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#21
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"Dave Stadt" wrote in message
... It takes $$$$$$$ to keep airplanes flying not petitions. Richard Branson of Virgin Airlines offered to keep them flying and was turned down. Even if he couldn't keep them in service, he was willing to keep one or two flying with a £1 million trust fund... and was still turned down. This was over 6 months ago. Eric |
#22
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The planes airworthiness certificate relies upon the manufacturer to support
it. They have stated their refusal to do that. The many spitfires etc, flying around use very basic (1930's) technology and are no more difficult to keep in the air logistically than a cessna or piper - more expensive though! Concorde is a huge leap in technology and the cost of maintaining just one would far outweigh the income it could derive from shows. Without it's certificate, it can never carry passengers. Besides, many of the museums are building special halls to accomodate concorde, do you think they'll let it go out for a run whenever it wants? I would love to see one flying, but be realistic, it's not going to happen. :-( John "Paul Sengupta" wrote in message ... "David Wright" wrote in message ... And, isn't it a case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted? All the Concorde's have gone, or are going, to their new static homes - there isn't a Concorde left to fly is there?? Well, they've (mostly) flown there and been put in a hangar. They haven't been taken apart or anything like that as far as I know. Ignoring the legalities, I would guess you could, for example, bring AF out of the hangar at Filton, fuel it up and fly it tomorrow. Or today even... :-) Maybe they've drained the oil, don't know... One of them (AB?) is still at Heathrow, standing out on the tarmac. This one hasn't had the kevlar liners put in the fuel tanks. By the way, we (at Brooklands museum) hope to get BBDG in March or maybe April. http://www.concordesst.com/ Paul |
#23
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"John Bishop" wrote in message ... The planes airworthiness certificate relies upon the manufacturer to support it. They have stated their refusal to do that. The many spitfires etc, flying around use very basic (1930's) technology and are no more difficult to keep in the air logistically than a cessna or piper - more expensive though! Concorde is a huge leap in technology and the cost of maintaining just one would far outweigh the income it could derive from shows. Without it's certificate, it can never carry passengers. Besides, many of the museums are building special halls to accomodate concorde, do you think they'll let it go out for a run whenever it wants? I would love to see one flying, but be realistic, it's not going to happen. :-( John I would rather see the money spent on the flyable restoration of a fleet of historic planes than to keep one Concorde in the air. In the overall scheme of things the Concorde does not hold a significant spot in aviation history. |
#24
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On Mon, 02 Feb 2004 22:40:09 +0000, Eric Miller wrote:
"Dave Stadt" wrote in message ... It takes $$$$$$$ to keep airplanes flying not petitions. Richard Branson of Virgin Airlines offered to keep them flying and was turned down. Even if he couldn't keep them in service, he was willing to keep one or two flying with a £1 million trust fund... and was still turned down. This was over 6 months ago. Eric Not really. Richard Branson used the Concorde retirement for his own ends in another one of his publicity seeking exercises and to score points over his old enemy BA. He knew that it was not feasible to keep them flying and he knew that hell would freeze over before BA handed over those planes to him. But still he stole the opportunity to appear on TV and proclaim himself as the savior of Concorde. And anyway, £1M isn't a lot when it comes to keeping something as complex as that in the air, even for a few airshow appearances. K |
#25
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Sla#s wrote: I think when we are down to the last serviceable machine of historic type it should be grounded! Fine, then let's keep two of them flying. George Patterson Love, n.: A form of temporary insanity afflicting the young. It is curable either by marriage or by removal of the afflicted from the circumstances under which he incurred the condition. It is sometimes fatal, but more often to the physician than to the patient. |
#26
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I agree with your first point, but you couldn't be more wrong on the second.
