Posts about: "British Airways" [Posts: 177 Pages: 9]

Discussing the formation video...and video in general, I would assume there is one hell of a lot of footage out there that we have never seen ( at least I hope so ! )....we see snippets here and there but I wonder what happened to most of it ? Would be depressing to think some of it ended up in old tins and junked somewhere. Really referring to the days of construction and testing - would love to see video of the engine testing, flight testing, fuel rig, and the folk involved. Even more footage of the formation video or some of that spectacular footage we see of Concorde behind the 'chase plane' in flight...amazing stuff. Is most of it in the hands of BA or .... ?

Cheers.

howiehowie93
The whole idea of adapting hotstreak injection came from our Rolls-Royce rep', who spent many years on RB199 development. We'd even identified the position on the Olympus 593 for the injector itself; un unused start atomiser port, but as I reluctantly said before, it was not to be.
Apart from ignition issues the other main problems were reheat instability and reheat 'coming in with a thump', this particular malady being generally confined to transonic acceleration and not take-off.
The instability issue was caused by either an open circuit/high resistance fuel metering valve tacho (only rate feedback was used here) or more commonly contamination of the RFCU umbilical electrical connector. The connector itself was originally located high up the side of the engine, close to the combustion area, was barely accessable and was a total nightmare in terms of reliability. After a great deal of pressure from us (BA) SNECMA agreed to effectively relocate the connector at the bottom of the engine and the majority of our stability problems almost disapperared overnight.
The 'reheat in with a thump issue was a real beaut'. For transonic acceleration a much lower ratio of Fr/Fe (reheat fuel flow/engine fuel flow) was used than for take-off. (0.45 as opposed to 0.78) and therefore the opening rate of the fuel metering valve required damping, this being achieved by using a metered orifice inside the RFCU that applied a small amount of servo fuel pressure to one side of the valve to achieve the damping. Trouble was, any contaminants in the reheat fuel system would progressively clog up the orifice and kill our daming stone dead; the end result being the FMV banging wide open and hence the 'thump'. The only remedy for this problem was to replace the RFCU. SNECMA, in a truly classic feat of engineering produced a filter across this orifice, in order to prevent it getting clogged. Anyone see a problem with this? Yep, the filter itself would clog up and we got our beloved thump back. The only remedy for this problem was again to replace the RFCU. The contaminants were often as a result of RFCU build issues; this issue was never truly resolved.
I checked and found the dodgy sustained N1 band for the Olympus 593, this was 88-91% N1. This figure was never an issue in service as at cruise ISA -7 and above conditions the N1 was always run at the flat rate limit of 101.5%. Below ISA -7 the intake system would progressively reduce N1 as a function of intake local Mach Number, falling to 97.4% at ISA -24. (The coldest cruise conditions I personally ever saw was ISA - 25 (that's -81.5 degrees C folks) between BAH and BKK.
The controlled N1 at all other 'non cruise' phases was always in the upper 90's, well away from our blade resonance area.

jodeliste and Alpine Flyer
Thank you both for the TSR-2 information, it makes amazing reading (what a truly magnificent aircraft) , and as Concorde's military cousin, discussion here is in my opinion most waranted.

Regards
Dude

Ok, I've got another question! I was watching "Concorde: The Comeback" on discovery turbo channel last night (just couldn't help myself!).

Really interesting stuff about how they put the kevlar into the fuel tanks etc. I don't know if anyone who posts here was in that program, but if you were - everyone was looking good!! :-) It was superb to see the genuine emotion when Concorde got her certificate back and could take to the skies once again!

Ok, so my question is - BA had to use an airframe as a test for the modifications. However, the choice of airframe seemed a strange one to me, BOAF - which I previously thought to be one of the youngest and best airframe they had (m2dude you explained that BOAF and BOAG weighed less than the previous models). So, why would BA use one of their best airframes, rather than use perhaps the most worn out of their fleet?

All in all though - great program, and lovely shots/video of the Lady, and all who cared for her, from the guys at the top running the business side to the poor guys climbing into the fuel tanks! In all honesty, I'd prefer to be doing the fuel tank side stuff myself, rather than the business side of it! Maybe the pilots had the best of all worlds! ;-)

Cheers for all the insight & information once more!

(Edit: In this program pretty much at the start, all 7 BA concordes are shown lined up in formation on the ground at (I presume) Heathrow). Just seeing them all together, all looking stunning.... breathtaking.

Landroger
The great thing about the OLY593 was the high specific thrust (in relative terms the Olympus is a tiny, compact design), it's growth potential/high potential mass flow. A bypass engine is not really ideal for supersonic cruise, and given what was available in terms of two-spool turbojets in the 1960s, the Olympus was the obvious choice for both the TSR-2 and Concorde alike. As far as for ships and power stations, well a turbojet is always going to be favourite, as all the gas energy is contained in the jet efflux; this can be efficiently transferred to the load in question by a gearbox coupled to the HP spool.

howiehowie93
Well the 593 did require a primary nozzle to match N1 against N2, bur apart from that she was a study of deceptive simplicity and elegance.
No mate, generally BI-HEX AF.
This really is fascinating stuff Howie, thank you. As I alluded to a few pages back, the primary nozzle on the OLY593 opened in response to the rising P7, kind of 'after the horse has bolted' in a way. To maintain the correct scheduled value of N1, the control system set, via a needle valve, a finite ratio between P7 and P3. As reheat lit as P7 attempted to rise it upset this ratio and the primary nozzle was opened in order to restore the aforementioned ratio. (Nozzle opens, P7 falls). When reheat was cancelled the opposite happened, and the nozzle closed sharply to prevent N1 overspeed.

Tom355UK
Glad you are enjoying our thread, and thank you for your kind words. (But apologies to your good lady wife though ).
Jeepers Tom that is one hell of a question. Assuming there was a market for such a venture (personally not sure right now) I think you are looking at BILLIONS of $, and for this reason alone I think you'd find that a multi-national/continental effort would be required. There is little doubt that technology is not the major barrier here, but economics and political will. (Nice thought though, I do agree).
As far as a powerplant goes, well the PW5000 is a really superb engine, although well down on the thrust requirement for an 'NG' SST. More likely I would have thought would be e development of the Olympus, there was/is still such an enormous amount of potential in this basic design. (But who knows, this is all pure speculation anyway).
And have no fears about posting here Tom, most of us are quite happy to answer away (We've said before that there is no such thing as a stupid question; you are most welcome here ).

DavvaP It really did not matter what airframe we used for the test flight; the sole purpose was just to find out just what effect (if any) the tank liners had on the performance of the fuel system. (The handsome chap who you see on TV most, installing the liners, Mr Marc Morley left BA and now resides in Australia).
I am honoured to say that I was lucky enough to be onboard G-BOAF for that flight from LHR-BZZ and as far as I could tell, the liners had no impact whatsoever. One amusing part of the flight was when we deliberately allowed tank 3 to run dry and see just what the indicated fuel quantity was as #3 engine flamed out (we were subsonic at this point of course). The gauge slowly crept down (in order for the tank to to run dry, the tank 7 & 8 transfer pumps were switched off) and we all watched in eager anticipation/dread....... as the counters reached zero weeeeeee... the engine flamed out. I am being completely honest here, the engine wound down EXACTLY at ZERO indicated contents).
Those 7 aircraft really did look magnificent I know, it was just sad as to the reason they were all lined up there.

Mr.Vortex
Well she was a delta without a tailplane, so the short answer is 'yes', but remember that we used fuel to move the CG backwards and forwards for long term trimming.
OK, this is a little complicated, so bear with me. The intake had a finite limit, in terms of the mass flow that it could deliver to the engine and so an automatic N1 limitation signal was transmitted from the intake 'box' (the AICU) to the engine 'box' (the ECU) full time above Mach 1.6. Now this limitation was referenced against TEMPERATURE compensated N1, ( N1/ \xd6 q) and at normal ISA temperatures this limit was above the 'normal' 101.5% N1 running line. (The lower the temperature, the lower the effective limit became). At ISA -7 the limit now became less than 101.5% N1, and so the demanded value of N1 was reduced to this value. But this limit signal was always there, it's just that at normal temperatures it was effectively ignored by the ECU. If this limitation signal failed for any reason, the AICU would detect this by way of the ramp angle becoming uncomfortably close to it's MINIMUM variable limit (this limit was scheduled as a function of intake local Mach number) and an amber light would illuminate on the associated N1 gauge, along with an amber INTAKE master warning would illuminate (plus an audible 'BONG' from the audio warning system). The only course of action was to manually reduce throttle setting away from the Mach 2 norm of maximum, in order to reduce N2, and consequently N1 and mass flow demand. There was in intake pressure ratio indicator at the top of the intake control panel that would show where the power setting would have to be set to. It was an indirect indication of intake shock geometry.
This manual N1 datum reset control was only used during flight test trials into just how much N1 would have to be controlled/reduced at low temperatures in order to give optimim intake geometry. It had absolutely nothing to do with afterburner/reheat and had no place in the production aircraft as all the research was complete

Best regards to all
Dude

Okay....couldn't wait until I had completed the thread review before posting a question (on Page 9 now ). One 'easy one':

I'm curious as to how difficult getting the C type rating was. Presumably only senior BA / AF people could apply but there must have been a huge learning curve involved, even for these experienced foiks.

Cheers - Keith

A certain CFI (I think) at BA flying club, High Wycombe, who was also F/O on concorde, showed me some photographs of an engine that had eaten a piece of intake ramp.
I think he said that the adjacent engine had surged and a piece of ramp went out the front and down the other engine. This resulted in a double engine failure mid atlantic. They landed in Shannon with very little fuel left.

A double engine change ensued.

Question, how fast was the ramp going if the A/C was at Mach 2?

Maybe M2dude remembers the occasion?

First time that happened was on prototype 001 in the very early days, when an engine "spit out" the entire ramp (there's a photo in Trubshaw's book).
The ramps and actuators were 'beefed up' considerably afterwards... I didn't know an in-service aircraft had suffered a similar mishap.

Good question.... not being an "engine man" I've always been amazed how a nice steady Mach 2 flow, slowed down to Mach 0.5 at the engine inlet, is capable of totally choking off and even reversing itself in less than a second.... no wonder it's usually accompanied by a big bang!

CJ

PS I have no record of any of the British development aircraft ever having lost a ramp, notwithstanding the number of deliberate engine surges they went hrough. But then maybe I wasn't told....

Hi Guys, quite a few little points here, so here's my angle(s):
Pedalz
Ooo yes. The biggest problems we ever had associated with the ramps themselves were wear in the seals at the sides of the forward ramp. Even a few thou' over the maximum allowable side gap was enough to make the intake unstable and susceptible to surging. (It is quite interesting that the rear ramp side gaps were not in the least bit critical, and if Concorde intake development had continued, the rear ramps were going to be deleted altogether). Other failure factors were control unit malfuntions, rapid sensor drift; all of these causing either ramp/spill door drift or runaway. Primary nozzle misbehaviour could also result in intake surges. Having said all that, the monitoring of the intake system was truly superb, and surface runaways, themselves quite rare, would usually be picked up by the control system monitors causing either a lane switch or if that did not work, a total 'red light' failure with the surfaces frozen. No surge was treated as 'just one of those things', and much midnight oil was burned and hair pulled out (so that's what happened to mine ) to try and find the cause of the surge.
My friend EXWOK perfectly answered the intake hydraulics allocations.
EXWOK was right on the ball here as usual, in fact above Mach 1.6 an interactive surge was more or less guaranteed. The cause of interactive surge had nothing to do with the wing leading edge position, but to the radially generated distortion field coming out of the FRONT of the surging intake, severely distorting the adjascent intakes airflow. It mattered not if the originating surge was an inboard or an outboard intake, the other guy would always go also, above Mach 1.6.
You might want to take a look at 'When Intakes Go Wrong Part 1:
Concorde engine intake "Thrust"
and Parts 2 & 3:
Concorde engine intake "Thrust"
Not to mention Part 3:


dixi188
I can never recall this particular event happening with BA , certainly not as a result of a ramp failure. Although in the near 28 years of operation we had quite a few SNN diversions, none that I can ever recall were as the result of a ramp structural failure. The two major SNN diversions that I can recall were G-BOAF in the early 80s when an LP1 blade failed and resulted in a totally wrecked engine (although a completely contained failure) and G-BOAA in 1991, with another wrecked engine due to running in rotating stall. (Both of these events were covered previously in our thread). ChristiaanJ has mentioned quite rightly the event with A/C 001 spitting a ramp out, and Air France had a ramp failure going into JFK. (Covered previously in our thread, due to certain 'human foul ups'). I am not sure, but I think that this one in JFK DID require a double engine change in JFK. (Usually from SNN a BA aircraft would be 3 engine ferried back to LHR).

ChristiaanJ
Nope, you are quite right, no more French or British development aircraft ever suffered a ramp linkage failure again. The 001 ramp failure was a salutary lesson to the design team, and the intake assembly became tougher than old boots after that, nomatter WHAT you threw at it.


Due to the lateness of the hour (and me being up at 4 ), that will have to do for now guys.

Best regards to all
Dude

CliveL
At BA the ZFW & ZFCG were sent to the aircraft from Load Control via NOCARS . Only joking folks, with no third VHF ACARS never happened, it was VHF verbal. On charters a despatcher would usually either fly with the aircraft or be positioned at the charter destination in order to make the load control calculations. My pilot buddies will confirm this I'm sure
(I seem to remember that in the early 90s we were looking to fit Concorde with ACARS, but when informally approached, Filton pleaded 'please, not another aerial position '.... we had only just got over the TCAS installation issues you see).



... Oh, he was Vietnamese eh? And not LOOPY??????
tee hee, We are certainly living and learning here thanks Clive, keep on posting .

Best Regards
Dude

We wish!

L&B was done by the flt crew on charters; if the flight had a PR flt crew member on board it was his job, otherwise it was the NHP's. (Unless the Captain was the NHP when it became the SFO's job.....)

At some BA stations arrangements might be made to get a L&B through company, but generally for charter flights we operated the way charter companies did!

Edit: Actually, I now recall we did sometimes get a dispatcher sent to UK stations occasionally. No big deal, either way - you just got on with it.

quote n boarding Concorde, I gave my business card to the purser, asking that she pass it forward. A few minutes later as the door was closing she came back to pass along an invitation from the skipper to join them in the cockpit.

For the balance of the climb I plied the guys with questions and received courteous and detailed answers to every one, I stayed through the supersonic acceleration until I thought I'd worn out my welcome at cruise climb, returning to my seat in the mid cabin area for lunch. They invited me back for the descent and approach, which was very well appreciated.unquote

When I retired I flew to Wsahington and back with BA and when the crew found I was on board I also got invited to view TO and approach from the jump seat. The main difference was that it was me that was plied with questions

My main memory is that it is one thing to argue with the airworthiness authorities about 'pilot delay times' when calculating balanced field lengths, but when you are sitting at the sharp end and getting towards V1 the end of the runway is approaching at a helluva lick which puts a degree of realsim into one's thoughts!

The other memory is the sheer beauty of London when approached sitting in the front of a Concorde on a clear winter's evening when the lights are on.

CliveL

A couple of points on some of the latest entries

Discharge valves

We definately used alternating systems outbound and inbound and only No 1 system had thrust recuperators. I think the original idea was that No 1 system would be used always with No 2 sytem being a back up. However from the start BA operated as I said alternating per sector so as to be sure that both system were working. The same logic went for the engine starting ignitors which were used Lh or Rh per sector. This logic caused more problems with starting than any other although a way was found to over come this problem

under wing

Not sure if I am on the same thread as others but there were definately strengthening straps / doublers fitted on the underside of the wing outboard of the engines, which were on a wing root/wing tip alignment. This surprised everybody as they seemed to go against all the need for limiting drag that had been impressed on us during the lectures.

These strengthening straps were fitted a few years after the start of service due to small cracks appearing in the outer wing, and only seen on BA aircraft. This was put down to the fact that in the early years BA Concordes flew heavy and subsonic for extended periods across Europe, on their route to Bahrain, whereas Air France aircraft always accelerated shortly after take off

Also either side of the engines there were two tubes on the underwing which went fore /aft. These tubes were the drain outlet for their respective engine dry bay and directed any fluid to the trailing edge of the wing.

Mind you all this is some 30 years ago so the old grey matter could be playing me tricks

Thanks Brit 312 (lovely aircraft - first one I worked on after joining Bristols) that has cleared my mind.

If there were spanwise straps fitted to BA aircraft after a few years in service that was after my time. They would be a sort of 'crack stopper' and despite the drag would have to go spanwise to carry the loads and would have to be external at that stage in the aircraft life. They would give some additional bending stiffness, but not very much I think. they are probably invisible in any photographs I have - the 'fairings' I have been chuntering on about are the dry bay drains you have just described.

I must admit I am surprised by your remarks on the thrust recovery nozzles though.

CliveL

Sorry to be picky Mike, but didn't Brit 312 say the cracks were only found on BA aircraft? So maybe (probably) AF never fitted the straps.

CliveL

On the other hand, if we ignore Dude's instruction to go inboard and aft, then there could be spanwise straps ahead of/behind the 'F' of the registration out past the hyphen. Best leave it to those who know I think!

Mike,

On your original photo you can see perhaps 5 span wise smudges just forward of the dotted red line on the engine. On your second photo you can see them again with three just forward of the registration letters. The problem is that the aircraft in the photos are too clean and so they show up less.

These straps were quite neatly done but for Concorde they were rather agricultural. As far as I remember only BA aircraft suffered this problem for the reasons stated before, but I am not surprised to see that Air france aircraft were also modified.

Coffin Dodger , M2dude and Brit312 ,
M2dude will have to confirm that the 'lateral stiffeners' he is thinking of are indeed the very roughly 2' long and 5" strips at the location of each spar just outboard of the engine, that are very clearly visible on Coffin Dodger's photo of 'AA.
If so, they are indeed shown in the structural repair manual and listed as 'doublers'. There are ten of those, from spar 62 to spar 71.

Reading "between the lines", the modification dates from about 1978, and was applied by successive service bulletins to both the BA and AF aircraft.

CJ

Mike, I took the liberty to grossly 'tweak' your photo.....



and as you see, they show up quite clearly on Fox Bravo as well.

Judging by the page dates in the SRM, BA started it all, and Air France followed, with all the aircraft being modified by 1981. But that's just my guess.

CJ

[xxxxquote=Mike Bracknell] Trust me, i'm definitely just here for the ride (so to speak) and quickly defer to you and the others who definitely know! Mike Bracknell[xxxx/quote]

Hell Mike, I meant I should leave it for others who definitely know, not you!

[xxxxquote]A little p.s. from me - having looked at Clive's diagram on this page showing the bathtubs, aren't the strengtheners the oval cups outboard of the main fixings on the page? with one pointed to by the words "Bottom machined skin panel"?

This looks like it's another layer of shear in order to fulfil the brief of working around the reported skin problems in that area. Just strange it had to break the surface like that? [xxxx/quote]

I don't think so Mike, there are far too many of them. It looks more like 'pocketing' of the machined skin to reduce weight; and incidentally that SA overdid it, since there were clearly cracks developing along the spanwise joints between the various wing sections.

Incidentally, doesn't that picture show ever so clearly why designing and fitting that postGonesse Kevlar liner to the lower skins was such a difficult job!

[xxxxquote=ChristiaanJ]If so, they are indeed shown in the structural repair manual and listed as 'doublers'. There are ten of those, from spar 62 to spar 71.

Reading "between the lines", the modification dates from about 1978, and was applied by successive service bulletins to both the BA and AF aircraft. [xxxx/quote]

Yes, I agree, they look like skin doublers put on as a repair job, and that makes (to me) a lot more sense than additions to increase outer wing stiffness. What has confused me from the beginning was that I equated "outer wing stiffness" with "outer wing torsional stiffness" because I could see why somebody might want to increase that but I couldn't, and can't, see why anyone would want to increase outer wing bending stiffness - if you get a little more dihedral who cares? But additional material to increase or recover fatigue life is another matter altogether.

Why external? Just look at that drawing - where could you add additional bending material easily?

[xxxxquote=Landroger]Digital control is a hell of a lot easier than Analogue - in my humble opinion.[xxxx/quote]

Depends when you were born Roger. Now if you came into this world before WW2 ......


[xxxxquote=Mr Vortex]I'm was wondering that, according to the manual and some document said that the vortex lift start to form on wing tip first. Why's that happened? Why not the root of the wing first?
Is it cause by the local wing tip vortex push the air causing more upwash
and hence more effective AoA causing it to reach the stall AoA first is that right?

Also, does the wing vortex on the Concorde has an influence or the effect on
the rudder? [xxxx/quote]

Ah! this gets a little complicated. Every lifting wing generates a pair of vortices at the tip, but these are not the vortices most people associate with Concorde. The massive vortices you see when the air is moist and the water vapour condenses out because of the drop in air pressure inside the vortex start, as you suggest at the wing root from that highly swept leading edge. The wingtip vortices are still there, even when the main vortices are doing their stuff, so Concorde actually has two sets of vortices acting on the upper surface, although this is not obvious to the casual observer.

Simply, the wing vortex has no effect on the rudder.

But whilst I am writing about vortices, can I digress to talk about the 'moustaches' aka GT6. Somebody, I forget who, asked about their use for controlling longitudinal stability and somebody else replied, quite correctly, that they were a contribution to lateral stability. What was happening without them was that high AoA (by which I mean in excess of about 10~12 degrees) the 'crossflow' on the front fuselage generated a pair of small vortices which, in sideslip, wandered across the base of the fin. This gave some sidewash that cancelled the 'incidence' coming from the sideslip itself so that the bottom of the fin was effectively operating at zero slip and therefore zero lift. Result - the weathercock stability dropped to virtually zero for small sideslip angles. The small vortex generators (Generator Turbillon or GT) had the effect of fixing the location of the origin of the forebody vortices so that they didn't wander - in fact they tended to become entrained into the main wing vortices - problem solved.

Now if I can sort it out I will try to upload some pretty pictures showing those two sets of wing vortices.

CliveL

I've pulled this quotation out at random from what I have found a rather disappointing sequence of postings. I could write reams about this (and like everyone in this thread I would write as a Concordophile), but I won't - or at least I will try not to. In general I'm with Christian on this, and for the record I think a few 'counterfactuals' should be recorded. I am not trying to reopen a sterile debate - as CJ has said irrevocable decisions have been made and the subject is done and dusted. However, let us remember that:

G-BOAF was, and is the property of BA; BAe and now AI are merely caretakers.
AI's statement cross-posted from the Heritage website strikes me as a very reasonable statement; we found that your roof is leaking, if you don't get it fixed it is going to get worse rather rapidly; if you (BA) agree and will pay us to do it we will take it indoors and fix it. I don't see any sinister intent here, and given the weather we have had in the UK over the past weeks it must be regarded as a happy, if fortuitous decision!
Those who know Filton will also know that there is nowhere that Alpha Fox could be stored under cover except in the hangar where she was first assembled. They will also know that this hangar is buried in the centre of the factory and nobody, in a post 9/11 world, is going to give more or less unrestricted public access to somewhere containing a lot of valuable real estate! So when BA took the decision to locate AF at Filton it must have been in the knowledge that she would live in British weather until some form of shelter could be organised.
That it has taken so long to (fail to) organise such shelter is regrettable, but the blame can hardly be uniquely allocated to AI. BA own the aircraft, BAe/AI had a 40% share in building the airframe, RR a 60% share in building the powerplant. IMHO they should all have chipped in to construct some sort of shelter - it was never on the cards that local enthusiasts could have raised enough in a short time.
Although 'Dude' says that all the UK airframes were left out in the weather, this is not exactly true is it? 002 at Yeovilton (certainly) and 101 at Duxford (I think) are under cover and receive lots of TLC. It is at least arguable that these early airframes have more historical significance than Alpha Fox.

So far as AI's decision to hand back the C of A is concerned, they would have already recognised from the post-Gonesse activity that most people with sufficient expertise on the Concorde design were retired (or worse!) They have enough people to keep a subsonic aircraft going, but Concorde would, I think, require additional experience. AI management would certainly have consulted AI Engineering about this, and I have to say that the then Head of Engineering was someone I know well. He, like me, worked on Concorde in the early days and he is definitely not antiConcorde. I for one would respect his decision.

So far as the decision to stop services goes, we all knew they would be cut off sometime.the only question was when. When we were designing the aircraft the general feeling was that she would stay in service for about 30 years, but we also feared that it would only need one fatal accident to bring the whole lot crashing down. [Incidentally, it was that latter philosophy that made us (we hoped) ultracareful with airworthiness issues] In the event it was 28 years and one accident.
Even before Gonesse AF were losing money on their Concorde services. One might have thought that they would stop right away, but I suspect that a combination of Gallc pride and politics ensured that they would carry on.
But eventually there came a point where, on an airline losing money and in a recession, an unsentimantal and yes, generally unsympathetic, management would have to say enough is enough.
What else would you have them do? Continue to fly loss making services so that their rival BA could go on with their profitable? operations? One would have to say 'Get real!'
Once AF had decided to stop, what do you expect of AI? They are a company with a duty to make profit for their shareholders. OK, they had a duty, also to support in service aircraft, but that duty does not extend to doing that at a loss. With AF out of it therefore AI had no alternative but to ask BA to shoulder the full bill. I have no doubt that when BA declined to do this AI breathed a huge sigh of relief, but at the end of the day the decision to stop all Concorde services was above all an AIRLINE decision.

Sorry to go rabbiting on, but it is a subject that arouses strong emotions!

CliveL

Spot on, Clive.

I've said something similar (while at the same time being full of admiration and effusive praise for M2Dude). It's worth bearing in mind that at the time (2003 or thereabouts), AI were fighting a battle to keep the A380 project viable (like Boeing with the 747, they'd effectively "bet the company" on the project's success) - and sadly, in terms of business realpolitik Concorde was costing them money, being just a small-run legacy airframe capable of operating profitably for a single customer. Things weren't going to get any better, and as such AI's decision was as understandable as it was regrettable.

I have far less sympathy for BA, who acted with what seemed to me indecent haste to permanently mothball the airframes (the press at the time speculating that Branson would try to get his hands on at least one of them), and while the UK Concorde community have a right to feel aggrieved at the way things panned out - the fact that what was left of BAe effectively bowed out of the Airbus consortium, the better to focus on military hardware with the Americans, meant that we'd thrown away any chance of having a say in what happened to Concorde in the end.

EDITED TO ADD : In reference to Bellerophon's post below - this was *not* intended to take the technical discussion off-course. I was simply trying to thank Clive for summing up how I felt about the whole situation far better than I ever could. Sincere apologies if this was misconstrued as such.