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' CONCORDE • Flight International
///fi///////////////////////Av/£W///W//W7l
C O N C O R D E
a t m o s p h e r e Oi I t s concent ra t ion a t Concorde cru is ing he ights
is up to 4 parts per mill ion compared with .02 parts at sea
leve l. Abo ve 0.3 par t s the odou r (an e lec t r ica l smel l ) becomes
objec t ionable and causes a headache and sore throa t ; above
1.5 parts i t becomes toxic.
Fortunately, ozone is very unstable chemically and is readily
conver ted to oxygen by hea t . The source of the Concorde ' s
cabin air are the engine compressors, off which air is tapped
at a temper a ture of abo ut 500° C. At th is tempe ra ture ozone
decompo si t ion i s a lmost ins tan ta neous ; any residual ozon e
above 0.2 parts will be removed by a catalytic f i l ter .
C O S T N D E C O N O M I C S
Th e technology in the Con corde i s mor e advanced than tha t
in any previous civil aircraft , including the Comet. There are
more unknowns, and inevi tab ly the cos t i s h igh . The la tes t
(mid-F ebruary 1969) es t imate inc luding product ion tool ing i s
not fa r shor t of £1 ,000 mi l l ion , broken down as fo l low s: —
Research, development, design, construction and 4,000hr
flight-testing of six aircraft (two prototypes, two pre-
production aircraft, and two production aircraft), two
structural test specimens, and 44 Olympus flight engines
plus 15 bench engines £570 m il l io nf
General machine tools for production, to be rented to
the firms by the Governm ent in the case of Br ita in. .. .£60 million
Cost of work done at British and French Government
establishments reckoned to be accountable to the Con
corde programme (e.g.. Olympus Vulcan. Mirage IV.
BAC-221. HP.115, and structural testing) £60 million
Produc t ion-f inanc ing loan £250 mi l l i o n
£940 mi l l ion
Thus the to ta l amount a t r i sk before product ion mater ia ls
and labour will , assuming a 3 per cent inflation per year,
reach well over £1,000 mill ion by the t ime the Concorde is
certif icated. Off-sett ing this is the estim ated rev enue from
sales of 250 aircraft and spar es betw een 1970 and 1980 of
£2 ,500 mi l l ion—most ly fore ign exchange—and the va lue to
European technology as a whole of Concorde advanced
engineer ing and technica l co l labora t ion .
Certif ication now appears l ikely in the first quarter of 1973,
though provis ional ly a i rc raf t wi l l be in the hands of the a i r
l ines for l ,500hr of route-proving— which i s requi red before
certif ication—by the beginning of 1972.
Purchase price will be about £8 mill ion (S19.4 mill ion) for
a fully equipped aircraft . Operating cost per seat-mile will be
about 25 per cent above tha t of the cheapes t contemporary
subson ic tr ansp ort , the B oeing 747. The -airl ines used to say
tha t supersonic sea t -mi le cos ts must be no h igher than the
bes t contemporary subsonic cos ts ; and the makers sa id they
would be happy to obl ige . But the a rgument now is what the
supersonic surcharge should be—to cover the h igher opera t ing
cost, and to protect the airl ines ' investment in subsonic jets .
I t will obviously have to be at least 25 per cent. If i t is to
be more than th is , p r ic ing judgments wi l l have to be made
about the market va lue of the Concorde ' s speed and the com-
t Including the cost of special-to-C oncorde tooling ; £80 million
for post-c ertifica tion of the definitive 25,00001b-payload aircraft
in 1973; plus a £50 million contingencies allowance (now spent).
Not included is the cost of further modifications to improve pay-
load—first officially mentioned but not disclosed in January 1969.
t Of which £50 million is to be raised by the co mpanies bu t-
guaranteed by the Governments.
THRUST REVERSAL
The powerplant, comprising the intake engine and exhaust
assemb ly is of complex configuration and function in order to
cope with the wide variety of flight co nditions. Variable geome try
was chosen in preference to the simpler long-duct but theoreti
cally less efficient arrangeme nt of the Soviet Tu-144
para t ive market va lue of the s lower but wider-cabin subsonic
jets.
To quote f rom Flight for November 28 , 1968:
Passengers will always pay more for less time travelling. Will
they spend 25 per cent more for, say, halved time between London
and New York? Today's first-class passengers already pay 40 per
cent more for decent seating and cabin service. So they will
certainly pay at least that much more for Concorde travel.
At first, therefore, the Concorde will be exclusively first-class,
and the surcharge could be as high as 50 per cent. Since it will
make a profit, or so the makers claim, half full at present economy
fares—and putting on a bit of a factor for the natural exuberance
of all aircraft salesmen—it is clear that a 50 per cent Concorde
surcharge will make a fortune.
Everyone should be happy with a surcharge of that size. It
will protect investment in wide-bodied subsonics, which will handle
the mass trade, while the supersonics will handle the first-class
market. A two-speed fare structure will have been established.
But the Concorde have-nots may react with really spacious sub
sonic saloon travel: and as more and more Concorde capacity
comes on the market the less it will be satisfied with rich people.
Pressures for a lower supersonic surcharge will develop: and this
will be resisted by Concorde have-not airlines, because it will
attract their economy-class business.
Passengers may not like the people-packed eight-abreast and
even ten-abreast aircraft. They want wide seats, not wide cabins.
Many people thought that the Concorde's cabin would be unaccept-
ably small after those of the 707 and 747. Anyone who has been
in the wide-body mock-ups may wonder whether the small cabin
of the Concorde will not actually be a plus—especially if the seats
are wide.
The Concorde may well attract existing economy class passengers
who don't like herd-class travel. And it will tap new markets which
are always opened up by shorter journey times.
It is pro bab ly fair to say that the engineer ing p robl em s
involved in making an airl iner that will f ly at supersonic
speed, that will meet the safety and airworthiness standards
required for the public transport of old ladies and infants
ra ther than f i t young men in bonedomes and pressure su i t s ,
tha t wi l l las t a guaranteed 45 ,000 hours (or 20 t imes the l i fe
of a combat supersonic aircraft) , and that will make a profit
for i t s opera tors , presents engineer ing problems which make
a supersonic a i r l iner as technologica l ly cha l lenging as put t ing
a man on the Moon, and perhaps a l i t t le more usefu l .