This is a weekly series of UPI articles examining the forthcoming second century of human flight, which will begin on Dec. 17, 2003, with the centennial celebration of the Wright Brothers' first flight at Kitty Hawk, N.C.
--
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Oct. 24 (UPI) -- The world was flying high in 1969. America had won its heady space race with the Soviets, landing Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the surface of the moon on July 20. Meanwhile in Europe, a fruitful partnership between France and Great Britain culminated with the first test flight of a supersonic commercial jet aircraft, the Concorde.
In retrospect, like the Apollo program, which ended in 1972, the Concorde was ahead of its time. Its last flight landed in London on Friday, with no sign of a follow-on program in sight. The dozen aircraft owned by Air France and British Airways will find homes in museums, including the National Air and Space Museum's new Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles International Airport, near Washington, D.C.
It might be easy to write off the demise of the world's only commercial supersonic transport system as fallout from the fatal Concorde crash, which killed 109 people on the aircraft and four people on the ground. The plane crashed shortly after takeoff from Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris on July 25, 2000.
The airlines grounded the planes for 15 months, returning nine jets to service after a lengthy and still controversial investigation. With round-trip fares between London and New York topping $9,000 per passenger, British Airways said it was making a profit as long as the 100-seat aircraft flew at least half-full. That all changed after the accident, which saddled the airlines with safety upgrades and insurance settlement fees approaching $200 million.
Other factors were as much to blame as the accident, however. Concorde's re-emergence for passenger travel was poorly timed, coming on the heels of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackings and suicide crashes in New York City and Washington, which scared away air travelers en masse.
"It always comes down to a cost-benefit ratio," Nathaniel Villaire, an aeronautics professor and program chairman at Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne, told United Press International. "You have to take an aircraft and make it pay more than what it costs you to fly."
The British and French governments, which invested heavily in Concorde's development, had big plans in 1962, when the two formalized a partnership to develop a fleet of commercial supersonic aircraft. The countries spent what would be about $35 billion in today's public dollars, hoping to sell hundreds of aircraft worldwide. That never was to be. High fuel costs and high-profile environmental protests scared off buyers. In the end, only 14 operational jets were produced -- seven owned by British Airways and seven by Air France.
Air France withdrew one jet in 1982 to use for spare parts and lost another Concorde in the July 2000 accident. That left a dozen planes, but another three were not modified and returned to service after the accident, leaving just nine Concordes to tend to the world's jet-setters. Air France and British Airways hung on for two years. In the end, Air France, which was never able to operate its Concordes as profitably as its partner, sealed the planes' fate by announcing it was withdrawing from the supersonic transport business. In turn, Airbus, the European aircraft consortium, said it would stop supplying parts and service for the Concorde, so British Airways also threw in the towel.
For a brief period, however, the Concorde might have enjoyed a storybook fate. Richard Branson, owner of British Airways archrival Virgin Atlantic, offered to play the white knight and purchase the fleet. BA, declined, saying it preferred to retire the Concorde and donate the fleet to museums rather than hand them over to Branson.
"Concorde is capable of flying for 20 or 30 years and it should continue to fly," Branson said in interviews this week. "We should all make an enormous effort to make sure that Concorde is kept flying in air displays and jubilee events so that future generations can actually see Concorde fly and not in a museum."
Soaring 11 miles above the planet at Mach 2, or twice the speed of sound, there is no question Concorde has set the standard for commercial aviation. In theory, planes can travel even higher and faster, but so far the economic underpinnings to make supersonic jet transport commercially viable remain elusive.
That is not to say manufacturers have stopped looking for higher ground. For example, the General Aviation Manufacturers Association, a trade organization in Washington, is lobbying the U.S. government to change its regulations that prohibit supersonic flight.
"Technologies have advanced significantly since these rules were put in place, and recent studies have shown that safe and environmentally acceptable designs for aircraft and engines are possible," GAMA's vice president of operations Ron Swanda said in a statement earlier this month.
"The FAA's rules are a barrier to the development and application of supersonic technologies," the statement said.
--
E-mail [email protected]
--
(Editors: UPI photos NYP2003102415, NYP2003102416, NYP2003102417, NYP2003102418 and NYP2003102419 are available)
