Is Concorde going to Dubai?

[Doris]

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/transport/article6054915.ece

Dx

[landman]

Those infidels over at British Airways would stop at nothing.

They have broken so many promises on Concorde already.

Forty years ago today, the British version of the graceful delta-winged aircraft took to the skies on its maiden flight. The 22-minute journey made by 002 from Filton, Bristol, to Fairford, Gloucestershire, prompted an outpouring of national pride that swept aside complaints about the cost, soot and, of course, the deafening roar.

Yet the anniversary celebrations will be overshadowed for many Concorde enthusiasts by the disclosure that British Airways may betray a promise to put a Concorde on public display at Heathrow and instead cut it into pieces and ship it to the Gulf.

A Dubai-based consortium, advised by former BA Concorde crew, is planning to turn the aircraft into a tourist attraction, possibly on one of the manmade palm-shaped islands. It would be jointly marketed with the QE2, which was sold to Dubai last year to become a floating hotel.

The aircraft’s wings would have to be sliced off before it could be loaded on to a ship.

BA grounded its seven-strong Concorde fleet six years ago and gave six to museums. But it kept one, Alpha Bravo, and for the past six years hid it away behind the airline’s engineering base at the eastern end of Heathrow. Only those who know where to look will see the distinctive slender nose.

By contrast, an Air France Concorde stands proudly on a plinth outside the airline’s headquarters at Charles de Gaulle airport, Paris. Another one is preserved at the Paris Air and Space Museum by former engineers who regularly run the electronic and hydraulic systems.

BA ordered in 2003 that Concorde’s systems should be disabled. Jock Lowe, the marque’s former chief pilot, accused the airline at the time of undermining efforts to operate heritage flights.

Despite making up to £20 million profit a year from Concorde during 27 years of commercial flights, BA is refusing to help any of the groups seeking to get the aircraft back in the air. It has repeatedly rejected requests to publish a feasibility study. BA claims it showed that it would be too expensive, but it will not share the figures with the Save Concorde Group, which believes it could raise sponsorship for a return to flight. A BA spokesman said: “It is an internal document and wasn’t intended to be shared. It has commercial information in it.”

The airline has also been distancing itself from Concorde in its branding. Two years ago, BA removed a model of Concorde from a roundabout on the approach road from the M4 to Heathrow where it had been for 16 years. It has been replaced with a model of an Emirates Airbus A380 superjumbo.

Ben Lord, of the Save Concorde Group, said: “Sending it to Dubai would be a kick in the teeth for Britain’s aviation heritage. Chopping off its wings and putting it on a ship would be the final insult.”

A source close to the Dubai consortium said it would spend several million pounds restoring the aircraft’s interior, much of which was removed and used as spares on other Concordes. He said: “If any Concorde was going to return to flight, Alpha Bravo would not be the one because it did not have the safety modifications made to others after the Paris crash in 2000. It would be very well taken care of in Dubai.”

BA admitted that it was considering removing Alpha Bravo from Heathrow, but refused to comment on its discussions with the Dubai consortium.

Whatever next?  Middle Eastern money buying up Aston Martin?

Oh, wait a minute...

[Fran]

This looks like another of those instances where if something isnt in the south east/london then it doesnt really count.

There is a Concorde on display in a fabulous new visitor centre at Manchester Airport!

http://www.manchesterairport.co.uk/manweb.nsf/Content/ConcordeInformation

Anyone is welcome to venture up north if they want to take a looky! 

F

[SJ]

This looks like another of those instances where if something isnt in the south east/london then it doesnt really count.

There is a Concorde on display in a fabulous new visitor centre at Manchester Airport!

http://www.manchesterairport.co.uk/manweb.nsf/Content/ConcordeInformation

Anyone is welcome to venture up north if they want to take a looky! 

F

Well said Fran, although visitors beware, we have proper beer oop North (Gets coat, through door almost immediately )

[Perdu]

Well said Fran

there're Conky's all over  the place, including Duxford, Yeovilton and ISTR there was one at Kemble

What everyone should be moaning about is that there ought to be Concordes flying all over the world

Except for BA being 'orrible (first chance they got) could have sold  them to Branston it was said. Anybody know for sure?
Air France being....

And the US aviation industry killing the SST concept stone dead by default so they could sell 747s

never mind

time to crack another beer open and chill

And to sod everything up even more for me the first Vulcan scheduled flight this year is while I/WE are in France boozing at a race...

