The Concorde Plane Project The Concorde was the fastest commercial plane to ever fly the skies to date and although it now has an infamous legacy, there were high hopes of its commercial success from the engineers who designed and developed this supersonic airplane. Designed to break the sound barrier and decrease travel speed immensely, the Concorde achieved its goals early on. For many years the Concorde had a stellar record of no incidents, crashes or fatalities. While the Concorde never amounted to the commercial success that designers had originally hoped, it was considered to be a safe and reliable airplane. That was until the crash in Paris on July 25, 2000, a crash that killed all 109 passengers and crew on board and four people on the ground near the crash site. Many questions arose from the ashes of this terrible plane crash. Most prominently, people wondered who was responsible. Was it the design of the Concorde, pilot error during takeoff, faulty maintenance of the airport runway, or something else altogether? It seemed unlikely that it would be a fundamental design flaw due to the fact that the Concorde …show more content…
It could fly from Paris to New York City in under four hours due to its supersonic speed (Kurczy, 2010). The design of the Concorde was what enabled it to reach these supersonic speeds. It could fly about 1,350mph (Glancey, 2006). The Concorde had computer-controlled engine air intakes, ten wheels that retract hydraulically, four Olympus 593-610 engines to create the power for increased speeds, afterburners that increase power during take off and thrust reversers that slowed the plane for safe landing ("Untold Story of the Concorde Disaster," 2012). The Concorde was also outfitted with thirteen fuel tanks that carry up to 31,500 gallons of fuel, seven of which are on each wing (Tagliabue, 2000). A lot of these revolutionary design features have become standard on modern
...Another way to decrease the disturbance over the wings are to move the wings lower than the horizontal stabilizer or visa versa to allow the shock waves moving over each wing to miss each other. Most aircraft today do not have enough fuel to maintain the speed of sound for great distances. Engineers have designed a brand new aircraft known as the F-22, which has the ability to fly an entire mission at supersonic speeds. The speed of light is unattainable by aircraft due to drag. We have no materials that could with stand the heat caused by the friction of the air moving over its body, nor materials strong enough to be able to take the enormous drag. Today there is no thrust capability that would allow for the speed of light. Although aircraft has proved such things as time dilation it is still impossible for an aircraft to travel at 900,000 miles per second.
Although still widely used throughout the modern world, it is now actually beginning to be considered as old hat, and for this reason is slowly being replaced by a range of newer and more efficient technologies. These newer technologies tend to include:
It is very sad that it took two tragic and deadly accidents to make a significant change in the way aviation was regulated. The incidents that led to the creation of the bill that created the Federal Aviation Act of 1958 could have been prevented if safety precautions had been put in place sooner. Unfortunately, the aviation industry was only reactive rather than proactive when it came to airline safety. Nowadays, the private and commercial aviation safety is much more proactive and safety is the number one priority. FAA regulation has not only help aviation become one the top modes of transportation, but also one of the safest in the
Following World War II and the jet engine technology that emerged largely toward its end, aerospace engineers knew well that the technology had great potential for use in the commercial aviation industry. The Comet was the first aircraft to utilize jet propulsion; however, its designers failed to consider the metallurgy of the aircraft’s materials under flight conditions or the consequences of their atypical window design. The aircraft was designed by Britain’s De Havilland Aircraft Company and entered service in May 1952. After a year of service, however, the design issues mentioned above resulted in the failure of several Comet aircraft. Extensive evaluations revealed that repeated pressurization stress on the aircraft’s main cabin had caused its structure to fail.
Travelling at a speed twice that of sound might seem to be something futuristic; however, this feat has already been achieved almost 40 years ago by the world’s only supersonic passenger aircraft-The Concorde. Concorde brought a revolution in the aviation industry by operating transatlantic flights in less than four hours. The slick and elegant aircraft with one of the most sophisticated engineering was one of the most coveted aircrafts of its time. However, this was all destined to end when Air France Flight 4590 was involved in a tragic disaster just outside the city of Paris on July 25, 2000. The crash killed 113 people, but more disastrous was its impact. The belief and confidence people had with Concorde gradually started to fade, and finally Concorde was grounded after two and a half years of the crash. Official reports state that the main cause of the crash was a piece of metal dropped by a Continental aircraft that flew moments before Concorde, but, over the last decade, the report has met a lot of criticism, and many alternative hypotheses have thus been proposed.
