Sir - In "Twenty years young" (Flight International, 7-13 February, P41) you comment that "...in terms of flight cycles and hours, the aircraft [Concordes] are remarkably young, despite the physical age of the fleet". British Airways, you report, operates each Concorde for 900-1,100h a year - one-quarter (or less) of the utilisation of a Boeing 747.
The technical achievement of the Concorde is undeniable, but so is its failure to fulfil the sensational prospectus on which it was built. This has implications for any proposed replacement.
In 1971, Sir George Edwards chairman of BAC (now British Aerospace) predicted the possibility of "...1,500 Concordes and Concorde development aircraft to be in service by the end of the century" (Flight International, 21 December 1971). Capt James Andrew, flight-development manager for Concorde at BOAC (now British Airways), revealed that BOAC asked the UK Government to start negotiations for supersonic corridors in key areas of the world. No such corridor was achieved, except, briefly, one to Bahrain.
In April 1994, the European Supersonic Research Programme (ESRP) was launched, to compete with the US high-speed-transport effort. In the last two years, however, very little has been published either on the ESRP, or on the US high-speed-transport effort.
An editorial published in 1971 (Flight International, 21 December, 1971) said: "The Concorde scrooges live on. In a democracy, there has to be full public debate."
The contrast between the expectations of Edwards and Andrews and the actualities should warn the ESRP, the USA and the taxpayers and politicians in the countries concerned. These actualities included development and production costs of £2 billion ($3 billion), but no supersonic corridors or sales, while production lines closed after the fourteenth aircraft.
There never was "full public debate" on the Concorde - are we going to have some debate this time round?
RICHARD WIGGS
Biggleswade, Bedfordshire, UK
Source: Flight International
