Is this too mellow?
 

"Bob Latham" wrote

I remember the event as it was of relative importance to me. However,
trawling the web to prove it to you isn't I'm afraid, so I'll let you do
your own research or believe as you wish.


I'm quite happy to believe that Richard Branson made the offer to buy the
fleet at the nominal price that BA paid for them in the first place. Branson
always liked courting publicity, and publically making such an offer would
suit his style.

But had the offer been accepted, once the suits at Virgin had done the sums
I'm certain they would have told Branson that it wasn't a viable plan.
Attempting to operate Concorde could easily have driven Virgin into
bankruptcy, and the government would not have stepped in to save it.

In recent years airlines have had to drastically cut costs or gone broke.
There is no way that Concorde operation would have survived such cut-backs.

David.

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"David Looser" wrote in
message
"Bob Latham" wrote

You give a list of reasons why some thought it failed
commercially but not a reason why they had to destroy
them (at least as far as ever flying is concerned) and
that is the tragedy.

Keeping aircraft of that type and vintage in flying
condition is a seriously, and increasingly, expensive
business.

Not so much just the vintage, but also due to the basic costs of operation.

As I recall, when Air France and BA wished to withdraw
them from service Virgin offered to buy them and
continue running them as they believed the wealthy would
pay 'what ever' to fly Concorde. The existing owners
couldn't have that could they? So they destroyed them.

I hadn't heard that about Virgin (can you give a cite?)
but if they beleived that the wealthy would pay
"whatever" the evidence was against them. I suspect what
really happened was that once Virgin had looked at the
business case they withdrew the offer.

Seems like a likely story. Virgin's management seems to be pretty savvy.

All triggered by the blinking French using the wrong
tyres and not looking after their runways.

Since the parts drop was from a flight that took off not that much earlier,
I wouldn't fault the French for not looking after their runways.

Stuff falls off of planes all the time. Building a plane that totally
trashes itself when it runs over a little junk is not the best idea.

5% of all Concordes ever built crashed with all onboard lost. Only the US
space shuttle comes to mind as being a more dangerous aircraft, and it *is*
rocket science.

The Concorde takes at least 4 times more fuel per passenger than a modern
subsonic jet to go the same distance. When it was designed, jet fuel cost
only a tiny fraction of what it costs today.


Alternatively it was the fault of the Americans for not
looking after their aircraft (after all it was an
American plane the debris fell off) and a poor design of
fuel tank.

The Concorde was destined to be uneconomical, and ended up being unsafe as
well. It was only due to heavy subsidies from the French and British
governments that it was ever built, let alone flown. The most commonly
cited dividend is the fledging of Airbus as an aircraft manufacturer. I
don't know if they ever made any money. They probably frced Boeing to run a
tighter operation, potentially saving money for the airlines.

Is this too mellow?
 

"Bob Latham" wrote in message

In article ,
David Looser wrote:

Keeping aircraft of that type and vintage in flying
condition is a seriously, and increasingly, expensive
business.

Can you name anything worthwhile that isn't?

Just about everything that survives over the long haul becomes progressively
cheaper, especially if the effects of inflation are considered.

Is this too mellow?
 

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...
snip
5% of all Concordes ever built crashed with all onboard lost. Only the US
space shuttle comes to mind as being a more dangerous aircraft, and it
*is* rocket science.
\snip

This can also be put "There was only ever, in all of Concorde's 25 year
history, one crash, causing 113 fatalities.".

Sounds much better.

Is this too mellow?
 

"Bob Latham" wrote in message

In article
, Arny
Krueger wrote:
"David Looser" wrote in
message
"Bob Latham" wrote


I hadn't heard that about Virgin (can you give a
cite?) but if they beleived that the wealthy would pay
"whatever" the evidence was against them. I suspect
what really happened was that once Virgin had looked at
the business case they withdrew the offer.

Seems like a likely story. Virgin's management seems to
be pretty savvy.

This isn't a newsgroup its clique.

Can't decode.

Are you lot all holding hands under the desks again?

Paranoid much?

Stuff falls off of planes all the time. Building a plane
that totally trashes itself when it runs over a little
junk is not the best idea.

Sounds like an American jealousy viewpoint to me.

We're jealous because we dodged the "Be the first kid on your block to lose
billions on something that very few people wanted to use, even when heavily
subsidized" bullet?

I'm will to agree with the idea that Americans are a pragmatic lot.

Please remind me why the US is supposed to be jealous of the UK over
*anything*? In general if you've got something good that we want, we can
buy or borrow it from you; and vice-versa. You are doing well and pretty
happy, and so are we. Right?

