FL,
Your comments complete the 'circle' as it were. It would appear that had the demand (and hence finances) been there Airbus would have supported Concorde ops as long as was reasonable...rather than a 'vendetta' against her...
Thanks.
Better,
Le Bourget has two Concordes within its very confined Concorde display Hall.
In order to get one outside they would need to remove a 'fixed' wall, which they did to get the production bird in after retirement.
Secondly there is a small team of AF/ ex-Af and other volunteers who maintain a very few and very limited number of native systems in limited operation using no native power souces.
This is more akin to a moving museum display than an active or even live aircraft. Its better than nothing for sure, but in no way reduces the potential demands to return her to flight.
CLP,
You will probably know more than me, but repurchasing items and tryin to get them re certified seems like a fraught route to me..can this really be done to full C of A status....unlike getting bits of a Spit overhauled etc this is full certification....
GLobaliser,
Absolutely correct. Diminishing revenues and worse a prediction of further reductions meant that the additional 'fixed' cost would negate any operating profit for the programme.
I know that major (and possibly individual) shareholders would not have been impressed had BA continued to operate Concorde at a loss, evne when their own predictions showed no return to profit in the future.
We may decry the retirement (and I'm one who misses her every single day... no 5.25pm walk outside to see her fly over head, just as she goes 'dirty') when BA were operating an icon as much as plane, but its a private company who purchased them legally (albeit on a pretty good deal) and were 'free' to do as they saw best. That said the pssing away of millions to teach Civil Servants to have tidy desks does seem insane... I'm sure an additional £7M would have helped a Heritage case....who knows.