Listen to a RealAudiofeed of today’s 4:00 welcoming ceremonies at the West Ramp.
“Delta wing with the long nose on the downwind, rockyour wings”. Captain Max Robinson and his crew landed a British Airways supersonicConcorde at AirVenture Oshkosh at 1224 Friday. They were about an hour later than theirscheduled arrival because of delays leaving JFK. EAA President Tom Poberezny, NASAAdministrator Dan Goldin and a huge AirVenture crowd welcomed the airplane to the WestRamp. Captain John Cook piloted Concorde’s first arrival in 1985. Since then the sleeksupersonic 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 ofshillings (actually $715 USD) for a “local” ride on the ship. Fournon-supersonic flights – two each on Saturday, August 1 and Sunday, August 2 – will departOshkosh and head up over Canada before returning to Oshkosh. The airplane leaves Mondaymorning. When it’s not flying it’s on display at the West Ramp showcase area.
In the 1960’s and early 1970’s, during thecoldest of the cold war, American, Soviet and European designers each worked to claimbragging rights on the world’s first supersonic design. Boeing and Lockheed started bylooking at the technology of the XB-70 “Valkyrie” bomber. From that, Lockheeddeveloped the delta-wing L-2000, a similar design to Concorde. Boeing created a designthat was 50% bigger but could carry three times as many passengers as the others. TheUSSR’s Tupolev Tu-144 was the first to fly in December 1968, but couldn’t recover itsreputation after crashing at the Paris airshow in 1973. It stopped flying in 1977. Oncethe race to fly had been won, Lockheed concentrated on fighters and Boeing folded itsdesign work into what would become the 747.
Meanwhile, the British-French consortium’s Concorde design started flying in March1969. 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 tothe “who’s got the fastest airplane on the field?” discussion…at least thisyear. There’s no SR-71 here this year.
There is no coach. Each of the seats aboard Concorde isa 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 cruisesits 3,545 nautical mile range between FL550 and FL600. Concorde is 204 feet long with awingspan of 84 feet.
The grounds of AirVenture Oshkosh 98 are filled with airplanes. Over 12,000 at lastcount. Singles, twins, rotors, seaplanes, experimentals of all kinds. Different strokesfor different folks. But I’m guessing there’s one airplane on the field we’d all like tolog some time in. Concorde.
