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November 28, 2003
The Concord (in principle) is not done,
percieved "national attitude" notwithstanding.
It's timing was bad among other world
events. Had times been good and/or had
they been able in enlarge it (more passengers) or develop a more fuel
efficient engine(s) for it (R&D costs at
a time when there was no money?), the
larger capacity or more fuel efficient
versions would be flying today.
OTOP ("paw" - obligatory cat content, Guy Weller...I caught that "chock"
comment, fella....watch it!!:)....
"today" , we have email and electronic conferencing.
You can see how circumstances combined against supersonic international
global flight world-wide. At the same time,
we in the States "deregulated" and faced
an "aviation mass transit" problem. We
suddenly needed "capacity", not speed.
We needed larger busses, smaller
busses and a LOT more of them...40,000
plus flights a day at it's peak prior to
"9/11". Every small town airport became
part of a hub and spoke arrangement and
regional (commuter) airlines (small
turboprops and more recently, small jet
airliners) originated and grew (and I was
part of this). Suddenly everyone could afford to fly...they came out of
the wood-
work in droves!! I loved them for without
them....maybe "NO SOUP FOR
BOB"!! :(
So, while we WERE looking at an SST (along with Britain/France and the
USSR)
"de-regulation" hit the US and our priorities changed. Fuel was still
cheap at
the time. There was no OPEC and
subsequent "fair trade" or artitficial pricing
of oil at that time (which also brought
reduced profit margins, BTW!)
So Britain/France had this to themselves
and it would have done just fine..... flourished, grown, larger capacity
models, more fuel efficient engines through well financed R&D, etc.
Then OPEC hit. And "basic power" rose
3-400% "overnight". End of story for a
fine idea and a fine airplane....but
methinks...temporarily???
Cap'n. Bob
'60 :{)
PilotRob@... 27040
Posted on November 28, 2003 07:59 AM
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