August 2, 1998 It Came, It Saw, It Concorde

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by	Joe Godfrey

About the Author ... Joe Godfrey mixes his love of flying with a love of music. He is an instrument-rated private pilot who flies a 1974 Bellanca Viking based at Palomar airport just north of San Diego, Calif. He composes music for commercials, films, broadcast and corporate media and has composed and produced thousands of music tracks for America's largest advertisers. In addition to writing for AVweb, Joe contributes to The Aviation Consumer and IFR Magazine. He is a director and pilot for Angel Flight West, a non-profit organization that uses private airplanes to fly indigent medical patients. He is married and lives in Leucadia, California. So far, Joe is the only AVweb staff member who has logged time with Ella Fitzgerald and conducted the London Symphony.

Listen to a RealAudio feed of today's 4:00 welcoming ceremonies at the West Ramp.

"Delta wing with the long nose on the downwind, rock your wings". Captain Max Robinson and his crew landed a British Airways supersonic Concorde at AirVenture Oshkosh at 1224 Friday. They were about an hour later than their scheduled arrival because of delays leaving JFK. EAA President Tom Poberezny, NASA Administrator Dan Goldin and a huge AirVenture crowd welcomed the airplane to the West Ramp. Captain John Cook piloted Concorde's first arrival in 1985. Since then the sleek supersonic jetliner has been part of the 1988, 1990 and 1994 shows.

As in past years, several planeloads of folks were willing to part with a furkin of shillings (actually $715 USD) for a "local" ride on the ship. Four non-supersonic flights - two each on Saturday, August 1 and Sunday, August 2 - will depart Oshkosh and head up over Canada before returning to Oshkosh. The airplane leaves Monday morning. When it's not flying it's on display at the West Ramp showcase area.

In the 1960's and early 1970's, during the coldest of the cold war, American, Soviet and European designers each worked to claim bragging rights on the world's first supersonic design. Boeing and Lockheed started by looking at the technology of the XB-70 "Valkyrie" bomber. From that, Lockheed developed the delta-wing L-2000, a similar design to Concorde. Boeing created a design that was 50% bigger but could carry three times as many passengers as the others. The USSR's Tupolev Tu-144 was the first to fly in December 1968, but couldn't recover its reputation after crashing at the Paris airshow in 1973. It stopped flying in 1977. Once the race to fly had been won, Lockheed concentrated on fighters and Boeing folded its design work into what would become the 747.

Meanwhile, the British-French consortium's Concorde design started flying in March 1969. It began commercial service in 1976 and is the only supersonic design still flying. Concorde cruises at Mach 2 - now that's a closure rate!! - which puts and end to the "who's got the fastest airplane on the field?" discussion...at least this year. There's no SR-71 here this year.

There is no coach. Each of the seats aboard Concorde is a first class seat. The ship is powered by four Rolls Royce/SNECMA Olympus 593 engines, lifts its 400,000 pounds of gross takeoff weight off the ground at 135 knots and cruises its 3,545 nautical mile range between FL550 and FL600. Concorde is 204 feet long with a wingspan of 84 feet.

The grounds of AirVenture Oshkosh 98 are filled with airplanes. Over 12,000 at last count. Singles, twins, rotors, seaplanes, experimentals of all kinds. Different strokes for different folks. But I'm guessing there's one airplane on the field we'd all like to log some time in. Concorde.