Concorde Profitability
Ahhh that question again. Just concentrating then on matters on the UK side of the English Channel. Prior to the Paris crash, BA was making a very healthy profit indeed on it's Concorde operation. There were some blots on the horizon that had to be overcome (Relife 2, SFAR regulation implementation, EGPWS and GPS navigation enhancement etc.) but all these things were 'doable' and under both study and disussion.
After the Paris crash came the horrible events of 9-11; around 40 regular BA Concorde passengers were tragically lost in the twin towers alone. When the aircraft returned to service in November 2001 the loads (and profitablity) were understandably taking a major hit, but as all times in her service life Concorde had the ability to weather the storm and was already bouncing back well. Unfortunately in 2003, due to some totally disgusting goings on, on the French side of the Channel, the aeroplane never got the chance to fully recover and BA services ceased in October of that year. (It is to the eternal shame of certain individuals on THIS side of the Channel that this French Disconnection was never challenged legally).
Concorde was only ever run (that is at least in the UK) for profit, but the hike in oil prices would obviously pushed up ticket prices significantly, and the massive economic downturn of last year would have certainly meant a temporary reduction in services. But in spite of all this, I firmly believe that Concorde would have weathered this storm, and would have been now earning those bucks for BA yet again.

John Hutchinson - The Wind Beneath My Wings
A superbly interesting read, written about arguably the most eloquent of all Concorde pilot speakers. One of lifes true gentlemen and a superb pilot, it is a long overdue biography, well done Hutch.

Best Regards
Dude :O.

Concorde's min drag speed... was it 350kts or 400? I've seen both reported. Whichever it is, I understand it equates to approx M0.95 at 29,000 feet hence the subsonic cruise being generally flown at that relatively low altitude.

SSD

Just viewing some 'old' in-flight footage...gosh...she was such a beauty...have to say I've never been on any other aircraft which, during taxi, had people stop what they were doing ( servicing aircraft ! ) and just watch her pass by .... anyhow, before I become a sentimental ol' bugger........I noticed that the time between Mach1 being displayed in the cabin, and, in this case Peter Benn announcing that we were indeed Mach1, 40 seconds had passed ! ( Thanks Peter for making that flight so memorable. Your obvious enthusiasm for Concorde made for a very memorable flight - thank you ) - I know Christiaan gave an explanation some time back...but 40 seconds seems a long time ! Any other reasons as to the 'very' early Mach 1 announcement in the cabin ??

Best wishes everyone,

d :ok:

Those darned Marilake things
 

Speaking as a fellow sentimental ol' bugger, Peter Benn's commentary 'delay' (a truly nice guy by the way) is a simple case of between Mach 0.98 and Mach 1.02 the displays only showed Mach 1.0. So that's where we get our delay from.
Mach 2 was a bigger 'lie'. Anytime you were above Mach 1.98 the displays would only show Mach 2. (I've been to Mach 2.1 on test fliights but the pesky things still only showed us Mach 2).

Best regards
Dude :O

I've always been fascinated by Concorde, and I've been following this incredible thread for some time now.

For my birthday last month my wife bought me an experience on the Concorde Simulator at Brooklands, which has been mentioned on this thread a couple of times. I had an outstanding time, not only with the simulator itself, but meeting people who were involved with Concorde and keen to share their enthusiasm. I heartily recommend the experience to anyone with an interest in Concorde. And the money goes to improving the simulator, so it's for a good cause!

Joel.

71 pages later my personal edification is complete!! All contributors, particularly the 3 venerable concateers (you know who you are!), many thanks for the most captivating of insights.

3..2..1..Now indeed! Bravo I salute you:D:D:D:D:D!!

sAx

PS Having watched the Concorde Story, some consideration of sorts would need to be taken of events in the immediate aftermath of the Gonesse crash. AF from their perspective took the responsible position to ground aircraft, where BA continued flights later that evening following a business as usual approach. This proved quite upsetting on the French side of the Channel, as reasons behind AF4590's crash where unknown at that stage. The Gonesse Mayor being very critical about what appeared to his eyes to be a quite callous BA attitude, placing commercial consideration before public safety.

