PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Concorde crash: Continental Airlines cleared by France court
Old 1st Dec 2012, 19:03
  #37 (permalink)  
UPP
 
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Not an expert on that subject. All I know is that, as stated above, on this side of the Channel we all did our bit as best as we were able, with PRIDE in the fact that it was Concorde we were working on. Go to any engineering company in the land that worked on her, and you'll get the same answer.

So it didn't happen at that level.

Once BAe withdrew as the manufacturer, that meant Concorde was automatically grounded forever. And the grandstanding from the bearded one, saying that his firm would take over was nauseating, since he knew full well that without a manufacturer future flights were impossible.

Could she have been kept flying? Yes, if she still had a manufacturer. Given the way tech marches forward these days there could even have been a Concorde II developed entirely inside computers, and then eventually realized. But the manufacturer wanted out - even destroying jigs to make sure there couldn't be a reprieve - and there's only ever one reason why a company with shareholders wants to stop doing something; MONEY.

Perhaps someone else can tell you that side of it, I certainly can't.

I'm sure the answer will be to be with recession, not enough people wanting to pay premium to fly like that, etc. To me that's b******s. Every day there are more millionaires in the world than there were the day before, and more money in the world than there was the day before.

But I think that the only way this could be done again is if a seriously rich individual (and there's plenty of people with more money that a small country these days) said 'I love aviation, I love technology, there will be lots of spin-offs to make money from along the way - think NASA -, and then said 'F**k it, lets do this'. It would take the drive and determination of someone like Bill Gates.

Believe me, the engineering companies up and down the land would jump straight to orbit with delight. Not so much for the money, but the idea that they can once again be involved in working out how to make something as special and beautiful as Concorde.

What a thrill it would be to be able to look into the sky when one flies overhead and tell all around you 'we did that'.
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