The Collapse of the Concordé
October 24,last departure of the Concordé and farewell to the
supersonic airplane, the engineering triumph that was ahead of its
time. This powerful machine made its last journey from New York to
London. For many people it was a dream that came true and is now dying
but still a lot of them will be waving their hands at Heathrow to pay
the last tribute to this miraculous aircraft.
Are we going backwards and not making any progress? This question
makes me think of development and failure of technology. Are we going
to stop trying and improving? Are we going back to traditional?
It all began when two former super powers; Britain and France tried to
outdo the mighty Americans. Concorde was born in 1956 after the
British government formed the Supersonic Transport Aircraft Committee
to investigate the possibility to make faster-than-sound airliner.
Delta wing became the well-known feature of the Concorde style. It was
a brilliant idea of engineers at Bristol Aircraft works in Filton. The
government insisted that British Aircraft Cooperation should find an
international partner for the project. Since Americans turned the
offer down thinking they could make it better (the thing that never
happened), they persuaded the French to grab the opportunity. There
was no single genius responsible for Concordé design, it was a
collaboration of the whole team, an object of sublime elegance.
Choosing a name was pretty difficult but in the end Thesaurus was
consulted and the word “Concord” was selected. It was the French who
insisted in adding the final “e”. It became Concordé.
This super jet was not made of ordi...
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...ike it. July 25, 2000 was a terrible day for Concordé´s history. An
Air France Concordé exploded in the air killing all the passengers.
The news was spread all over the world and people got scared of it.
But the worse was about to arrive. Six days after Concordé´´s return
to service, September 11 not only killed a lot of regular executives
of Concordé, but it also reduced confidence in entire aviation
history. Nothing was the same.
Air France has already retired its Concordes and now the British
Airways are doing the same.
As a conslusion I have to say that even though the collapse of
Concordé was in a way a failure of technology many people will be
there to see its last rise into the skies. It is a sad thing that we
are not able to predict future but I hope that time and human
knowledge will arrange things.