To rule any two individuals, the age old philosophy is to divide them. By the time recriminations started to fly from the BA side concerning AF maintenance standards, then the joint collaboration had achieved this for themselves. This left little room for manoeuvre for the CAA, who had to be seen to be placing the public interest before any cash as usual continuity. Their stance would need to be unequivocal, showing the public that the 'gamekeeper' would not be making any attempt to be seen in collusion with the 'poacher' and hence removal of the air worthiness certificate. This is not a riposte of any previous post, but just my $0.02c of what may have played a contributory part in the final decision to retire Concorde. Regardless of any attempt to present a united front, the end result may well have been the same. but it would have gone someway to underline public confidence in the responsible attitudes of both AF and BA.

BA made the right call regarding continuing to fly their Concordes following the crash, and it was a massive mistake by the CAA to ground the British fleet. The whole crash has been one massive cover-up by the French who operated Concorde badly with regard to their maintenance procedures. The crash lies firmly at the door of Air France.
Of course we could go into the list of near crashes by Air France, such as the time when they topped up the hydraulic fluid on Concorde SD with the wrong fluid. The French had problems with their Concordes that the British never suffered, and I am surprised that there were not further crashes with their fleet.
Well done BA for a wonderful nearly 28 years of safe supersonic passenger services!

Airframe Internal Metal Colour
 

or at least undercarriage doors. We had a bunch of guys up here at Manchester from AF at Filton last week. They needed a "Concorde fix". While underneath on of them said "Oh Yes your doors are different colours like ours."
I'd never noticed that the metal on the inside of the main undercarriage doors that are open when she's on the ground are different colours. One is a drab green and the other is khaki.
Is there any reason for this or is it just a new one has been fitted at some time and happens to be different ?

Dem Kullerz
 

Glad the Filton AF guys enjoyed their Concorde fix. (There is no other Concorde in the UK, bar none, that able to achieve this fix better than G-BOAC can :ok:). As far as the gear door colours go, well the 'normal' colour is the light brown one that you describe, the green primer colour door is a replacement one. (As to when we did that replacement I really can't remember I'm afraid - Extreme Brain Fatigue :\).
I'll have a closer look at that door when I'm next up in Manchester in 10 days.

Best Regards
Dude :O

The secondary doors across the whole fleet had lots of issues over time. Like the elevons, rudders and belly panels they were made of a honeycomb lattice structure that eventually dis-bonded causing a lot of overhaul stress in the workshops.

I think it would be fair to say that it would be a freak of nature if any of the aircraft actually had the same doors fitted that they left the factory with!

The Concord was scrubbed because when ran as an airline, using typical overweight, RTO type mentality, it's was an accident waiting to happen.

Reminds of the Shuttle...Rutan gets a plane in space...for one billionth the price...so the Shuttle goes away because the people can't keep costs down.

Maybe all this should be put into the private sector where people 'try'.

Watch out--SSG V 1.0 thru 9.0, the fickle finger is now over here telling us how stupid everyone in aviation is, himself excluded, of course. Apparently, single-pilot Citation drivers (Slow-tation) are thoroughly knowledgeable in Concorde operations.

