My my, 26yrs in service and still a hot topic!
Spekesoftly - good point re MATS! Of course if all these modern aircraft didn't fly round the TMA so slooooowly it wouldn't be necessary...
Semaphore sam:
"....Airbus has taken over European expertise....etc"
And where, pray, do you think Airbus came from? Concorde was the progenitor of Airbus, indeed some of the very clever modern things that A320/330/340s do are straight from the Conc program. No benefit?
As far as R&D costs go - the US SST projects burnt more funds and did not produce an aircraft. However, that is not relevant to the topic:
Concorde a Commercial success for BAC/Aerospat? Not if measured by the manufacturers in cost terms, BUT, as mentioned above a lot of Concorde R&D was actually to the benefit of the modern Airbus'
So not all the costs are attributable solely to SSC.
A commercial success for BA? YES! It's very simple, they would not be back in the air now if the monies were not going to be regained. As for the argument that they were 'given' to BA (Not actually the case) and thus any profit doesn't count - any a/c in service for 20 years would have entirely amortised its initial capital cost so it does not now matter what was paid for the hulls, only what revenues they generate minus the costs of running them.
Sad to see the the same old tired rants - as far as I'm concerned the politics are irrelevant, not least because they occurred over 2 decades ago. However you look at it the conc programme produced a remarkable aircraft, with unique capabilities even today, having innovatively solved some very tricky technical problems, AND provided a lot of the groundwork technically, politically and commercially for what is now the world's second-largest commercial aircraft manufacturer.
I know my opinion is hardly unbiased BUT at least it's informed, and I know it's the DB's.
And it means I get to look forward to going to work.
Lecture over!