Concorde

[Anonymous]

I really hope Richard Branson mamages to keep Concorde flying, seems to me that BA will try everything n their power to stop him though.

[jjc]

I saw a BA executive on BBC's ‘Questiontime’ just after they announced the decommissioning of Concorde. He was asked why they wouldn’t allow Virgin to purchase the planes and he came out with a long explanation, which boiled down to:

Airbus have also decommissioned the maintenance of Concorde and for some reason this would mean the revocation of Concorde’s flight certificate. That meant that BA is not allowed to sell the plane on to Virgin.

Maybe I misunderstood, maybe the guy from BA was spinning a yarn.

[Anonymous]

Concorde was never designed as a passenger plane. It was never going to be commercially viable. Both the British and French Governments knew this when they commissioned the plane in the early sixties. It is the fastest, highest, cheapest and now with the advent of smart bombs, the most reliable delivery vehicle of any long-range bomb in the world.
It can can go from here to the Middle East and back at a height of 60,000ft in about 4 hours, no fighter plane can touch it, no missile can reach that altitude.
I may be wrong on one or two of the technical things, but Concorde is being recalled to do its primary purpose. That is to kill our enemies.

Paddy (seconded to Janes Aviation Theories)

[Anonymous]

mmmmmm maybe why Branso wants to add Dubai to the destination list

[MadPict]

kw,
Its so you can get back and forth to Caithness more quickly!!

MadPict

[George Brims]

Paddy you are not located on the edge, but over it. Concorde was designed as and only as a passenger vehicle. Its wings have no hard points for carrying munitions and couldn't be modified to take them. Also Concorde's performance, although amazing, would be no match for modern interceptors or even the larger surface to air missiles.

[theone]

Although a huge fan myself of conspiracy theories, I've never heard so much nonsence in my life. Paddy, you should really get your facts straight before talking such rubbish!

As you rightly pointed out, concorde was developed in the sixties. The first submarine launched long range missile, polaris, entered service in 1961.

Polaris had a range of 2500 miles. Although concorde was 4500, you couldn't base it 50 miles offshore from your enemy, and it certainly wasn't as hard to find!

You said it was the fastest and highest way of delivering a nuclear bomb? Polaris travelled at 3 times the speed of sound, concorde at twice. Concordes max altitude 60,000 ft, polaris leaves the earths atmosphere before returning above its target! Indeed many MIG interceptors could easily outfly concorde both in terms of speed and altitude. Concorde is 202ft long, 83ft wide and 28ft high. Polaris was 28ft long and 4.5ft wide. Which do you think would be easier to shoot down!!!

Britain had its fleet of long range "V" bombers long before concorde. The Vulcan, which entered service in 1960 had a maximum altitude of 65000ft. If concorde was supposed to be a replacement, it wouldn't have been much of an improvement.

You then went on to say that concorde is being recalled to enter service as a bomber, possibly your most rediculous comment! Why would we bother with that when we now have 4 vanguard class submarines, each carrying 16 trident missiles, each missile carrying multiple nuclear warheads with a range of 5000 miles. These can be launched from anywhere in the world and the submarine virtually undetectable!

Conspiracy theories are all fine and well, but I'm afraid paddy, you've just crossed the line marked "stupidity"