GF

Galaxy, I ponder why you haven't been banned, all I can guess is that you wake up with JT every morning.

gordonroxborough
Speaking as someone who was actually THERE during the entirity of Concorde commercial operations (rather than just an amature outside observer), I can assure you that replacement doors were almost always painted when fitted to the aircraft, and NOT left in the green primer colour. Alpha Charlie was a bit of an exeption in that the door was never painted and THAT is the point being made here. No one is even suggesting a freak of nature for goodness sake, and no matter what you may have read etc, this was regular Concorde engineering practice.

whenrealityhurts
Wow, what total and absolute drivel. For a start it's CONCORDE and not that rather wonderful town in Middlesex County thank you very much. There was NEVER any 'operated using typical overweight RTO mentality' this side of the English' Channel EVER and anyway this had absolutely NOTHING to do with the assasination of the amazing aeroplane.. As far as being 'an accident waiting to happen', well you are obviously at best very poorly informed and at worst you are used to speaking out of an orifice diagonally opposite to your mouth sir.:yuk:
Galaxy Flyer has made a large number of very valuable contributions to this thread and as an ex C5A pilot and highly experienced aviator deserves infinately more respect than you. As far as any bannings here, well look in the mirror fella, and I suggest that you restrict your postings to something that you maybe have some expertise. (Is there a section here on paper aeroplanes maybe?).

Regards (particularly to you GF) Dude :O

Well said M2dude!
I appreciate your comments greatly, which I am fully aware of are based on nearly 37 years of experience, starting with the construction of the Concorde airframes for BAC at Filton, and following this as an engineer with BA keeping these beautiful birds flying.
You are one of the real heroes and stars of the Concorde world, one of the most respected Concorde engineers in the world, add to this fact that you also basically wrote the book for BA on the air in-take system!
It's a pleasure to read all your truly amazing posts based on such great knowledge gained from your mass of Concorde experience, unlike some posts on here which are based on reading books, and listening to the rubbish that’s out there written by those who lack any experience regarding this great aeroplane


Steve

I second that M2Dude and thank you for correcting this m*ron




Interesting how this 'accident waiting to happen' enjoyed a thirty year plus accident free record with BA.

You missed my point completely really, yes some have green primer , some had beige primer on The INNER side, that was the discussion, not the outer side.
The freak of nature was again a point totally missed on you, which is surprising Ricky. So to explain it in simple words, it's highly unlikely that the aircraft in the fleet are today fitted with the said doors they rolled out of the factory with...that was the point, not a about bad engineering practices about painting or anything silly like that.

Yawn... For goodness sake let's not nit-pick here :ugh:. If you'd been THERE Gordon you would know what I meant. I WAS refering to the inner side of the secondary door as it happens, any aircraft engineer would know that. (It is just slightly obvious that the outer skin would be painted you know).
The point here is that it is far better if you leave ANSWERS to technical and operational issues to pilots and enginers that were involved with Concorde development and operation and actually KNOW what happened in service. It can be infuriating to the extreme when people that had absolutely nothing to do with the Concorde operation, their entire repertoire of knowledge being based on reading all about in any publication that they could get their paws on or listening to any old nonsense being spurted about by goodness knows who, try and post replies to queries here as if they have set themselves up as a self-appointed 'Mr Concorde'. (Personally I'm happy and humble enough to admit that's certainly not me. Concorde was always a non stop learning process for me and I have never stopped learning to this very day).
Joining the cut up bits of 202 back together is not in the same universe I'm afraid, as living with the aeroplane day in and day out, year in, year out, as impressive as that feat may be to you.
Lesson ends.


Regards
Dude :O

Wonderful 360 VR of.....
 

360° Virtual Reality tour of the Cockpit of Concorde by Ken McBride

:ok:

Check out Kens other VR images on his site...

More switches and gubbins!
 

What a cracking image and again, what a cracking thread which I read and re-read to appreciate the machine and the people who operated and cared for it.

Having watched David, Les and Roger more times than my wife cares to remember and studied Mr Calvert's excellent book I find the image facinating in that to the rear of the Captain there are lots of trip switches (?) and below the Flight Engineers table on each side many items that I havent seen before.

If someone could explain what they are I would be extremely thankful!

Kind regards

Sidders

hissinsid
I have to admit, this is one superb image (and a nice high resolution one also) of my old friend Alpha Alpha.

