What Happened to Super Sonic Flight?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concorde

Concorde was built as a Brit/French venture... with 600% cost overrun...was frequented by business people and had only 20 planes in the fleet. It did its run for 27 years and ended commercial flights in 2003.

Also, BTW, not to be forgotten, there was Tupelov TU-44 Russian supersonic jet.

Almost after they came off the drawing board (1969-70) the 'oil crunch' of 1973 occurred. This put a dent in their popularity.

Relatively safe flight record, it only had one crash in 2000. "As a result of its only crash on July 25, 2000, world economic effects arising from the 9/11 attacks and other factors, operations ceased on 24 October 2003."

Then there were noise abatement issues and flight-path restrictions, notable in USA ... so they could only fly into JFK in NYC and Dulles in Wash DC (eastern coastal cities).

Seems I remember they made a stop at RDU. Don't recall if it was a one time thing or an attempted regular route when RDU went international.

One crash over that many years seems like an excellent record. I wish it were still an option. Would make business travel in a global economy easier.

It was a pricey way to travel, unless your time were very, very valuable. With enhanced security, total trip time, as opposed to flying time, has become less of an advantage. Also, I understand it was a cramped little beast.

I feel very lucky that I got to fly on the Concorde (French version) and, icing on the cake, to Tahiti. It was a special deal, one time only, and I believe the first (only?) time the Concorde had landed in Toronto, Vancouver, Honolulu or Pape'ete. Short runs because the plane was relatively small (I think about 100 passengers) -- which of course made the payload problematic, and is one major reason for its demise.

Yes, the cabin was small -- narrow & sleek, but the seats were spacious enough for my 6'-3" tall husband to be very comfortable.

Over North America, they could not break the sound barrier, although the pilot did do mach I for the brief period over Lake Superior. When we got to the Pacific, he let loose. I don't remember exactly the speed but beyond mach II. What I do remember was the sheer breath-taking beauty of chasing the sun and being so high that the horizon was a perfect curve on the bottom periphery of vision.

It's the closest I'll ever come to space travel, I suppose.

The reason they have given up on supersonic passenger travel is because they are spending all their money on hypersonics.

20 years from Concord to the next phase.

Hypersonics are here. Mach 10 was achieved in 2005. Scramjet technology is the key to speed. Exotic materials are the key to not melting the plane due to friction.