cblaisd
Apr 5, 02, 8:34 pm
Not even a hideous crash -- and the worst single event in the history of the airline business -- could permanently ground the most sensual and timelessly attractive of airplanes. And by the way, you don't say "the" Concorde.
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By Patrick Smith
Feb. 4, 2002 | "I felt about the Concorde as one might feel about a beautiful girl walking into class on the first day of school: I had to get close to her somehow, whether we actually hooked up or not." -- James Kaplan, "The Airport"
It had never crashed.
That was the most notable thing about Concorde, or at least the one statistic everybody seemed to know. And citing the plane's so-far perfect record was, maybe, a welcome distraction for the citizens of Britain and France, a comforting mantra in light of the more than $3 billion they contributed to development of the supersonic transport project, which began in 1962.
As it was, however, Concorde was no safer than any other airliner. This was, after all, a meticulously maintained ship that made, on average, only two flights a day, oceanic crossings along familiar routes to familiar airports. And by the time production ceased in 1979, 10 years after the prototype first took flight, only 20 Concordes had ever been built. (By comparison, Boeing has rolled more than 1,100 747s from its factory in Everett, Wash.) An accident-free résumé was more the work of probability than engineering. In fact, owing to characteristics well known to its pilots -- aerodynamic instabilities and a hard-to-tame nature -- one suspects a proportionately equal number of Concordes on the rosters of the world's carriers might have resulted in a different reputation altogether.....
[more at] http://www.salon.com/ent/masterpiece/2002/02/04/concorde/index.html
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Patrick Smith
Feb. 4, 2002 | "I felt about the Concorde as one might feel about a beautiful girl walking into class on the first day of school: I had to get close to her somehow, whether we actually hooked up or not." -- James Kaplan, "The Airport"
It had never crashed.
That was the most notable thing about Concorde, or at least the one statistic everybody seemed to know. And citing the plane's so-far perfect record was, maybe, a welcome distraction for the citizens of Britain and France, a comforting mantra in light of the more than $3 billion they contributed to development of the supersonic transport project, which began in 1962.
As it was, however, Concorde was no safer than any other airliner. This was, after all, a meticulously maintained ship that made, on average, only two flights a day, oceanic crossings along familiar routes to familiar airports. And by the time production ceased in 1979, 10 years after the prototype first took flight, only 20 Concordes had ever been built. (By comparison, Boeing has rolled more than 1,100 747s from its factory in Everett, Wash.) An accident-free résumé was more the work of probability than engineering. In fact, owing to characteristics well known to its pilots -- aerodynamic instabilities and a hard-to-tame nature -- one suspects a proportionately equal number of Concordes on the rosters of the world's carriers might have resulted in a different reputation altogether.....
[more at] http://www.salon.com/ent/masterpiece/2002/02/04/concorde/index.html