concorde was a fantastic achievement, and if you compare the cost of modern fighter jets, not that expensive. It's like F1 racing cars, they might cost a fortune, but many new ideas are developed on these cars that are later in everyday use by the rest of us. Concorde was no different. John "Dave Stadt" wrote in message . .. "John Bishop" wrote in message ... The planes airworthiness certificate relies upon the manufacturer to support it. They have stated their refusal to do that. The many spitfires etc, flying around use very basic (1930's) technology and are no more difficult to keep in the air logistically than a cessna or piper - more expensive though! Concorde is a huge leap in technology and the cost of maintaining just one would far outweigh the income it could derive from shows. Without it's certificate, it can never carry passengers. Besides, many of the museums are building special halls to accomodate concorde, do you think they'll let it go out for a run whenever it wants? I would love to see one flying, but be realistic, it's not going to happen. :-( John I would rather see the money spent on the flyable restoration of a fleet of historic planes than to keep one Concorde in the air. In the overall scheme of things the Concorde does not hold a significant spot in aviation history. |
#27
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"Paul Sengupta" wrote in message
... Don't know if you know about this, but the petition to keep Concorde flying is going to change. The emphasis is now going to be on keeping one airworthy to be used at airshows, etc. It's a valiant attempt, and just in case a miracle should happen I've signed the petition, but I fear that it's simply not realistic to try to keep a Concorde flying. In its favour, Concorde is a very low-hours aircraft. Although it's been flying for 30-odd years, it's so fast that it never actually flew for very long on any one trip, and so when compared to a B747 of similar age, the fatigue hour count is low. It's also a collection of some of the most inspired engineering to be found anywhere in the world, by which I mean things like the engine technology and the aerodynamics. Oh, and it's the most inspiring passenger airliner to watch - even experienced airline captains admit to getting a thrill seeing it take off as they sit in the queue for the runway at Heathrow, JFK, etc. Unfortunately, this is about all that it has going for it. It's expensive to run, it's as noisy as hell, and in the current climate of dwindling ticket sales, I don't think BA really had a lot of choice but to withdraw it. I was as cynical as the next person when the announcement to withdraw Concorde was made - the machine is part of Britain's heritage and I agree that's a crying shame that nobody will see one fly again. It would appear, though, that the reasons were perfectly logical, it's just that none of the mainstream media actually bothered to report the facts as they stood. For instance, I wondered why Air France withdrew its aircraft last spring, while BA hung on until the autumn. It would appear, in fact, that the contract between Air France and BA by which each airline paid half of the maintenance contract with the manufacturer expired at the end of the autumn - so while Air France decided to stop immediately and save cash on a money-losing enterprise, BA at least knew that AF would be contributing to their maintenance costs. They also knew darned well that they could capitalise on the "book now for the last few flights" market, and hence they kept it going until the maintenance contract ran out. I was also cynical about whether BA's reason for withdrawing really was because they couldn't make money on it any more, but having seen people like Mike Bannister (senior Concorde captain) state that this really was the case, I'm willing to accept that this may be the case. The Richard Branson thing was also a red herring, I reckon. I have a great deal of respect for Sir Richard (he may act like a muppet, but he's happy, he's loaded and he's a knight of the realm, so he must be doing something right), but one of the ways he's made the Virgin name so widely known is his innate ability to get into the public eye with schemes that aren't necessarily realistic. I do wish he'd been able to put together a decent case for taking over the Concorde fleet, but I really don't think that as a hard-nosed businessman it would be possible to do so - remember, even if the costs remained the same as they had within BA, the maintenance fees would have doubled because he wouldn't have been sharing the bill with Air France. To make a profitable Concorde operation would probably have taken tens (maybe even hundreds) of millions of pounds, and no sensible finance director would ever sign up to it. All this said, though, there are two questions that do remain unanswered. 1. C of A I read reports that the reason the aircraft was being withdrawn was because the manufacturers were withdrawing its Certificate of Airworthiness. This struck me as odd, (a) because it's the CAA/JAA that issues the C of A, not the manufacturer, and (b) one would assume that even though it's an expensive aircraft to maintain, the manufacturer would have been more than happy to maintain it for any airline willing to pay the bills. 2. BA's right to decommission Exactly what was the agreement between the British government and BA when the latter was privatised? From what I understand, the aircraft were sold to BA for a nominal sum (£1 each or thereabouts) - but what were the conditions of this sale? Were BA obliged to keep flying the thing for a given time, for instance, or could they have decommissioned them the day after privatisation if they'd deemed them too expensive to fly? And was there any clause in there that stated that if they stopped flying them, they were to revert to public ownership? Because if not, there should have been. D. |
#28
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On Tue, 03 Feb 2004 11:31:23 +0000, Peter
wrote: "David Cartwright" wrote: 1. C of A I read reports that the reason the aircraft was being withdrawn was because the manufacturers were withdrawing its Certificate of Airworthiness. This struck me as odd, (a) because it's the CAA/JAA that issues the C of A, not the manufacturer, and (b) one would assume that even though it's an expensive aircraft to maintain, the manufacturer would have been more than happy to maintain it for any airline willing to pay the bills. Airbus wanted to withdraw the Type Certificate (in other words, their support for the aircraft), without which the PTCoA could not be maintained. |
#29
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One of the interesting facts is that the chief pilot for BA has more
supersonic stick time than all of the fighter pilots of all of the airforces of the world added together... The speed birds are indeed a magnificant technological triumph... Unfortunately, they are not economic to keep flying and cash strapped socialist governments lack the will to build the next generation of birds... And it appears that the USA is not going to build an SST in the forseeable future... So, like the moon program, we in the USA are back to pondering past glory hum Springsteen's Glory Days as we slowly slide into the socialist quagmire of ever increasing entitlement programs that suck the country dry and leave no money, or will, to advance into the future... A whimper not a bang... denny |
#30
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"G.R. Patterson III" wrote in message ... Sla#s wrote: I think when we are down to the last serviceable machine of historic type it should be grounded! Fine, then let's keep two of them flying. Cost of keeping two Concordes flying - millions per annum. Or - OK and when one crashes ground the other! Slatts |
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