For example, it has been revolutionized in such a way that even the OED states, “Used
This tragic accident was preventable by not only the flight crew, but maintenance and air traffic control personnel as well. On December 29, 1972, ninety-nine of the one hundred and seventy-six people onboard lost their lives needlessly. As is the case with most accidents, this one was certainly preventable. This accident is unique because of the different people that could have prevented it from happening. The NTSB determined that “the probable cause of this accident was the failure of the flightcrew.” This is true; the flight crew did fail, however, others share the responsibility for this accident. Equally responsible where maintenance personnel, an Air Traffic Controllers, the system, and a twenty cent light bulb. What continues is a discussion on, what happened, why it happened, what to do about it and what was done about it.
Plane crashes occur for a number of reasons. There seems to be a consensus with the general public that flying is dangerous, engines fail and planes crash. That is true some times, although the majority of plane crashes occur largely due to a combination of human error and mechanical failure. In much of aviations accidents mechanical failure has been a contributing factor. It is impossible however to blame plane crashes on one reason since events leading up to an accident are so varied. Reasoning for plane crashes can be placed in a broad number of categories.
With human error, many people could be blamed for the sinking of the Titanic. The two people I believe should be blamed for the sinking of Titanic are Joseph Ismay and Captain Edward Smith. The designer, Thomas Andrews, should not be blamed at all in the sinking of the Titanic. His original designs were either removed or vetoed when the ship was being built. Ismay should be blamed for the original designs being cut because he
"It was the jet Boeing didn't build that averted what could have become one of the worst crash landings in the company's 91-year history--and cleared Boeing to conquer the skies again."(Masters, 2007). Boeing's Management team's work hard to plan what project's will be best for customers, lead to the largest returns to shareholders, and keep a reputation of being a world leader in the aviation industry. "In October 2002, executives of the aircraft manufacturer met with a group of global airline representatives at a conference center on the Seattle waterfront. The executives were trying desperately to figure out what to build next to hold off a soaring Airbus."(Masters, 2007) Boeing had made plans to build a high speed jetliner prior to this meeting. Through careful planning and expert decision making Boeing officials found that the world was more interested in comfort and efficiency. Boeing's high speed aircraft would have been a huge economic let down because of the huge price tag and expensive operating costs. After that meeting Boeing changed plans to make the Dreamliner which is a more cost effective and comfortable aircraft that has enough orders to keep Boeing busy building the aircraft for customers until the year 2015. While Boeing has spent many resources planning what to build, Boeing is now faced with the problems of how to meet customer demands of the new aircraft.
Another example of the change in our technology over the last century is the change in the computer. In 1946, the first electronic computer called the ENIAC took up the space of a large room. Instead of using transistors and IC chips, the ENIAC used vacuum tubes. Compared to many computers now, the ENIAC is about as powerful as a small calculator. That may not be much, but it is a milestone because there would not be computers today if it were not for the ENIAC. As the years passed, the computer became smaller and more powerful. Today, more than half of the American population has a computer in their home. The personal computers today are thousands of times more powerful than the most powerful computers fifty years ago.
Boeing Commercial Aeroplanes – Why Projects Fail. 2014. Boeing Commercial Aeroplanes – Why Projects Fail. [ONLINE] Available at:http://calleam.com/WTPF/?p=4617. [Accessed 26 March 2014].
" NASA's Supersonic Passenger Planes of the Future: Coming in 2025? N.p., 16 Nov. 2013. Web. The Web. The Web. 30 Nov. 2013.
...shed these devices with added features and improvements. However, they are still the same basic devices. These products, built upon incredible foresight and attention to detail, carried tremendous customer loyalty and high margins.
Technology has gone from colorless block televisions and giant computer to computers you could fit on your fingertip and televisions that are flat and 3 Dimensional. Now they even are making holograms and televisions that go into an even better quality of graphics. There are thousands