As far as the trip switches to the rear of the captain, not quite sure what you are refering to I'm afraid unless you mean the area on 213 circuit breaker panels? Also located here are the Audio Selector Panel, the emergency windshield de-ice switches (quite hairy really , 200 volts placed straight on the main windshield heating film with no temperature regulation or overheat protection). As well we also have the lighting controls for the panel and a fully deployed observer's coffee cup holder. :)
As far as the bits either side of the E/O's table, well there is a fair bit, but I'll do my best:
To the left we have the engine start panel, the air conditioning test panel (also encompassing the fuel vent suppression test and indication and gauge limit reset button) and door warning panel. Below these panels are the mode selector panels for the Inertial Navigation Systems and the artificial feel test and Ram Air Turbine control panels. At the very bottom we have the air intake test and diagnostic panels, as well as the anti ice indicator panel. The E/O's Audio Selector Panel and last of all we have the radiation meter and landing gear fault annunciator. (This item is not fitted to aircraft G-BOAG or any Air France aircraft).
To the right we have the Aircraft Integrated Data System panel and immediately below that the compass control panel. (Concorde was one of the very last aircraft to have a magnetic heading reference system, modern aircraft synthesise magnetic heading against true heading and geographic position). Below that we have the oxygen indication panel and to the top right of the section we have the engine and fire test panel. Immediately below this we have the automatic test panel for Automatic Flight Control System and below this the smoke detector test panel. Below this we have the cockpit voice recorder panel and last of all the current monitor panel for the intake secondary air doors.
WHEW!! I hope this helps but if not please ask away.

Regards
Dude :O

Thank you
 

Dude

Many thanks for your comprehensive reply, you have indeed answered my curiosity and I couldn't for the life of me think of the words "circuit breakers" when I typed my message but you are right, thats what I meant in terms of the area behind the Captain and where the fourth cup holder is :ok:.

I dont think this question has been asked so far and I always wonder, did they all fly the same or did the crews know that each airframe had her own foibles? I do understand that AA was a bit heavier than AG but were there examples of knowing that AC was a bit slow to get her nose and visor down for example?

Many, many thanks for your contributions and expertise I do so enjoy reading this thread, even with a heavy heart knowing shes no longer pushing Mach 2.00.

Regards

Sidders

It certainly makes one wonder what a modern day Concorde cockpit would look like with side sticks and glass everywhere.... would love to be a part of that design team :-) Maybe even update those coffee cup holders and make a place for a latte machine with good ol' bone china cups for the crew when they have a moment to admire the outside view from the heavens.........!! :) lol

Really, if only Britain had the money, the dream could come true all over again....

Regards to all,

speedbird

M2dude,

Can you tell me what the 'hole' forward of the throttle quadrant between the INS units on the centre console was for please? Would something have been there in service?

Many Thanks

hissinsid
Really one for one of my pilot friends to answer, but there was the one issue where OAC had a heavier right hand wing than the left!! (Due to a major repair done in the early 1980's). And as you correctly point out, the last few aircraft built were indeed lighter than their earlier cousins.
speedbirdconcorde
Love the bit about the latte machine.:D An updated flight deck would indeed look radically different than our 'classic' Concorde office. Perchance to dream:) Personally I think this country needs to find a vision again, not just the money.
Reverserbucket
The hole you mention was a supersonic book stowage. Not very high tech I'm afraid. :E

Regards to all
Dude :O

Filton
 

Save Bristol’s Concorde and the Brabazon Hangar

The Brabazon Hangar dominates the south side of Filton Airfield. During the 1960s it became the home of the UK Concorde production line, but Concorde wasn’t the first aircraft to be built within this amazing structure.
The hangar was originally built during the 1940s to enable the construction of the massive Bristol Aircraft Company’s type 167, which is better known as the Brabazon and hence this is where the name of the hangar came from. This giant airliner aircraft had a 230ft wingspan, and was powered by eight pair-coupled Bristol Centaurus piston engines and was Britain’s attempt at a non-stop trans-Atlantic airliner.

