The Failure of Concorde

there was once a point in time where we could cross the Atlantic Ocean from New York to London in just three hours the typical seven hour flight was only cut down by going Super Sonic and this came in the astonishing form of the Concord aircraft it was a joint venture between two European countries to develop a plane unlike any other to transport passengers at unbelievable speeds and as a result bring the world closer together its effects on the industry and culture is immensely profound and has been revered as an icon of the Skies ever since it first took flight in 1969 but then it all stopped Concord flew for the last time in November of 2003. not only did it die but it put an end to the entire age of SuperSonic travel today I want to find out why why did supersonic transport fail and what possible future may it have this is the story of Concord this video is sponsored by hellofresh go to hellofresh.com and use the code bsf70 for 70 off plus free shipping it All Began in Europe in the mid-1950s when the British government had begun discussions of building a civilian aircraft capable of immensely high speeds by this point the Americans already had proved that a supersonic aircraft was possible in 1947 and with commercial Aviation picking up on its own speed this future prediction had some legs see by the mid-1950s Britain had already lost the race to build a competitive jet-powered aircraft while they were the first to do it in the form of the Comet built by De Havilland the Amer American built Boeing 707 ultimately Reigns supreme but talks were still being had about the idea of a supersonic transport or SST for short in a rather small amount of time commercial Aviation made the jump from propeller aircraft to Jets and it was believed that supersonic was the next leap for Aviation with Airlines and the public expressing interests it really was politics that got the ball rolling word quickly spread that the United Kingdom France the Soviet Union and the United States were all working on their own versions of the SST and it greatly mattered not only from a market standpoint on who would get it done first but it now became about which country could be seen as the most technologically advanced a sort of vanity race to show who is the most capable so with those motivators well in effect these nations got busy with this Monumental engineering feat in America competition was underway between the major aircraft manufacturers primarily with Boeing who were developing the 2707. they came out ahead winning the government contract over other companies like Lockheed and McDonnell Douglas who really weren't as serious as Boeing France and the UK were also developing their own independently But ultimately decided to unite on a joint venture to develop the SST and share the costs it was announced in 1962 when the two countries signed their treaty and it was quite a political move which really made a lot of sense with two economically strong Nations teaming up to share the cost giving this project the highest likelihood of success meanwhile the Soviet Union were also well into development but theirs was what you'd call pretty awful for them it was more about getting it done first and giving the world the impression that their SST was Superior in reality though their supersonic aircraft which was called the tu-144 had many design aspects from the French and British projects uh pretty much stolen this allowed the Soviets to to Fast Track their design and have it approved by government officials in a matter of days the Soviet Union ultimately did get their way though as the tu-144 took to the skies making its first test flight in December of 1968. just three months later France and Britain was also ready to show off what they had created they called it Concord and it was nothing less than an engineering Masterpiece Concord was fitted with four highly powerful and unique Rolls-Royce Olympus engine was the combined 152 000 pounds of thrust with its unique ogival delta wing design the narrow body jet was designed to reach a cruising altitude of an astonishing sixty thousand feet and Crews at Mach 2.2 which would later be decreased to just Mach 2.0 to say fuel that's still a mind-blowing 1350 miles per hour or 2180 kilometers per hour which is indeed faster than a speeding bullets the flight deck featured a pretty intense looking all analog design and was the first commercial aircraft to feature a fly-by-wire control system which is essentially an electronic version of the original manual control system of inputs among other Innovations with the electronic systems the aircraft also featured a droop nose often referred to as the droop Snoop a section of fuselage that could be lowered for better takeoff and Landing visibility this would all be controlled by a crew of three people a captain a first officer and an engineer behind the flight deck was all the luxuries you could ask for of the time due to the small airframe design of Concord along with a bunch of weight savings the cabin was set up in a 2-2 configuration with a maximum capacity of around 120 passengers truthfully the cabin was pretty basic but it was no doubt premium and came with a lot of quirks other than the fact that you're flying at twice the speed of sound it was a small area with Windows equally as Tiny in fact they were around the size of a modern day passport by far the smallest in the industry but to make up for for it you'd be receiving the very best service and the flight experience was more like a cocktail party with free-flowing champagne and caviar but this of course was all about speed and the ability to bring that to the public Concord was now ready to enter service after 13 years of development and six years after it took its first flight by this point though the landscape of air travel was already shifting just not in the way everyone had thought Boeing had decided to cancel their SST in 1971 despite over a hundred orders being placed by numerous Airlines like United TWA and Pan Am development costs ballooned out of control and with government support drying up in a bleak Market projection the company had just killed the project the Soviets were in a similar position it turns out when you try and fast track a passenger aircraft that has never been done before it has some issues the tu-144 was riddled with problems and even broke up in mid-air during the 1973 Paris Air Show Attack on another other two crashes a horrible flight experience and only one root option and you have a plane that nobody wants to fly on the aircraft entered passenger service in