Concorde: Two different concepts

Thèmes abordés

Rouen Business School, Concord, Negotiation skills, British, French, Essay, Mutual technological success

Résumé du document

From 1959, aviation specialists began to see the great potential of supersonic commercial transport aircrafts. Air traffic was growing steadily and rapidly by then. While 100 billion passenger-kilometres were recorded in 1962, 222 billion were projected at this time for 1970. Long haul to medium distance (from 1 500 to 4 500 km) and long distance (over 6000km, which corresponds to a Transatlantic flight) was growing considerably. On such distances, supersonic aircraft would allow gaining valuable time and could be very profitable. Given the progress made, particularly in the construction of military aircrafts, such a project would not raise difficult technical problems to speeds below Mach 3....

Extraits

[...] Indeed the British were only going to focus on long-range projects. The British point of view was that supersonic transport was only worthwhile through long haul travels as the timesaving advantages began to show themselves. In 1961, Bristol Aircraft and Sud-Aviation started discussing the project. At this moment Sud-Aviation wanted to develop two different types of aircraft: one for long haul and another for medium haul in order to fit both the British and the French conception of supersonic air travel. [...]

[...] They saw the possibility of supersonic transatlantic travel and wanted to be among the first get a commercial aircraft from London to New York in three hours. The Ministry of Aviation awarded feasibility study contracting for building a long-range supersonic aircraft. The shape and size of the future aircraft where determined thanks to English wind-tunnel research. The Bristol Aircraft Ltd. undertook the various tests and determined the best fuselage-wing combination for the new aircraft. By 1960, the aircraft was an all-British design. [...]

[...] The idea was to build a medium-range aircraft with a capacity 100 passengers and the long-range had a capacity of 90 passengers. It is on the 29th of November of 1962 that the signing of two agreements, one between the French and British governments, and the other between the manufacturers in charge of the project was entrusted. After several reviews were made to the initial project, the agreement was signed in London by Julian Amery, Minister of Supply, and Geoffroy de Courcel, the French Ambassador to Britain. [...]

[...] Concorde's last flight took place in October 2003 to the regret of many French and British citizens. The aircraft had become the flagship and the proof of European engineering expertise. Unfortunately, the plane had become too expensive to operate and was no longer adapted to the changing market environment. In addition the 2001 Roissy accident and increasing noise issues - regarding Concorde's engines - were unfavourable for the general public. Planes with larger passenger capacity such as the A380 were being developed over supersonic aircrafts. [...]

[...] The USA showed little interest on the project as they had their own plans on developing faster means of civil transportation and, as mentioned earlier, they were focusing on space exploration. Germany was not yet ready to take on such a heavy project as their industrial sector had not yet recovered from the war. The French Conception When the British asked the French to collaborate on the project, the response was very different from the one given by the Americans and the Germans. French industry was booming and aircraft manufacturing companies were doing well. France was already investigating supersonic transportation in parallel with the British. [...]