Concorde

"Rob K" wrote in message
I cant help but wonder what comes after Concorde. Is that really it for
civilian supersonic travel? Surely all those in the fortunate position of
being able to afford it will still want/need a 3hr flight across the
Atlantic.

flying across to Europe from California once in a while, my take is that
I don't think getting faster aircraft is going to make much of a difference:
a significantly higher amount of time (and disconfort) could be saved by
improving the airports and routings.

I do not have the foggiest idea what needs to be done mind you, but on a
recent flight from San Jose (California) to Geneva (Switzerland), it
took 26 hours from the time I stepped in the starting point airport to
the time when I stepped out of the destination one (i.e., I am not
even counting the time to get to/from these airports which
would add an additional couple of hours); no major delays or problem, but
for some reasons, it stopped via two intermediate airports on its way and
that was enough; much worse delays are not uncommon; had the aircraft
flown twice as fast, it would have saved an insignificant amount of that
time overall, hardly worth bothering with faster aircraft; I am not
convinced that bigger aircraft is the answer either, it is painful enough
to wait for a couple hundred passengers and their luggages to be screened
by security, multiple times, loaded and unloaded, and screened again
by custom at the destination; I don't even want to think about standing
in line with another seven or eight hundred fallow passengers enroute via
the same flight (seems this is the kind of figure the latest Airbus
project is aiming for...);

I reckon that what saved time when flying Concorde was not much the
speed of the thing, but the fact that (i) all passengers were flying
first class (with the more expeditious handling that it affords) and (ii)
that only a small number of them could fit in the thing.

--Sylvain

In article ,
(Sylvain) writes:

flying across to Europe from California once in a while, my take is that
I don't think getting faster aircraft is going to make much of a difference:
a significantly higher amount of time (and disconfort) could be saved by
improving the airports and routings.

This reality is what doomed the "sonic cruiser" which would have been less than
15% faster than conventional airliners. Under the hub & spoke concept of air
travel these days, there are relatively few trip where a passenger spends more
time in the airplane than they spend in, or getting to-from terminals.

John

"Richard Thomas" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 24 Oct 2003 21:28:22 GMT, "Chuck" wrote:



At what point do they raise or lower the nose?



Being as it is a European aircraft, the nose is always raised upon
entering US airspace.


Big

Rich

Whew! Good one! haha