November 1977 and was quickly withdrawn less than a year later tickets were dirt cheap and it must have cost them millions to operate but for the Soviets it was really more of a propaganda piece if anything it continued with Freight Service until it was grounded altogether in 1983. fortunately though Concord came through and entered service with Air France and British Airways in 1976 but it too wasn't without financial problems with several public showings and great enthusiasm through the early 60s the Concord received numerous orders from basically all the large Airlines of the time Pan Am had ordered six of them and showcased it alongside the canceled Boeing 2707 TWA was another customer who got as far as to make a mock-up of the Concord with the TWA Livery in 1967. these were in the company of other Airlines like United American Airlines Air Canada Qantas and many more there was also a good deal of interest in a Concord type B which would have had additional fuel tanks for a longer range initially it was projected that the market could be interested in up to 350 Jets by 1980 and these first few orders were rather promising but sales soon started to dry up once some hard-hitting realities dawned on the Concord program mainly in the form of where the aircraft would even be able to fly the U.S conducted tests in the mid-1960s to gauge what affects Sonic booms would have over a populated area Sonic booms are of course the after effects of an aircraft going Supersonic and the result of that test was a lot of annoyances and even property damage Concord was a noisy plane and its Sonic Boom would likely to serve everyone below its path so ssts were then banned from flying over the United States destroying any plans for possible routes from say New York to Los Angeles therefore the aircraft could only be flown over oceans and because of its range limitations It could only make non-stop flights over the Atlantic significantly limiting what routes Airlines could put it on mix in the 1973 oil crisis and Airlines began to bail in fact the majority of Airlines had canceled their orders for Concord that year the rest would soon follow also in the early 70s and that just left Air France and British Airways as the sole operators despite all of these issues though Concord was the new icon of the Skies it was an immensely popular aircraft and known by name around the world everywhere it visited crowds would flock to see it arrive it was a spectacle a jet unlike any other and one which Millions aspired to travel on it was the pride of France and Britain and a testament to the incredible mid-century spirits and Engineering achievements it truly became one of if not the most iconic and beloved aircraft in existence even for many watching the sky eyes surpassing the Boeing 747 of course those two planes couldn't be any different from each other and served very different purposes while all other airliners of the time were designed for sea capacity and ticket margins Concord was all about speed and luxury it really was A Step Above everything else there was business class then first class and then there was Concord as you could probably imagine the prices fitted The Prestige with a one-way flight ranging from six to nine thousand dollars per person for round-trip flights fares could easily surpass thirteen thousand dollars and for many it was worth it with the unique experience you were in for crossing the second largest ocean in under three hours because of the demand in low volumes those prices had to be high often with clientele made up of business Travelers and celebrities Concord was something of opulence now and actually making money for the two Airlines and to continue to do so through the 80s and 90s however these Golden Ears would not last forever on July 25th 2000 Air France 4590 began its takeoff down Runway 26 right at Charles de Gaulle Airport in doing so a small piece of debris on the runway left by another aircraft made contact with concord's tire and punctured it causing large pieces of rubber to fly up and made contact with the fuselage in doing so it caused the fuel tank to burst open just behind the left engine the fuel ignited and shot out Flames the aircraft was moving too fast by this point to abort the takeoff and was forced to rotate however gaining altitude proved to be too difficult of a task and as the flight crew tried to manage the situation the aircraft was quickly falling apart as critical systems were burning up in the midst of a stall the airplane rolled over and fell to the ground crashing into a nearby hotel and exploding into a huge Fireball all 109 people on board had perished along with another are four people on the ground immediately all Air France Concords were grounded while the investigation was opened and this really sour public sentiment despite this being the first major accident of the plane eventually it was reintroduced into service in November 2001 but this was of course shortly after the tourism and air travel Gully that occurred after 9 11. Air France claimed they were losing money on Concord and despite British Airways claiming they were actually generating income both companies knew the aircraft stays were numbered Concord was now a 32 year old plane and maintenance was beginning to get very expensive issues were starting to creep up on the Aging planes and with Rising fuel prices the very thirsty afterburners fitted on board the jet were overshadowing any profits it might generate in fact Concord burned through an astonishing 25 000 liters of fuel an hour for comparison even larger Jets like the Boeing 767 only burned through 6 000 liters an hour not to mention only a handful of Pilots were actually qualified to fly the very complex and strenuous aircraft plus an engineer was still needed on the flight deck something that had been phased out years ago with business class on Rival Jets becoming more luxurious for some it was now hard to justify the price of flying Concord just to save a few hours of flight time with really no way to update the planes the Concord was both one foot into the future and one foot into the pass in April 2003 both Air France and British Airways announced they would be retiring their fleets by the end of that year and with a ceremonious end the fleet of Concord made their final Indians around the world on October 24th 2003 the last Concord made its flight from New York to London putting a final end to the age of SuperSonic air travel it is hard to believe that we had such amazing technology the ability to travel at twice the speed of sound at a commercial level and we just let it