What is the reason why a dream supersonic passenger plane "Concorde" ended in commercial failure?

ByJane Carnall

A supersonic passenger plane flying in the sky at twice the speed of sound "Concorde"In 2003, all aircraft were retired and all commercial flights were over. Despite the great merit of "halving the travel time by plane", the reason why Concorde became commercially "failed" as a resultVoxThe movies are summarized.

This plane could cross the Atlantic in 3.5 hours. Why did it fail? - YouTube


Concorde was a passenger aircraft with a large feature that the protruding thin protruding nose when brought to takeoff and landing is bent, thin slim fuselage and large triangular wing.


It was on January 12, 1969 that Concorde began a commercial flight with passengers on board. By the end of November 26, 2003, 36 years later, all Concords finished the last flight and all the aircraft were retired.


A typical line on which Concorde was introduced was the Atlantic route connecting New York and London, or Paris. When traveling from New York to London by a jet airliner, the flight time will be approximately 7 hours for passenger aircraft as of 2016 ... ...


Concorde takes only half of that 3.5 hours. This was the biggest merit that only the supersonic airplane "Concorde" could fly at twice as fast as the sound.


By the way, when we move the same section with the luxury liner "Titanic", that time is 137 hours. It is about 6 days.


The screening time of the movie "Titanic" is 3 hours 15 minutes. In other words, Concorde will arrive from New York to London, just for a single Titanic movie.


As if the swan spread the feather, the Concorde to land while showing a big wing. Its appearance is completely different from that of a general aircraft. From this figure, Concorde was sometimes called "Kaibo".


Now that all the aircraft are retired, Concorde is showing aircraft at several places in the world. It is in Washington, USANational Air and Space MuseumAlso one of them.


Mr. Linden who is a curator at the same building seems to have got on Concorde. The view from the Concorde, which jumps twice as high as the usual passenger aircraft seems special, "The sky from the altitude of 60,000 feet (about 18,000 meters) is a deep purple color, a very gorgeous sight" It is.


Concorde is an aircraft belonging to a genre called "SST". SST stands for "SuperSonic Transport" and its meaning is "supersonic transport (machine)" which means all means of transport exceeding sound speed.


American soldier in 1947Chuck YeagerSince it first exceeded the "wall of sound", supersonic aircraft had become a dream of many people.


The supersonic aircraft carrying people and goods at twice the speed is said to have the merit of "doubling transportation efficiency" for airline companies, and research and development has been actively carried out in various countries.


In the United States, development of SST was promoted mainly by Boeing, and development teams in the UK and France who later brought Concorde will also conduct research.


However, it was the Soviet Union that made SST the first time in the world to fly. Developed by Tupolev Design Office "Tu-144Was the first flight on December 31, 1968 two months earlier than Concorde. However, it is also called "Copy of Concorde by Spy" from its appearance etc., which makes it a glimpse of the fierce information warfare spread during the Cold War era.


By the way, the American camp froze the development plan as a result of reevaluating the merit by SST. It was Concorde that made the first commercial flight successful. At supersonic flight, a heavy load is applied to the aircraft. By the heat generated by the air resistance, the front end of the main wing is heated up to 105 degrees Celsius.


When reaching the tip of the nose, it reaches 127 degrees. For this reason, the concorde in supersonic flight was heated by the length of the airframe by 20 cm, and it seems that the windows of the guest room became hot as hard to keep touching.


Concorde without the horizontal stabilizer adopted a method of changing the balance of the aircraft by moving fuel between two or more fuel tanks to control the aircraft attitude.


When supersonic speed is reached, the characteristics of the aerodynamic force applied to the wing and the aircraft will change. In order to cope with this change, by moving the fuel to the rear of the aircraft by using a pump, it was possible to achieve optimum aircraft attitude without "trim" producing air resistance.


Characteristic of Concorde was the landing motion performed with the elevation angle (inclination angle) of the aircraft taken large. To take too much elevation, the pilot will not see anything at the normal nose. Therefore, Concorde was adopted "Droop Snoot" ("Droop · nose" in Japan) "where the tip bends.



By installing these mechanisms and four powerful jet engines, Concor realizes high speed of 2146 km cruising speed. This surpasses the speed at which the Earth rotates on its axis. In theory, a strange situation arises that keeps flying the westward and keeping the same time no matter when.


In the front of the room there is also a display that displays the Mach number and altitude during flight.


