Absolutely gorgeous! Some years ago just after Concorde was retired, a mate invited me to a local Aviation Historical Society meeting and the guest speaker was a ex-RAAF test pilot. His topic was aviation, past, present and future from a test pilots perspective. His talk started on a pretty glum note with pictures of a Air France Concorde in pieces on a barge being floated down the Rhine on its way to a museum. Here was an aeroplane he said only half way through it's life, with another 20 years of engine and airframe hours potentially with no aeroplane in test or production to meet it's performance. Sadly, as we know, no one wanted to fly Concorde any more after that horrific crash in Paris - even after many millions had been spent on Kevlar lined fuel tanks, new tyres, new interior, etc, etc.
I guess, as a test pilot he was somewhat saddened that the glory days of test flying are behind us, he then thought. I'm guessing he was a bit of a Concorde fan as well! That confounded drag goes up at the square of speed making going fast really expensive and there is no getting around that until we've the technology to go real fast, real high.
This is not too far away, with the SR-72 not far off. Commercial spin offs are a possibility, but this would be much farther off - possibly 50 years I'm thinking. Perhaps the next generation of A/CAM'ers will be building civvy versions of something along the lines of the SR-72!
http://www.lockheedmartin.com.au/us/new ... sr-72.html
Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2014 1:19 pm