Having the right tyres would have helped and do you suppose we
cannot find equally inadvisable elements with other
aircraft of the time?

Since both the tires and the fuel tanks cooperated for the disaster, and
both were purpose-built, indicting just one of them doesn't seem to make
sense, but maybe that's just me... ;-)

5% of all Concordes ever built crashed with all onboard
lost. Only the US space shuttle comes to mind as being a
more dangerous aircraft, and it *is* rocket science.

Which is a true but a splendid example of why statistics
can say anything you want them to say including the above
rubbish.

I dunno. The number of vehicles involved and the usage of either seems to
fall outside of the realm of small numbers.

Five space worthy shuttles were built, two failed in use. There have been
about 100 flights. The usage of the shuttle seems to fall outside of the
realm of small numbers. I think it's safe to say that about 40 percent of
the shuttles failed, and that about 2% of all flights failed.

If the plane that crashed had been the only one
built it would have been 100%. I'm shocked that anyone
would raise such a statistic as having any validity, do
you work for the IPCC?

Asked and answered. I have no problem manning up to the above failure
statistics related to the U.S space shuttle effort.

A more sensible and balanced comment would be that fleet
only had 1 fatal accident in all 30(guess) years of its
operation and that was caused by debris from another
plane.

Given the systematic weaknesses of the Concorde, its actual failure rates in
failures per airframe, and failures per flight seem to be relevant.

It is what it was. I've seen it in use at airports and I've seen the one we
have in the Smithsonian, and it is pretty awesome. Its time came and went,
just like any number of other awesome things.

I sense more than a little defensiveness. Is envy over U.S technological and
world political accomplishments a possible cause? Whatever we have, we're
generally happy to sell or lease it, and the UK clearly has the resources to
in general obtain what we have to sell or lease that you want. Where's the
beef?

Is this too mellow?
 

In article , David
wrote:
"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
... snip
5% of all Concordes ever built crashed with all onboard lost. Only the
US space shuttle comes to mind as being a more dangerous aircraft,
and it *is* rocket science.
\snip

This can also be put "There was only ever, in all of Concorde's 25 year
history, one crash, causing 113 fatalities.".

Sounds much better.

Either way, not very reliable as a statistic as the sample is so small.

Slainte,

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
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Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

Is this too mellow?
 

In article , Bob Latham
wrote:
In article , Arny Krueger


Stuff falls off of planes all the time. Building a plane that totally
trashes itself when it runs over a little junk is not the best idea.

Sounds like an American jealousy viewpoint to me. Having the right tyres
would have helped and do you suppose we cannot find equally inadvisable
elements with other aircraft of the time?

I'm more intrigued by the "little junk" claim. Curious to know of evidence
that all other planes would have survived the same bit of "junk" hitting
them in the same way in the same circumstances.

I'd assumed that the point of having people check and clear runways was
precisely to prevent such "junk" and the accidents they might cause.

Slainte,

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

Is this too mellow?
 

Arny Krueger wrote:

Please remind me why the US is supposed to be jealous of the UK over
*anything*?


There are lot's of things..universal health care for instance... but here's a
link to a really important one. [In an absence way of course]
http://www.kkk.com/



--
Bill Coombes

Is this too mellow?
 

"bcoombes" bcoombes@orangedotnet wrote in message
o.uk...
Arny Krueger wrote:

Please remind me why the US is supposed to be jealous of the UK over
*anything*?

There are lot's of things..universal health care for instance... but
here's a link to a really important one. [In an absence way of course]
http://www.kkk.com/


I agree entirely. Our relative lack of religious nutcases: creationists,
Bible literalists and believers in the "rapture", is a real plus not only
for the UK but for Europe as a whole.

David.

Is this too mellow?
 

On Wed, 20 Jan 2010 18:35:31 -0000, "David Looser"
wrote:

"bcoombes" bcoombes@orangedotnet wrote in message
news:T9udnaLbnryJ1MrWnZ2dnUVZ8t6dnZ2d@brightview. co.uk...
Arny Krueger wrote:

Please remind me why the US is supposed to be jealous of the UK over
*anything*?

There are lot's of things..universal health care for instance... but
here's a link to a really important one. [In an absence way of course]
http://www.kkk.com/


I agree entirely. Our relative lack of religious nutcases: creationists,
Bible literalists and believers in the "rapture", is a real plus not only
for the UK but for Europe as a whole.


But in turn we must envy Americans their constitutional separation of
church and state, while we are obliged to fund the church of england
and the inbred cretins of the royal family who run it.

d