Biggles78
Final one for this post. If She was still flying, do you still think that BA (sorry but going to ignore AF on this one) would have sufficient patronage to keep Her as a going and profitable concern?
oooo that's a hard one to answer. The financial crisis that we are (I hope) clambering out of would almost certainly have impacted in a big way the load factors on the aeroplane. This almost certainly would have resulted in at least a severe curtailment in the operating schedule, but quite possibly now she would be absolutely THRIVING in the recovering world airline business. To answer your question fully, I think that there would at least NOW have been the willing and ability within the airline to keep her going in a big way, but there would be major expense over the last and next few years. The FAA SFAR88 directive would have already resulted in a major review of all fuel tank wiring and components. (However this appplies to any aircraft, ageing ones in particular). EGPWS would have been mandated by now, which means provision for at least one (probably two) GPS antennas. This upside of this would have meant the relative ease of incorporating a more accurate navigation system, the Litton LN93 system (Laser INS with GPS update) was already being looked at before retirement. A major structural modification to the fuselage crown area would certainly have been mandated under the FAA/EASA ageing aircraft programme, although the mods were pretty much drawn up before retirement (and would have been a permanent fix for the one chink in her supersonic armour). It is also probable that predictive windshear would have been activated. (The Bendix RDR4a had this capability but it was disabled in Concorde). I think that for PWS and RWS to operate correctly you'd need some sort of pilot display in any case.
Another seperate issue would be having sufficient 'O' licensed Engineering Officers in the airline; due to basic demographics there would be precious few left in the airline now. (My personal guess is that pilots would have to be trained as to qualify as P3's).
So although it would be far from easy to keep her going, if she was earning sufficient current and potential revenues, then I'd say yep!! (But this is just my humble opinion of course).
Dude