There were only Concorde passenger aircraft flying beyond Mach. Now that all the aircraft have retired, there are no civilian means beyond sound speed other than military aircraft.


Because it is a very slender fuselage, the seat is about the same as a general economy class. Still, the Concorde was positioned with all seats ranked "above first class" or higher.


Therefore, in-flight services and flight attendants' hospitality are also required to have the corresponding quality. The service dedicated to Concorde, which is not found on other aircraft, was provided.


Also, rich people were mostly using or using Concorde. Sting of a famous musician also appeared in the movie as one such person.


It seems that meals provided on board are gorgeous above the first class.


It was a crash accident of Concord operated by Air France which occurred at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris in 2000, which brought about a major turning point for such Concorde. In this accident, passengers, crew members, and a total of 113 people involved in the earth died will be a catastrophe.


The cause of the accident was that the front wheels of Concorde jumped up the parts dropped by the aircraft that took off before the Concorde and opened a hole in the fuel tank of the wing. The Concord who fired from the wing during takeoff failed to take off as it was, crashed and burned to the ground. Air France, which saw heavily the accident, stopped Concorde's operation on the same day, and British Airways, which also operated Concorde, stopped operating about a month later.


After that, Concorde which reinforced the fuel tank etc. resumed operation, the profitability of aviation industry greatly worsened due to the simultaneous terrorist attacks of the United States and New York occurred in 2001. Under such circumstances, the Concorde, which is costly to operate and inferior in profitability, is in danger of existence.


The problem that Concord had had is not limited to the high cost structure. One of the biggest problems is the large sound generated at supersonic flight,Sonic BoomIt was the existence of.


The Sonic boom is generated by a shock wave that occurs at the tip of the aircraft when crossing the sound barrier. Even shock waves generated at high altitude with high energy will be transmitted to the surface as it is and will cause great noise damage.


The situation can be checked with the following movie. From around 55 seconds, you can see the shock waves caused by Concorde flighting on the Atlantic Ocean reaching the sea and scattering a big explosion "Burn!"

Concorde Take Off, Sonic Boom - YouTube


Due to serious noise damage, the US aviation authorities will prohibit Concorde's supersonic flight in the air over the whole area. Initially, it was Concorde who was planning to operate in the vast american continent, but it is said that the subsequent fate was greatly deviated by this ban.


Also, it was said that it was impossible to overlook the influence on the environment caused by flying high altitude. It was pointed out that it will seriously affect the ozone layer by flying while emitting a large amount of exhaust gas at a higher altitude than a normal aircraft. As a result, the actual number of Concords operated was less than 20, so the influence is not certain.


Also, high fares were also a big obstacle to the spread of Concord. In order to get on the Concorde, it was not necessary to be able to ride freely without anyone except for some wealthy people, as it was necessary to fare as more than 1 million yen at that time.


The reason for this high price was also caused by the small number of passengers per aircraft. A general large-class passenger plane can carry about 250 passengers at a time, but Concorde's seating capacity is as high as 100 seats, comparable to small aircraft. As a result, 100 passengers were responsible for the cost of Concorde, which even cost money, spurring higher pricing.


In addition, securing backup equipment to respond when problems occur will also accelerate the cost increase. It is necessary for the backup machine to literally "wait" on the ground, but this means that the most "avoiding time (= no fare generating time)" occurs for airline companies. It is said that the situation that you must prepare Concorde to keep you playing without doing anything on the ground has had a big impact on Concorde's profitability.


In addition to these situations, the view that gradually "retirement of Concorde is also an inevitable" is the mainstream because of the rise in maintenance cost accompanying the aging of the aircraft and fuel economy.


Finally on November 26, 2003, the last Concorde landed at London Heathrow Airport and kicked off a single history.


From the SST plan, the times advance and the concept of supersonic aircraft introducing new technologies is sometimes taken up frequently. However, in order for these plans to be put into action, it is important to clear economic issues. Even if you develop an aircraft that excels in technology, there is no choice but to say that the existence will be extremely dangerous for the absence of a commercially established business model.


Meanwhile, in the UK, a private project to make Concorde fly again is standing up. We are aiming for re-flight until 2020, but it seems that there are still problems left before the realization. Nonetheless, we can not help increasing the hope of seeing the historical heritage that mankind has made again at a glance.

Project to make the "Kaibo" Concorde fly again to the sky by 2020 - GIGAZINE