Cosford 14 June
 

[Perdu]

I think Kemble's Concorde was a pre prod too might have been just the fuselage

It was inside the Bristol museum which I understand has had to shift so where it is now I cant say

I have a photo somewhere of Gwyn (the gaffer) sitting in her there...

I agree we wont see her in the sky again (no not Gwyn, but even there there is little chance) and of course I do blame our hosts in June for their attitude after the crash, if they had been as supportive as BA managed to be for a while, well, who knows? Just maybe...

Anyway, how are you? (never one to miss a chance opening)Feeling better enough, I truly hope.

bill

[jpchenet]

I'm pretty sure I saw the tailplane of one at Brooklands as I went past on the train last week too.

I'm going to a meeting there in a couple of weeks so will check it out then!

[Perdu]

TAILPLANE? He asked in shock.... 


he he, I know what you mean Mark, I think there was one there too when I went there in the early "noughties" for the Forty Years of MG Midgets "do"

I may even have pictures but prolly not, cameras are high on the list of things I'm bloody useless with (And  that is a huge list!)


bill

[Perdu]

 

fin

I fink I mean fin

the tailplane is built in as part of the wing on deltas isnt it?

horizontal stabiliser  tailplane
vertical stabiliser  fin

big flat bit  wing

Peter you are obviously fighting fit praise the Lord




(I have lots of opinions and no need to be right about any of them it's great to be retired...)

[Bentley boy]

I'm pretty sure I saw the tailplane of one at Brooklands as I went past on the train last week too.

I'm going to a meeting there in a couple of weeks so will check it out then!

The tail can be seen from the train during the winter when the trees are bare.

I guess you'll be there during the working week but if it happens to be a Saturday let me know before I might be able to help with an extra special tour.

I will be there on Monday flying the newly re-built Concorde simulator for a good part of the day showing it off to the public. no matter how many times I've flown it I still love doing it

The saddest part of the whole Concorde story is that it was never developed further. we really should be on version 2 or 3 by now.
 
If you're in the South I would highly recommend (well I am biased) a trip to Brooklands & Mercedes Benz world. where you can try out most Mercs for size.  

[Perdu]

I really ought to get back to Brooklands, I loved the aviation museum. Bouncing bombs Tallboys and Grand Slam etc and so much history added to the racing history.

There was a Sea Vixen inside looking as dusty as hell...  I think. Gosh I'm getting old, cant remember...

Dohhh!

[ewan]

I think BA gets a good dose of blame for not supporting the efforts of Concorde getting re-airbourne, but it appears that EADS (the organisation that took over what was Aerospatiale, the French side of the "Concorde" agreement) is the one wot done it in for the bird. It seems that Airbus (sorry, did I say Airbus, I meant EADS) didn't see the point in carrying on with keeping Speedbird in the air and withdrew the support for getting the airworthiness certificate, whilst also being the primary maintenance partner.

Even if Beardie Branson wanted to buy Concordes for the supposed £1, he wouldn't have been able to get them in the air without EADS providing the necessary maintenance support. Ditto any attempts at "airshow only" flights.

What a shame. I was lucky enough to win a competition to fly on Concorde from JFK-LHR about 3 weeks before the end. Even thinking about what the pilot said as we were taxiing for takeoff still brings a lump to my throat.

I've never been to see any of the Concordes in the UK, but have been on board the one at the Boeing museum in Seattle (G-BOAG, the one I flew on), which was predictably US pants - they enclosed everything in perspex so the walk down the aisle was literally that ... a walk between two perspex walls that encased where the seating was. I visited the one in Barbados too (G-BOAE), in their new museum - and it was fabulous - you could sit in the seats, they had in-flight movies playing with films about Concorde, and in the hangar, showed film projected onto the side of the plane with take off soundtrack & everything. Again, tears in the eyes stuff.

I wonder if we'll ever, as a nation, come up with something so completely ground breaking which most people can feel proud of, ever again. At the end of our flight, we went into the cockpit and when I asked the first officer what he'd fly next and how different it must all be, he said that Concorde pioneered all the fly by wire systems that were now commonplace, so in reality, it wouldn't be that much different.

Except that the panel gaps in the cockpit wouldn't grow during flight, and whatever they'd fly next would "flex like a fly fishing rod" (as chief Concorde pilot Brian Calvert described it)...

[Truck]

I really ought to get back to Brooklands, I loved the aviation museum. Bouncing bombs Tallboys and Grand Slam etc and so much history added to the racing history.

And a Popemobile!!!!!!!!!

Plus the test hill, the only bit of the track still in use, where you can fly off the top at about 80, ad scare the sh!t out of the marshalls