Should concorde be allowed to fly again?
To correct a few of the urban myths on this board (and on every Concorde thread since time began, it would seem!), the ONLY reason Concorde stopped flying was because Aerospatiale decided they weren’t going to supply parts and maintenance any more. The aircraft almost always flew at a tidy profit (so there was no economic problem), and bought in untold extra millions for BA and AF by creating a ‘prestige’ factor that filtered through to their subsonic services too. It didn’t lose it’s airworthiness certificate permanantly after the Paris crash, but resumed flying after fuel tank modifications had been made. Importantly, though the fuel tank rupture was touted as a serious and unique ‘design flaw’ to Concorde (which dramatically affected public confidence), it had actually been suffered by other aircraft without nearly such adverse publicity. In theory, Concorde could fly again, but in practise this is very unlikely, since most of the models have had their hydraulic fluid drained off –
It’s not that they aren’t allowed to fly. They were grounded for a couple months following the crash in France, but they were allowed to fly again and they did fly for a few more years. In fact, I’ve had several concordes blow past me while crossing the Atlantic after the accident in France. As it turned out, it was tire debris from a different airplane that caused the one in France to crash. The reason why they aren’t currently flying is because they are simply too expensive to fly. They consume an astronomical amount of fuel in crossing the Atlantic, they have many limitations that other airplanes don’t have, parts are very expensive and hard-to-come-by, they require an extensive logistical system by themselves, they are extremely expensive to insure, they are extremely expensive to maintain, etc. Air France and British Airways were simply losing way too much money on them. It is unlikely that we will be seeing supersonic flight anytime soon. The fact is, it is impossible to make an