go but that's the thing the story of Concord was always going to end this way production on the aircraft ceased in 1979. only 20 of them were ever built and just 14 of them were commercial aircraft the other six were just built for testing really the entire Concord project was a complete failure and the French and British governments knew that pretty early on once Airlines began pulling out from their orders the project was in big trouble the end result of what they had built was planes for the countries that have developed it and didn't actually sell any of them to an outside party so the actual sales numbers were likely very little while the development costs for Concord is estimated at around 10 to 13 billion euros in today's money all of which were just absorbed by the governments in order to get these planes finished despite some of them proving to be profit centers the entire program just didn't see the success they wanted really the SSD has a whole never took off like the world had thought it would Aviation actually shifted to larger aircraft with more seats which meant lower ticket prices the advents of the 747 DC-10 and triple seven all transported more people cost less to operates and charged less per seat people often chose cost over convenience and because of that Concord was always going to be a low margin high cost per seat aircraft and it never stood a chance against the mainstream industry once Airbus acquired its former manufacturer the new company decided not to support the aircraft type after 2003. that's what sealed the fates even with a last-ditch attempt to find Richard Branson to try and buy the remaining Fleet from British Airways the plane was just finished even from the 1970s it was likely known that the Concord would only last a few decades until its lifespan was up there was really no contingency plan afterwards to keep the planes flying the remaining 18 aircraft in exist distance were all put on display in museums and exhibitions around the world three of them are in the U.S with the majority of the rest put on display around Europe there are a few tu-144s left in the world as well also on display and one even put up for sale on eBay in 2017. the full-size prototype of the Boeing 2707 also still exists it was sold to a museum in Florida until the 80s when it was purchased by a church the Boeing SST remained in the building hanging from the ceiling while church service was being held it was eventually sold again and has remained in storage ever since but the story doesn't end here since the last flight of Concord there have been some attempts at Reviving the era of SuperSonic travel most of them have failed but one company at least so far has prevailed boom Technologies unveiled the boom Overture a 65 to 88 passenger supersonic passenger aircraft that could reach Mach 1.7 now this startup is dreaming very big again will likely need hundreds if not billions of dollars to get the project into the markets which of course has already been delayed numerous times with the latest Target date of 2029. we'll see if that ever happens but one thing that is giving them actual legitimacy though is their orders so far the company has racked up firm in option orders from major airlines like virgin Japan American and United Airlines so far totaling over 200 orders which is very impressive that's actually more orders than the Concord and the Boeing 2707 put together the company claims they will be able to offer new routes which Concord couldn't like trans-pacific and if this does actually make it across the Finish Line the world may once again be introduced to supersonic air travel but even if that does happen the Concord will always remain in history as a very special aircraft not something to just get from A to B but an embodied Spirit of the countries who built it the engineering prowess of the mid-20th century and the wonders of what the human race is able to achieve it's a brilliant piece of art and there's so much more to the story from the insane engineering to the never built variants like a cargo version I'll leave some links to other people's great reporting of the story in the description below now Concord was pretty limited on what routes it was able to take and rarely traveled away from those destinations but the aircraft was sometimes chartered for specialty trips they were filled with high-paying Travelers embarking on flights around the world to see other cultures and try new food a now defunct company called intrav was one of the major facilitators of this and while round-the-world trips started at around sixty thousand dollars a person it was no doubt a journey of a lifetime it was also one of the only times Concord made a stop in the islands of Hawaii a chance for Savvy travelers to try new things hello fresh has sponsored this video and is allowing me to do the same with their hawaiian-inspired Rice Bowl okay well maybe it's not in the actual state of Hawaii and okay well maybe it's not because I traveled there on Concord but on the flip side it wasn't sixty thousand dollars hellofresh has actually been a great vessel for me to try new dishes ones I would have never attempted to make myself otherwise like this Greek style lemon chicken or what I'm making today the sloppy joe inspired stew as it's always been hellofresh makes cooking the sometimes daunting dishes really quite easy not only are they easy but just like today's stew it's very good there's over 35 weekly recipes so there's always something new and delicious to fit your tastes it's perfect for me when my days get very busy and I can rely on consistently great food some only taking just 20 minutes to prepare hellofresh offers plans to fit exactly what I need and it's perfect for the holidays so maybe Concord is gone forever and you can't fly across the Atlantic in a couple hours to go get your favorite dish in Europe but at least you can make some pretty great dishes yourself through hellofresh and if you want to take them up on a pretty good offer and support the channel out as well you can go to hello fresh.com and use the code bsf70 for 70 percent off plus free shipping anyway guys my name is Jake and thank you very much for watch [Music]

Channel: Bright Sun Films

Views: 328,094

Keywords: aircraft, airplane, concorde plane, jet, supersonic, boom technologies, air france, aviation, Boeing, 2707, failed project, documentaty, concord, what happened to, bright sun films, Jake williams, 4k, family friendly, clean, story, travel, education

Id: YOBSeD20A_g

Length: 20min 23sec (1223 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 18 2022