In article ,
Pooh Bear writes:
Peter Stickney wrote:

In article ,
Pooh Bear writes:

wrote:

One wonders if the Concorde would have been such an economic loser
if they had focused more on the long haul Pacific routes and less on
the Atlantic though national pride and regs probably wouldn't allow the
hubs to be SF and LA instead of London and Paris.

BA actually made good money on Concorde for a significant number of years -
hence why they were keen to get it fixed and re-introduced after the Paris
crash. They had the interiors refitted too.Of course 9/11 had reduced passenger
numbers by the time it was back in service.

The made money on it - only after the R&D and production funds were
written off by the Government, and British Airways was basically made
a gisft of them. They made enough out of them to pay the operating
costs, but nowhere near enough to cover development and construction.

Agreed, but that wasn't their problem.

Actually, I'd say that it is. In the Real World, it still costs money
to develop and produce something. That money gets paid out no matter
what. If you can't make it back, its a net loss of resources.
Now, I suppose that you could subscribe to the delusion that
Government Money isn't really money, and so doesn't matter, but even
the most Ardent Socialist would agree that it is a marker for
resources spent that could have been spent otherwise. How many Dog
Shelters in Battersea, or Labour Exchanges in East Acton could have
been supported with the dosh that was dumped into Concorde?

It was a political decision by the British and French governments to design and build
the plane.

Concordes were 'forced' on their national airlines when no-one else would buy them
after the oil price hikes of the 70s - never mind environmental 'issues'.

Actually, the bottom fell out of Concorde orders in the late '60s,
before the oil proce hikes. Concorde was too limited. There was no
growth in the airframe, and its operating economics were miserable by
even 1960s standards, let alone amortizing R&D.
But then again, it had been so long since the British Aviation
Industry as a whole had actually sold enough airliners to amortize R&D
that I wonder if they realized that they could. (The only airliners to
make money for theri manufacturers were the Viscount and the BAC 1-11.
(Well, the COmet IV may have, as well) Everythig else - Vikings,
Ambassadors, Heralds, Britannias, Vanguards, VC.10s - (And those are
only ht eones that made it into production) all ended up as losers,
economically.


As for the Pacific routes - no way. Not with a Concorde sized and
performance airframe.

Pax capacity was never going to be realistic for more general use.

Passenger capacity has nothing to do with it, other than being the
airplane's reason for existing. The real problems are fuel capacity
and performance. Concorde didn't have any reserves available that
could be diverted to either. Over the COncorde's career, there were
enough such emergencies that there would have been at least 5 or 6
losses, in this context.

The Pacific stage lengths are much too long.

Uhuh.

Without a doubt, for revenue service. An inflight emergency on the
San Fran-Hawaii leg would have meant a lost airplane due to fuel
exhaustion, in most cases. Plus, even the shorter legs are still
damned long - Even if you duplicated the route of the Pan Am flying
boats - San Francisco-Honolulu-Midway-Wake-Manila-Hong Kong -
it's still unworkable wrt safety, and the stops would have added
tremendously to the travel time, annoyed the passengers, and shortened
the life of the airframes.

Concorde's range was marginal for the North Atlantic run, especially
if you consider an emergency that requires deceleration to subsonic
speed. (A Concorde's subsonic ceiling is below 30,000'. Fuel economy
at those heights, for that airplane, stink on ice. The only way it
was allowed for the Atlantic run with that limitation was becasue on
the Great Circle route from England or France (Yes, England,
Scotland's a bit closer) you're never more than about 800 miles from a
divert airfield.

It worked !

Only over that particular route.

To make the Pacific run, you've got to be able to divert (worst case)
ha;fway between San Francisco and Hawaii - that's on the order of 1300
miles. (IIRC, the California-Honolulu leg is the longest single
stage on the planet.) That would have required something like the
Boeing 2707, or its Lockheed competitor (L-1000?) Those were much
bigger than Concorde - about 4 times the size, and 3 times th
epassenger capacity. And, it should be pointed out, also a far more
expensive proposition.

Would BA or AF have been even allowed rights to operate Pacific routes though?

They would have had to have been able to demonstrate that they could
fly the routes with a proper safety margin, first. It would have been
possible, but embarassing, to stage Concordes across the U.S., if you
wanted to run a through service from, say, London to Tokyo. BA and
Braniff had an arrangement where Braniff flew a Concorde service to
Florida from New York, ocerland. The U.S. (or Canadian) legs would
have had to be subsonic, of course, and teh Concorde's low subsonic
ceiling (Nothing you can do about that, either) hamstrung it in terms
of range and speed - It's embarassing to by getting on what's supposed
to be the World's Fastest Airliner, and having every 727 or DC-9 beat
you from New York to LA or SFO.

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster