Concords liveries that never flew...

[Nathan Ford - HJG]

Hi everyone. Having recently had my curiosity quirked by a Concord video uploaded to this forum, I decided to go looking for Concord liveries that never flew.

I was wondering if when the massive influx of requests for repaints dies down a bit, if someone might be interested in considering one or all of the following repaints for our Fanasty Repaints page. All where liveries that where actually considered at the time, although Braniff was the only airline to actually fly Concord, but their colour scheme never came to be.

Cheers,

Nathan.

[aerofoto - HJG Admin]

VIRGIN might/could actually have become a reality (BRANSON did express interest prior to their retirement from service) .... but ... I don't think BRITISH AIRWAYS and AIR FRANCE were keen on gifting a competitor what would have been a distinct advantage over them .... even for a short while

BRANIFF did actully fly CONCORDE (for less than a year) .... but .... only in BRIISH AIRWAYS and AIR FRANCE definitive liveries (with a tiny "BRANIFF" door sticker and temporary US registrations .... as per the HJG flightline) .... BUT .... these aircraft never supported definitive BRANIFF livery

Mark C
AKL/NZ

[Nathan Ford - HJG]

I love the Eastern, Qantas, PanAm and Lufthansa ones

[aerofoto - HJG Admin]

Had the US SST program not been cancelled .... and had the environmentalist lobby of the 70's not prevailed so strongly as to mislead as many as it did .... THEN .... a few of these (the above ) might actually have become "a reality" .... and CONCORDE a very different story too

Mark C
AKL/NZ

[alex94]

Had the Americans bought Concorde, I believe they’d be flying, even if BA and AF weren’t.

But Nathan there’s a great repaint of the delta scheme on avsim done by Todd Manbeck

[aerofoto - HJG Admin]

Had the Americans bought Concorde

I very much doubt that would ever have happened since BOEING was working on its B2707 .... essentially the US civil SST project .... but which got "canned" due to cost as well as the environmental lobby too .... and the fact that CONCORDE was "banned" from flying the very route it was intended to service (LON/JFK and CDG/JFK) for a number of years (due in part to the influence of that environmental lobby) .... and by the time it did commence servicing this route, during the late 1970's, the US civil SST program was long dead .... and CONCORDE production in both the UK and France had well'n'truly been terminated after a production ru nof what amounted to less than a dozen airframes between the facilities of 2 countries .... OH and at what development cost ?

I believe they’d be flying, even if BA and AF weren’t

I very much doubt it .... because by the time BA and AF both strategically agreed to withdraw their CONCORDE fleets those aircraft which remained in service by this time were already an "old airframes" .... approaching some 25 years of age. As aircraft get older they also become progressively more difficult, and expensive, to maintain .... especially after the termination of production.

I reason that even "IF" BRANSON/VIRGIN had been able to take on CONCORDE .... then .... he'd probably only have bee able to do so for a few years at the very most.

Aircraft simply can't live forever .... unlike "aviation nostalgia" which usually can

Mark C
AKL/NZ

[alex94]

Sure but look at planes like the b-52 & kc-135, theyll be almost 100 years old by the time it’s replaced. If something’s good enough, it’s worth keeping in my opinion

[aerofoto - HJG Admin]

There's no comparison between those 2 military aircraft and the civil CONCORDE though .... either structually or in regard to their performance/s and designed economic lifetimes .... and no production line can remain open if nobody's queing up to buy the product

AGAIN ....

Had the US civil SST project not been cancelled .... and had the (misguided) environmental lobby of the late 60's/early 70's not prevailed ass strongly as it did (it probably wouldn't have prevailed had the US civil SST project succeeded into production) .... THEN .... CONCORDE might have been an entirely different story .... and the world of air travel today possibly a common SST experience .... and probably even suoerseeding that which CONCORDE ushered in and offered the affluent travelling minority whom could afford to fly on it over its some 25 years of service.

Mark C
AKL/NZ

[christrott]

The only reason Concorde is not flying today is politics, nothing more. The airframes were fine, in fact, by BA's own admission, its fleet was at less than 50% of its design life because the utilization of the fleet was vastly below what they had been designed for. The problem was that AIRBUS (who controlled Aerospatiale and indirectly BAE) didn't want to keep supporting the fleet because it meant it actually had to fix the design flaws that resulted in the loss of F-BTSC. Add to that the mounting negative press about the ticket prices, the (in)action of all involved in fixing the tire problem and actively hiding several other flaws, and the post- 9/11 airline industry downturn, the planes got parked. If Concorde had only lasted a few years with Branson, it would have been due to financial reasons, not mechanical ones.

[Peter Liddell]

I have distant eventually plans to do a few Concordes...

Air Canada (x3, maybe 4)
Eastern
Canadian Pacific (pre CPAir)
CP Air
Canadian Pacific/Canadien Pacifique (post CPAir)
Canadian

but not soon... or even soonishventually... they will be when/if i get in the mood to do them waaaaaay down the road... Much more interested in alot of 737s, 727s, DC-8s, 146s etc...

[louross]

As I remember, the Concorde was a money losing airplane supported by the British and French taxpayers. It had 1950 instrumentation in a modern (modern then) environment. It was about as surrealistic as the Nazis jets in WWII. (They were pulled by horses from the hangar to the runway because of fuel shortages).
Lou Ross.

[Tony Madge - HJG]

Concorde was the pinnacle of civil aviation, it broke records and was superb, looking not out of place even now. I think the Americans killed the project with their actions over noise etc, yet I wonder if the Boeing supersonic airliner had been in service would the same have happened, I doubt it.... I believe that Concorde would be flying today if Airbus had not killed it off, BA flew it and made money out of it, something Air France could not do! Virgin would have made a good home for these supersonic cruisers, however BA would not have agreed to that so they scrapped it, disgraceful.... So in short this was an airliner ahead of its time, flying at supersonic speeds without the need for constant re heat, something the TU-144 could not do! I for one miss her graceful lines in the sky...

[christrott]

Feb 5, 2018 17:01:41 GMT louross said:

As I remember, the Concorde was a money losing airplane supported by the British and French taxpayers. It had 1950 instrumentation in a modern (modern then) environment. It was about as surrealistic as the Nazis jets in WWII. (They were pulled by horses from the hangar to the runway because of fuel shortages).
Lou Ross.

"1950 instrumentation" is a fallacy. First, it was flying with 1970's instrumentation.

Second, there's still DC-9s and 727s flying with even earlier 1960's instrumentation around and flying, and they even have RVSM approval. The Delco INS installed in the Concorde is still a valid RNP-1 capable unit even today. Programming it can be a bear, but it still works just fine. Even then however, BA had plans to install Smiths FMS units in the fleet when the time came that higher levels of RNP were required. As it was, they were already in the process of certifying in-flight WIFI and several other upgrades when EADS/Airbus pulled support.

Instruments are extremely simple to update. It's the certification that takes time. The only reason BA nor Air France ever did it was because they didn't need to. If the planes had gone into the late 2000's and into the 2010's, we would have seen most likely updates to have EADIs as well as that was becoming the fashion.

Planes don't get retired because of their cockpits. They're retired because of their economics, airfame age (i.e. cost of maintenance), or politics. In this case, it was all politics.

[Nathan Ford - HJG]

Thanks Peter, like I understand and respect the incredible amount of work that HJG repainters are facing at the moment, not to mention all of the work being done by others behind and in front of the scenes. I’m just happy to have someone interested in considering a repaint or two of this graceful lady.

Cheers,

Nathan.

[George Carty - HJG]

The 9/11 attacks played a crucial role in Concorde's downfall. Not only were many of its most loyal passengers killed in the attacks themselves, but they also resulted in a ramping-up of airport security checks that largely destroyed Concorde's speed advantage over private jets.

A private jet can be rented for a sum of money very similar to the price of a Concorde ticket, isn't subject to the same security-related delays, and (most importantly given that we're talking about rich people whose most precious commodity is their time) can be available on beck and call rather than adhering to a fixed schedule.

Incidentally, did any of you read Charlie Stross's blog post about why we won't see hypersonic airliners any time soon?

George