The final flight was the same as the inaugural flight: Heathrow Airport, London, to the aerospace center of Bristol, in the south of the United Kingdom. An hour and a half in the air, commanded by Captain Mike Bannister (accompanied by Les Brodie and Paul Douglas). British Airways employees were on board, including two flight technicians. There were 23 years of service, 18,257 flying hours. An era was coming to an end. Exactly 20 years ago (on November 26, 2003), the last Concorde (license plate G-BOAF) was taken out of service. The last commercial flight took place a month earlier, on October 24, between New York and London.
Founded in the context of the Cold War by the French and the English, in a union to defeat the Americans (who planned to build the Boeing 2707 and the Lockheed L-2000) and the Soviets (who already had the Tupolev Tu-144 built), the Concorde was the first commercial aircraft to reach the speed of sound (1 Mach, approximately 1,100 km/h) on October 1, 1969. On November 4, 1970, the plane reached Mach 2 (almost 2,200 km/h), twice the speed of sound.
Initially, the most important companies in the world (such as Japan Airlines, Lufthansa or American Airlines) showed interest in purchasing aircraft. There were approximately 100 applications in total. But several factors, such as the oil crisis of the 1970s, ultimately caused the takeovers to fail, explains José Correia Guedes, a retired TAP pilot and commander. ‘The aircraft was designed in the late 1960s. The costs were quite low, but increased exponentially, dooming the project. It made traveling more expensive, everything became bigger. Yet there were people who were willing to pay – a lot – for the ticket,” he recalls. There was another factor that made the purchase difficult: because it was supersonic, it was not allowed to fly over residential areas, which limited the possibilities very much. range. A total of 20 aircraft were manufactured. only Air France and British Airways ended up flying Concorde aircraft. The withdrawal also ended the consortium that had built it.
‘Technologically speaking, the Concorde was a child prodigy’
Despite the high cost of flying Concorde, the journeys were considerably shorter. For example, a trip between New York and London took almost three hours (now it takes eight), with the cost, round trip, in today’s values being almost 9,000 euros (the price was lower if you were from Air France).
In current values, production costs were almost 150 million euros (a regular aircraft, the Airbus A320, cost 88 million euros to produce in comparison). And because it burned 25,000 liters of fuel per hour, it was “not profitable, even though there were people willing to pay to travel,” says José Correia Guedes, who has never flown or piloted a Concorde. Still, the commander classifies it as a “prodigy” because he is a contemporary of the aircraft. ‘Technologically speaking, he was a child prodigy. Mainly because he wasn’t using afterburners [sistema de pós-combustão que queima os gases da primeira injeção de combustível] during supersonic flight, something its Soviet competitor, the Tupolev, was never capable of. In terms of efficiency, the Concorde was truly a child prodigy”, it says.
However, will there soon be room for an aircraft with similar characteristics? “I do not believe. The direction is aimed at efficiency, it is necessary to think about commercial issues”, says the commander.
There is currently a project underway to rebuild an aircraft of this type: the Boom Overture. But José Correia Guedes does not consider it “feasible”. “I don’t think it makes sense. tree of flying at supersonic speeds is not insurmountable. What the market wants is not speed. It is efficiency, it saves costs and it increases safety. Moreover, because of the pandemic, those meetings between London and New York can be held via Zoom or something similar, so I don’t think it makes sense,” says José Correia Guedes.
The beginning of the end?
It only took 80 seconds. On July 25, 2000, an Air France Concorde took off from Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, bound for New York. During the lift, one of the fuel tanks ruptured due to impact with a piece of tire from another aircraft that had been lifted. The flames under the left wing were followed by the failure of one of the engines. It ultimately fell on a hotel in Gonesse, a Parisian community. The 109 people on board the plane and four other people in the hotel were killed. The topic took up almost the entire front page of the DN the next day. The accident, along with all the other related problems, marked the end of what is considered by many to be one of the most glorious eras in aviation. The Concorde would be withdrawn from service within three years.
Source: DN