The prototype flew in 1949 six years and £3 million after the conception, and sadly the aircraft was already obsolete. The British de Havilland Comet jet-powered airliner was already well on the way and on the other side of the Atlantic, Boeing were developing their 707, and both of these would fly faster and carry more passengers than the Brabazon The prototype flew for a short while and a second turboprop-powered prototype (Brabazon II) was being built when the project was abandoned. Both aircraft were subsequently broken up in 1953.
With the demise of the Brabazon project Bristol was then left with one of the largest aircraft production facilities in Europe and therefore the giant Brabazon hangars were put to other uses, these included being used for the production line for the much more successful Bristol Britannia airliner.

But the Brabazon hangar has become more famous today as the birthplace of all the British built Concordes, ten airframes were built there, one prototype known as 002, one pre-production known as 01, one development production known as Delta Golf, and of course the seven airliner production airframes detailed below…
G-BOAA
G-BOAB
G-BOAC
G-BOAD
G-BOAE
G-BOAF
G-BOAG
Concorde 216 G-BOAF was the last Concorde built anywhere in the world, and of course the very last one to fly in November 2003. During her final flight she flew back to her birthplace, to Filton to form a major part of a new planned Bristol aviation museum. The plan was to house the whole of the Bristol Aviation Collection, known as the BAC, in one building, a centre to celebrate Bristol’s incredible aviation history, and let’s not forget that Bristol led the world.
But like so many things in this fast changing world, ideas and directions soon change and as in this case not for the better.
Heritage Concorde has heard of one idea that it wishes to push forward with anyone who would be willing to work alongside the group. With next years closure of Filton airfield, one incredible heritage building stands at risk of being ripped down and lost forever, the Brabazon Hangar. So why not use this building as the centre of the history of Bristol aviation and space industry, and in memory of the man who started it all, Sir George White. It’s large enough to form one of the most incredible museums in the world; it would be able to house the whole BAC collection with Concorde 216 at the centre, where she was built.
This idea needs to be looked into and not dismissed so easily by the people leading the effort for the new museum. Heritage Concorde will start to develop this idea further.

Any ideas, any offer of help or advice???
Steve de Sausmarez

Hi Steve,

"Any ideas, any offer of help or advice???"
I live too far away to join in the battle, as you know.

But I was thinking of Duxford... which has kept its runway, allowing airshows, fly-ins, etc. (Been there, done that.)
So maybe the runway should stay.... ?

Rather than enclose the Brab hangar in another batch of "little boxes on the hillside" ?

CJ

hissinsid;

The answer is that they were remarkably similar in handling, I guess this is a function of the flight control system. Certainly the 747-100s and 200s I flew before Conc had a definite change of 'feel' from hull to hull. (The 777s don't).

They all had certain other 'foibles', although none were of any note operationally. I believe that AF's habit of generating ADS master warnings at M1 has been prevously covered, as has AG's 'French' DC system. There were certainly some hulls you'd rather have than others on the LHR-BGI sector, although I think I flew them all there at some point or another.

As for Filton - it's always sad to see an airfield close, but especially so when there's so much history attached. It would be great to see the runway remain active, but the costs are pretty steep and the value of the land rather high. I wish all thise involved the very best of luck and hope you succeed in at least turning the hangar into something which recognises its own history and gives it a real purpose for the future.

