Talk:Concorde

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Old talk moved to Talk:Concorde/archive

I am writing a paper on the economical and political atmosphere surrounding the Concorde over the next few weeks, shall i post it to the article when I'm done? --Qleem 03:27, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I am going to remove the word "perceived" from the phrase "perceived environmental issues such as sonic boom noise and ozone depletion in the stratosphere". These issues are well-documented effects.

Regarding ozone depletion, studies of atmospheric chemistry have shown that oxides of nitrogen, a component in aircraft emissions, enhance the catalytic destruction of ozone, both in the gas phase and in combination with polar stratospheric clouds (See Ozone depletion). If these gases are emitted in the upper troposphere (as with subsonic aircraft), they are generally dissolved in cloud water and fall as (acid) rain rather than entering the stratosphere. If they are emitted directly into the stratosphere (as was often the case with Concorde due to its greater cruise height), there is no precipitation from these altitudes to wash out the pollutants, which instead come much more readily into contact with ozone. In the event that a large fleet of supersonic aircraft had been built, the effects on ozone could have been substantial.

There may be different POV regarding the relative importance of environmental issues versus other considerations. However, the fact that supersonic aircraft do have the stated environmental side-effects is well established, and it is unfair to represent the matter as merely "perceived".

--Trainspotter 13:59 12 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Was ozone depletion a factor in the order cancellations? I thought this only came to public knowledge much later, in the 80s. And if the public didn't know, I don't see it influencing the politicians and airline bosses. Andy G 02:22, 12 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I agree with you, in that I rather doubt it was a major motivating factor. But given what we now know, the outcome was just as well. --Trainspotter 10:59, 22 Oct 2003 (UTC)

The Aerospatiale-BAC Concorde supersonic transport (SST) was the only supersonic passenger airliner that has ever seen commercial service.

This disagrees with the Tupolev Tu-144 page, which states that that airplane had about 6 months of commercial service before flights were halted. Which is true? Tempshill 17:50, 24 Oct 2003 (UTC)

The TU-144 did indeed carry passengers, at least according to the official Soviet history, but then how do you define "commercial" flight in a communist country? Lee M 01:31, 25 Oct 2003 (UTC)

The passengers have to pay for the flight.

Ericd 03:13, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)

My understanding is that the Tu-144's commercial service was not supersonic, so perhaps that could be the differentiator. "The Aerospatiale-BAC Concorde was the only passenger airliner with scheduled supersonic services." Markonen 09:53, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Morven's "21:35, 6 Nov 2003" apepars to have revereted many previous edits...

• Accidentally -- I either edited an old revision by mistake or hit a bug that did the same. The only change I intended was to the Christie's auction date. I have re-added any textual changes I inadvertently made that have not since been re-added by someone else, I think. Please check and be sure. --Morven 01:18, 11 Nov 2003 (UTC)
  • Belatedly, thank you. Andy Mabbett 17:28, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)

The new text under "political impacts" seems very PoV to me. Andy Mabbett 17:28, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Copying this to here so we can all work on it and improve it a bit more:

The last ever flight of a Concorde, 26th November 2003. In this picture the aircraft (G-BOAF), with its Bristol Olympus engines at low power, droop-tip nose lowered for better visibility by the highly trained and experienced flightcrew (who are all qualified pilots, except for the cabin staff, of course), "no smoking" sign switched on, and undercarriage lowered, is only a few seconds from landing at the British Aerospace (Filton, Bristol) runway from which she first flew in 1969.

There. That's much better. Tannin 05:25, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Brilliant satire! Thanks for your highly humorous support of my pic (Concorde) and caption, I got such a laugh on a grey drizzly UK day (only 3 days to the start of Winter). Please be aware that Winter is the season following Autumn, is followed by Spring and is the only word precisely describing the season "Winter" that starts with a W and ends with an R.

Whether our friend will let the nonsense "undercarriage" bit of the caption remain reverted I shall await with interest.

Adrian Pingstone 09:22, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Tony,with undercarriage lowered is back again! I have better things to do than point out how childish this addition is so I'll let the matter rest. Thanks for your input but now I'm off to carry on illustrating astronomy articles.

Adrian Pingstone 11:01, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Tony, I can't resist one more comment .....

this Pigsonthewing is a nuisance. I wrote a pretty decent caption which now sounds childish. This person has to inform the reader that landing aircraft have their undercarriages down. Wow!! what a vital piece of knowledge. I'm sorry you've bumped into this nonsense immediately after your holiday. I now intend to opt out of this, let it ride and maybe one day he'll understand how daft his addition is.

Adrian Pingstone 21:10, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Yeah. But what can you do? Some things you just have to shrug your shoulders and move on. Note the complete lack of response to my contribution here on the talk page. I'm half tempted to substitute the caption above and at right, but I see that it fails to mention the landing lights. Clearly not detailed enough for those "not familar with aircraft". Tannin 21:25, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)

The caption's way too long anyway. Why not buzz-cut it down to size? Dysprosia 12:42, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)

The flight date is important, but it's been noted in the paragraph directly above. Should it be removed to eliminate redundancy? Dysprosia 14:54, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Valid point, but I don't think it will be obvious to the reader that the date in the para and the photo below it are the same event(IMHO). In any case someone may one day shift that picture to somewhere else in the article so that its no longer near that para. No, I'm sure the date should stay (please!)

Adrian Pingstone 15:09, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Could somebody add a discussion about the economics of the Concorde? How much did it cost to fly it, compared to other non-supersonic commercial planes? How much did the tickets cost, and were the ticket sales enough to cover the costs of flying? What type of person flew on the Concorde?

