Concorde's Final Departure from JFK

[scooterscot]

Or was it...

BBC News - Work starts in

[BolshieBastard]

BA used economics as an excuse to retire Concorde. They could have operated a joint service with Virgin to keep it flying but they wouldnt entertain this.

Its a real shame Concorde isnt flying now and Im not the slightest bit surprised the French will probably steal a march on us with this.

Not sure if BA could get a Concorde back after they effectively gave them all away.

[centurian]

Not sure if BA could get a Concorde back after they effectively gave them all away.

I think that BA retained legal ownership of the concorde's - and still do. They are on permanent loan to the places where they are on display.

BA probably could have kept Concorde flying for another 10-15 years, but the bean counters worked out that they could make more money by "transferring" Concorde customers to BA First Class.

[shaunbhoy]

Something I always regret, is never using the umpteen thousands of Air Miles I collected when I used to work abroad regularly, to at least take a concorde trip to Paris. Oh well.............ne'er mind eh?

[Zippy]

Such a beautiful machine. I didn't get the chance to go on it but Mr Z did - and I'm jealous. I really hope that it can fly again.

[Cliphead]

Been there, done that.

[threaded]

What did for Concord was that it wasn't American. You can be sure if it had been Boeing who built it we'd have supersonic airliners travelling all long haul routes.

[stek]

Remember the Soviet copy - Concordski?

Tupolev Tu-144 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This bit is typically Soviet....

Tu-144 pilot Aleksandr Larin remembers a particularly troublesome flight on or around 25 January 1978 that he piloted. The flight with passengers aboard suffered the failure of 22 to 24 on-board systems. Seven to eight systems failed even before the takeoff; however given the large number of foreign TV and radio journalists aboard the flight, and also some other foreign notables aboard, it was decided to proceed with the flight in order to avoid the embarrassment of cancellation. After the takeoff, failures continued to multiply. While the aircraft was supersonic en route to the destination airport, Tupolev bureau's crisis center predicted that front and right landing gear would not extend and that the aircraft would have to land on left gear alone – at the aircraft landing speed of over 300 km/h. Due to expected political fallout, Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev was personally notified of what was going on in the air. With the accumulated failures, an alarm siren went off immediately after the takeoff with sound and loudness similar to that of a civil defense warning. The crew could figure no way to switch it off and the siren stayed on throughout the remaining 75 minutes of the flight. Eventually the captain ordered the navigator to borrow a pillow from the passengers and stuff it inside the siren's horn. Luckily, all landing gears extended and aircraft was able to land.

[Mich the Tester]

Or was it...

BBC News - Work starts in

Excellent news! Brilliant!

It should never have been grounded.