bags. Also she was very tip sensitive, there was a strict order off loading, or she would sit on her tail. I have seen it get close to doing this; we ended up with a large number of ground staff standing in the cockpit area to stop her going over. The nose wheel was just beginning to turn on its own, as she was on the point off tip.

The engines drank fuel like there was no tomorrow, and if she had to cross a sub-sonic speed it was very hard for her not to need refueling to make it to London, she lacked legs as we say.

Had there been a follow up, same speed, twice or more the capacity, and double the range, cut fuel consumption by 30%, and the engine noise by about the same, all do able. Then you would have had a real going concern, as it was 9/11 was the nail in the coffin off the old girl, that day killed off the top 100 passengers for the lady, and with that she died.

Do I miss her you bet, she was beautiful to look at, better in the air than on the ground. Her undercarriage always made her look slightly ungainly on the deck. But just knowing we had her and the yanks didn’t, well I made you feel proud. When we were still in Terminal 3, and surrounded by other airlines, unlike in 4. You would see large number of foreign pilots just hanging around her to have a look, their faces green with envy, especially the Pan-Am and TWA boys. I know showing my age there, but they were the American airlines in those days. And none off this dam security, you could pop over the arrivals bar and get a tray of beers and bring them back out to the ramp, nice on a hot summer evening. Are the good old days, when most off the pilots could tell tales off night time trips to Berlin, drop off ten tons off load and back for breakfast.


Regards RR.

Flocculencio said:

I'm actually surprised that it was never used on the trans-Pacific Singapore/HK-Tokyo-LA/SFO route. That, like the transatlantic route would seem to be a logical route for Concorde as it would be able to go supersonic for most of the flight.

Click to expand...

I'm not sure, but weren't there range problems with the Tokyo-LA route? Otherwise, yes that would have been an ideal route.