Vote - should "undercarriage" be mentioned in the first caption?

No

1. mav (it is needless jargon and captions should be simple and to the point)
2. Adrian Pingstone Needless information since all aircraft land with their undercarriages down. Also makes the caption look amateur.
3. Morven Unnecessary to mention it, makes the caption too long.
4. Tannin What Mav, Adrian and Morven already said. The consensus is clear, and this reversion mania has gone on far too long already. Please, PotW, this is absurd, Stop now before this causes further grief and corrective action.
5. MorioriThis doesn't only make the caption look amateur, it makes Wikipedia look amateur. What a shame.
6. Antonio Body Seller Martin Like, show me another argument similar to this one. Basic and simple: no.
7. Daniel Quinlan The caption should even be shorter than that. There is no point and little style in putting lengthy information in an image caption that is already in the text in greater detail (where it belongs). I have shorted the caption to a reasonable length (it could even be shorter) and also made a few other minor edits.
8. --FvdP. The difference is not that big, but I too prefer the simpler version. The mention of undercarriages is redundant both with the image and with the context of a landing.

Yes

PigsontheWing has continued to flout both common sense and consensus here, and it seems, utterly without shame or explanation. I believe that the time has come to consider what disciplinary action is most appropriate in this case. Tannin 07:33, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I agree. This is rather trivial, but given that his captionizing is both tacky and goes against the consensus achieved above, I'm going to start reverting changes that reintroduce the undesired caption (or similar). I hope it does not prove necessary for me to request that someone protect the page. Daniel Quinlan 20:37, Dec 2, 2003 (UTC)

I've protected it. I'll unprotect after you've all slept on it. Secretlondon 20:56, Dec 2, 2003 (UTC)

I really like the current caption ....

"The last flight lands at Filton, November 26, 2003"

I hope we can settle on that one.

Adrian Pingstone 09:34, 3 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I agree. Tannin 11:15, 3 Dec 2003 (UTC)

The last Concorde flight lands at Filton, November 26, 2003? Or is that a little redundant? Just reads nicer for me. Dysprosia 11:17, 3 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Dysprosia, the date is really important because my pic is not just any Concorde flight, it's the last in history. So the date tells the reader when supersonic passenger flight ended. I know it's in the text somewhere but I believe the pic caption should also be properly informative. It's a very brief caption so you can't claim it's too wordy!

Adrian Pingstone 13:08, 3 Dec 2003 (UTC)

He was talking about the word 'Concorde' in the caption though, not the date. :-). Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 10:07, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Sorry, I misunderstood. Concorde in or out, I don't mind!

Adrian Pingstone 16:06, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I got no beef with you Daniel :) You can leave it out. Dysprosia 06:07, 5 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I just noticed that this contradicts the Air France Flight 4590 article. In the Paris Crash section this article says 5 people on the ground were killed, on the flight 4590 page it says 4. Fabiform 14:43, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Correct number is 4. I have made the modification. Redux 02:17, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

£1 each?

That same day Sir Richard Branson offered to buy British Airways' Concordes for £1 each for service with his Virgin Atlantic Airways, but was refused.

Is this a typo, or a joke? If he actually made this offer, perhaps it'd be good to explain whether/why he expected them to take it seriously. -- Wapcaplet 21:07, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

£1 was the original price that BA paid for the Concordes. This was noted in the "Origins" section although you had to wade through some dense text to get to it. I added another note in the article. - Sekicho 22:12, Oct 21, 2004 (UTC)

Oshkosh Airshow

Something should be said about the concorde going to the Oshkosh Airshow. I am working on collecting information on when the plane has visted the show.MpegMan 03:15, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Congress ban

The U.S. Congress had just banned Concorde landings in the US, mainly due to citizen protest over sonic booms, preventing launch on the coveted transatlantic routes.

Citizen protest or the special interests of the US airline industry? When does Congress usually legislate for popular outcries? Timrollpickering 12:34, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

World Trade Center reference

I suspect the Concorde's all first-class clientel was especially hard hit; many of their "regulars" were either in the towers, or their bosses were. in the Withdrawal from Service section is probably unsubstantiated. Any comments? Barneyboo 01:32, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Seems like pure speculation. Removed - please reinsert if it can be substantiated. -- Egil 08:29, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Cruising speed?

The following was entered recently:

mach 2.2 'sweet spot' for optimum fuel consumption (supersonic drag minimum, whilst jet engines more efficient at high speed)

The cruising speed is specified as Mach 2.0, so something is wrong. I've removed the above statement - please reinsert if it can be substantiated (with an upper case M). -- Egil 08:29, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I got the sweet spot from a talk by a concorde pilot. Please don't remove stuff arbitrarily- you took away more than you needed to. The American SST went for a higher speed, and then the efficiency went down and range suffered. The Cd factor curve typically is minimised at about mach 0.85 (subsonic airliner speed) and then goes way up transonically it maxes out at about mach 1, and then drops off from there on. But it never goes below the drag at mach 0.85. However the engines gain efficiency with increased ram effect, and the Isp goes up which compensates; so it's reasonably efficient at that 2.04. Additionally, if they had gone any faster the skin would have become too hot for aluminum- it starts losing it strength, and then they would have had to use titanium or something expensive, or steel which is heavier, which requires more fuel etc. etc. Concorde's performance really did sit in a sweet spot; Concorde has been refered to as 'a point design'- it works great at one particular speed only.WolfKeeper