Supersonic travel: Down, but not out

Christopher Orlebar, a former Concorde co-pilot, is optimistic the supersonic plane will fly again

In this story: 'Rather take a taxi than a bus' A $4 billion dream Russia's 'Concordski' fights for respect An outsized jumbo jet RELATED STORIES, SITES

LONDON (CNN) -- The Concorde has suffered a severe blow after the decision by British and French authorities to revoke the aircraft's airworthiness certificate, its carte blanche to fly.

But aviation experts say it is far too soon to count out the so-called "beautiful bird" -- or a future generation of needle-nosed supersonics yet to emerge from the drawing boards of engineers.

ALSO France and Britain debate Concorde's future

"Whoever might say that this is the end of supersonic flights would be wrong," French transport Minister Jean-Claude Gayssot told the Liberation daily newspaper on Wednesday.

"Rapid travel is a commodity that will be more and more in demand. The Concorde still has seven or eight years in front of it ... but we have to get it back into shape."

Christopher Orlebar, a retired Concorde co-pilot who flew British Airways' supersonic fleet for a decade starting from the time of its commercial launch in 1976, echoed Gayssot's sentiments in an interview with CNN.com.

"I am an optimist - it will fly again," he said.

Orlebar, author of The Concorde Story, believes that as the number of airline passengers grows by an estimated 5 percent over the next decade or so, the trend will galvanize demand for faster and more convenient modes of air transport.

"There are an increasing number of passengers who would like to take a taxi rather than a bus," he added.

That may be so. But experts -- including Orlebar -- also agree that the type of supersonic experience offered by the Concorde -- noisy, gas-guzzling and prohibitively costly for all but the highest flyers -- is an antiquated model ill-suited to a modern world of cut-throat airline competition and tighter environmental codes.

Paul Jackson, editor of Jane's All The World's Aircraft, notes that noise and emission controls imposed in "Draconian measure" by regulatory authorities since the late 1960s means that the Concorde would not get the supersonic seal-of-approval if it was built today.

"You would never get away with designing an aircraft as noisy and fuel inefficient as the Concorde in the early days of the 21st Century," Jackson said.

"So (any) new supersonic airliner will have to satisfy those requirements ... on the technical issues, if money is no problem, we are still just within grasp of meeting criteria on noise and emissions."

Concorde's development costs, at $4 billion, ran five times over budget. But its British and French engineers were loath to let budgetary constraints thwart their ambition of building a passenger aircraft that could leave London as the sun came up and arrive in New York in time for breakfast.

For $4 billion, the developers got a fleet of 16 supersonics, of which only 14 were earmarked for commercial flights.

Compare that with the Boeing 747, which began flying commercially in 1970 -- just a year after the first flight of a French prototype of the Concorde. Boeing churned out 1,000 of the jumbo jets, cramming in four times as many passengers on each one as on the narrow, 100-seater Concorde.

The 747 also consumed less than half the fuel of the Concorde, which carries a payload of about 100 tons of fuel on a transatlantic journey.

However, the Concorde never saw a serious rival in its 30 years of airborne life. Even now, with Concorde grounded, the list of claimants to its mantle can be counted on one hand.

Perhaps the closest thing to a rival is Russia's Tupolev-144, a droop-nosed aircraft with delta-shaped wings whose resemblance to the Concorde earned it the moniker "Concordski." The TU-144's hopes for commercial viability evaporated when the supersonic aircraft crashed at an air show near Paris in 1973, killing 13 people.

A revamped successor to the TU-144 -- the TU-144D -- was briefly introduced into commercial service in the Soviet Union, flying between Moscow and the Central Asian city of Almaty. But that experiment was quashed as well when the plane suffered a second crash in 1977 that claimed the lives of three people.

The Concordski's last public role came in the mid-1990s, when Boeing Corp. and NASA partnered with Tupolev to enlist the Russian supersonic as a flying test laboratory for future supersonic development. Michael Braukus, a NASA aeronautics official, said Boeing discontinued the program two years ago.

Nonetheless, the Concordski seems set for another reincarnation: Sergei Rayevsky, a spokesman for the Tupolev design bureau, told CNN in late July that Tupolev would forge ahead with plans to update the TU-144, the Concorde crash notwithstanding. He also voiced hope that Russia would get its next-generation TU-244 supersonic plane in the air within a decade.

But Western experts such as Jackson say the major focus in the immediate future is likely to lie elsewhere. Aerospatiale, the company that helped developed Concorde, is inching closer to a successor for the Boeing 747: A sub-sonic, 555-seat aircraft called the A3XX.

Jackson said that EADS, an aeronautics consortium between Spain, France and Germany, had floated designs for a supersonic project but that the idea had yet to progress beyond an artist's impression.

Meanwhile, the Japanese have been seriously exploring the feasibility of a supersonic carrier able to fly from New York to Tokyo in about three hours. That would mean attaining speeds of Mach 5 - five times the speed of sound, and twice the speed of the Concorde. Jackson believes such an aircraft is unlikely to appear for at least 20 years.

Today, NASA is focusing on hypersonic flight craft, such as the X-34, a reusable launch vehicle that has no supersonic applications.

Jackson foresees a future of hybrid aviation, in which outsized jumbo jets co-exist alongside supersonics.

"Assuming they can make the economics of the supersonic transport work, I can see a market for both," he said.

"There are always a number of people who don't want to be herded into a jumbo aircraft and fly off at sub-sonic speed. There will be a market for the sleekest, swishest jets."

Reuters contributed to this report.

France joins Britain in revoking Concorde airworthiness certificate
August 16, 2000
British Airways Concorde flights suspended
August 15, 2000
Russia undeterred from supersonic jet program by Concorde crash
July 26, 2000

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