There will never be another Concorde, she came from an age that saw flying as something amazing, beautiful and exciting, and there was glamour and style. Today’s world sees flying as cheap and very unglamorous.
But what we have to remember is the as far as the BA operation was concerned, this fuel eating plane as you called it Kalium, paid for itself and made a massive profit for the company, and could have been doing the same today in 2011.
Building another Concorde isn’t about the money, or the dreams. It’s about having the vision and drive to achieve something that can help deliver something truly amazing, Concorde did so much for this country alone, what about all the small companies that were involved with the project, even making the simple items such as ash trays, the project provided work and the workers paid taxes.
We have lost the drive and alone with that the skill to deliver anything of any greatness in this country, we let the world in so many areas and for awhile in aviation, then handed it all over to other countries like France and walked away.
The latest joke is the way we are turning our backs on these amazing new aircraft carriers; they will be world leaders in design and provide so much work for so many.
What is important now is that we fight for the heritage of Concorde, and make sure that we protect the few airframes that we do still have, each one is a prototype, they are so different, what a really shame that the short sighted governments didn’t allow the teams to build production model number 17, this one would of made so much difference and possibly sold in mass numbers.
Concorde, born of a time when we had vision and drive to achieve so much, Concorde was grounded by people with a lack of vision and of course by the nasty Alan (I killed a plane) McDonald!

"Yes, with fuel prices on the rise it's the perfect time to build a fuel-guzzling aircraft."

Who said anything about building a 'fuel-guzzling aircraft' ?

Your words....certainly not mine...:=

I don't believe supersonic travel is dead...maybe just not too alive at the present moment...

As I said, if Britain had financial wealth, they could do something special again ( Just look at Reaction Engines )... But as Dude also added, Britain needs a little more than money....it needs a vision...

and it appears to me, reading some of the posts, that Britain currently has neither..

Britain was in a far worse state financially when she went ahead with the start of the Concorde Project than it is now. But the skills have gone mainly due to bad decisions made by former governments, and you will never get that back again!

There will never be another supersonic passenger aircraft, the next type will have to be faster than supersonic.

Well, today there are a lot of cars which are very cheap and fuel economic. And there are those fuel-guzzling SUVs, Sports cars and Luxury Limousines.
Which ones sell better and make more profit for their manufacturers ?
Which British cars are still built ? The Morris or the Mini? Or maybe the Jaguar, Rolls Royce, Range Rover or Aston Martin ?

Of course there is no market for 1000 new Concordes, but maybe for 100. There are still enough people around that pay any price if only they can be special. There are still enough people for whom time is BIG money, and arriving before you depart easily pays off for those. Working the morning in London and having lunch with business partners in New York and signing the contracts in the afternoon is still very attractive.

I think the estimate is that the supersonic passenger requirement today could be satisfied by ten airframes. Hardly an attractive economic proposition for a manufacturer. If it were otherwise, Boeing and Airbus would be addressing that market with a state-of-the-art SST.

Future SST
 

I think we could all speculate until the cows come home just how many SSTs could be built. To put my own two penny worth in here, personally I tend to agree with Steve that to justify the huge capital investment required, a hypersonic aircraft with just about antipodal range would be required. Here in the UK, the Reaction Engines Lapcat A2 project seems to be the way to go. Fueled with liquid hydrogen, making London to Sydney in just around 3 hours carrying THREE HUNDRED passenger. All this using four Scimatar hybrid engines. Contrast this proposal with the clumsy Airbus ZEHST effort that has to use THREE different types of engine for the flight cycle, carries only 100 passengers and won't be around (acording to them) for FORTY YEARS!!. Both imagination and practicalilty seem to be totally absent here.
It seems that the technology required for an HST already exists in the UK (the Scimitar engine is a deritive of the engine originally designed for HOTOL, thanks to the genius of Alan Bond and Bob Parkinson) but we need partners for obvious economic reasons, (probably not European), the will, and most of all, as I mentioned before, the vision to do great things again. In my humble opinion Lapcat A2 should be the true successor to Concorde. If only......

Best regards
Dude :O

Filton and G-BOAF
 

This is obviously a really emotional topic, we can only hope that good sense prevails and the AAH is preserved, along of course with our beautiful G-BOAF. (When I worked at Filton many moons ago it was the largest single span building in Europe, not sure if that is the case now or not).
It would be really nice if the SOUTH of the UK had a non-derilict 'proper' Concorde on display to the public, and good old Alpha Fox would be the ideal example, displayed inside the building where she was born).
There was so much activity in that hangar over the years, wouldn't it also be great if examples of as many as possible of the aircraft that were built, part built or modified there could be displayed too. Let's all keep our fingers crossed.

