No article, please. Just Concorde.
Hope it flies again, glad I don’t live under its flight path any more.
And I’m glad they don’t fly SR-71s out this way anymore. Both cool birds.
Bring back the Zeppelins, Man.
Aren’t they a danger to the huge manatees?
We were on the glide path for Moffett Field during the cold war, when the SR-71s came over occasionally but U2 flights were more common. The SR-71s were impressive. The U2s always sounded like they were going to scrape the roof off the house.
Really? I mean yeah, that’s not exactly pocket change, but it’s only about $1200 today.
Oh. 1982. When $1200 would have bought you about 1/7 of a new Toyota Corolla. So… $2500 or so? Hmm. Corollas used to be crappier, so not a sound inflation indicator.
Okay, $2,963.52 says usinflationcalculator dot com.
Still seems remarkably affordable for “the most expensive day trip in the world.”
This is likely in reference to a day trip, including airfare. The Concorde would have been the gold standard for that sparkling ticket, in addition to the costs of the day’s activities.
Just my take.
Well, that’s my point: the fact that you could hop on the Concorde in London or Paris, boogie on down to Cairo for lunch with a Sphinx, and be back home in time for Letterman (hell, in time for the six o’clock news) for under three grand of today’s dollars strikes me as a hell of a bargain, as utterly frivolous wastes of money and carbon go.
With a toothache, a hangover, being short on sleep, and riding in a very cramped and aging 757, just yesterday I was longing for the promise of a much more comfortable ride in a Zeppelin, even especially if it took us the entire day.
I priced out Atlanta - New York - Paris and back via Concorde in 1999 or 2000, it was about $5k with two weeks advanced purchase. Sanity prevailed (sadly), and I didn’t go with that option.
The last flight of a Concorde was in 2003
Well, the show ended in 2009, but I think they’ve done some stuff since then…
Wait a second, I thought part of the retirement rationale was the technology that powered the Concordes was obsolete. There were newer, better engines; the engines they had were polluting; the electronics needed compete retrofitting with modern digital computers. Last of all, the airframes themselves could be replaced with better designs that removed the inherent dangers of higher takeoff & landing speeds that the delta wing requires. Despite the ginormous expense of developing a new supersonic passenger airframe, it would be better & cheaper to build new than rebuild the existing fleet.
It’s a billionaire’s airshow toy, not a commercial fleet.
Concorde for it’s time was a great achievement but that time has passed into the time of reducing CO² emissions and fuel economy.
“Iconic supersonic”… good band name?
When I first moved here to Northern Virginia, the Concorde had (I think) a daily flight out of Dulles Airport. I LOVED watching that plane fly!
I think all this assumes they could fly at supersonic speed over the various jurisdictions between London (or Paris) and Cairo.
Same goes for London and Nice (my assumption, since Monaco doesn’t have an airport).
If not then it’s an expensive flight on a cramped airliner.
That may have been the codeshare with Braniff – it also flew between IAD and DFW (at subsonic speed). That ended right around the time we moved to Texas; I remember watching what may have been its last climb out of DFW.
Maybe just a lyric for a Beastie Boys song.
Iconic, supersonic,
Gonna rock this shit with everything on it
Better clear that airspace cause I’m going grandstanding
I’m taking in this baby for a three point landing