Best regards
Dude :O

Future SST
 

Is there any development along the lines of a supersonic business jet?

I'd think that the market for air travel breaks down into the masses, willing to pile on board a huge cattle car type AC and sit there for a few hours longer just to save a few dollars (Pounds, Euros, etc.). And then there's a smaller market segment willing to pay whatever for first class accommodations. And possibly to shave a few hours off a transatlantic or transpacific flight.

You are going to want to schedule a few flights on each route per day. When the rich folks (or business people) want to fly, they want to fly NOW. So the passenger loads will be spread across a number of flights, reducing the per aircraft capacity requirements.

Thank you
 

EXWOK

Thank you for your reply, to hear from someone who flew these truly magnificent machines humbles me somewhat (as did Dude's reply). You made reference to some hulls that you would prefer not to have on the BGI run, could I ask why?

Kind regards

Sidders

EEngr
 

All major aircraft manufacturers publish comprehensive market forecasts, looking at a period of at least 20 years. Not one thinks there's a big enough market for an SST.

These guys are not stupid and would not want to miss out on a juicy new market segment (as the US initially failed to see the domination of the widebody market by twins).

Many things have changed since Concorde was developed. Today probably less than 1% of business travellers can elect to pay more: travel budgets are tightly controlled and firms negotiate bulk fares with airlines.

So the customer base comes down to a few corporate chiefs and a few seriously rich individuals. Not a base for launching a (my guess) $30b development programme. That's a non-recurring cost of $150m per plane over say 200 units.

oldchina
 

That makes sense from the carriers' point of view. Adding SSTs to their fleet would cannibalize their first class. As long as they can keep these passengers happy, they help pay for hauling the cattle in the back.

SSBJ and things
 

As far as the SSBJ goes, there really does not seem to be sufficient demand by the corporations out there, although there have been several stabs at the idea, the most famous being the Sukhoi/Grumman S21. The problem now is, as has been laboured ad nauseam, that neither scarebus or boingo want to go down the road of a long and expensive R & D process without KNOWING whether there are lots of sales at the end of that tunnel. Basically neither of the world's only large aircraft manufacturers have any interest in such a gamble. (And without any serious competition out there they have no reason to either). But we still have the attraction of the HST, typically the Lapcat A2. Anyone who has flown out of Terminal 3 at Heathrow on one of the late night JSA Far East services would know that both First and Business class cabins are invariably bursting at the seams, the intrepid travellers knowing that anything up to the next 24 hours has to be completely written off to the journey. Anyone doing the round trip then has two days completely taken out, not counting those many sweet sweet hours of jet lag. It does not take a genius to work out that a journey time of only THREE hours would be incredibly attractive to a large number of these folks, the trick of course is that the ticket price has to be realistic. The West Coast of the USA is another plumb route, but of course the problem becomes supersonic flight over the continental USA. Polar flying, or over northern Canada is a rather long way round, but possible solution, but of course this whittles down some of the time saving and means we burn more fuel in the process, albeit cheap and very environmentally friendly hydrogen. (And we have of course to assume that a cost effective way of producing and storing large quantities of our liquid hydrogen can be found). It seems that the need for speed is not really out there right now, and to all of us in the world of aviation that has to be a bit of a shame. When Concorde was abandoned mankind took a giant stumble backwards, and for the very first time in history had to settle for far slower journey times. We can only guess I suppose what the future of air travel holds; maybe people are just resigned to being stuffed into bigger and bigger tin cans that go no faster than those cans that came before, who knows. All some of us can do I guess is HOPE that someone out there has just a little imagination.