Re: gw2 gold The Adventurer Last Flight Of The Concorde

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Wys�any: Wto Maj 13, 2014 00:10

The Adventurer Last Flight Of The ConcordeOn Oct. 31, the British Airways Concorde will travel Mach 2–twice the speed of thunder–for its last time commercially. Air France , the only other Concorde operator, already ceased its supersonic flights in May, so this will be it. As with manned lunar landings (the last was in 1972), now goes the Concorde. Another giant step backward for aviation. It’s sad, really. But business is business. Since the Concorde first flew commercially in 1976, it has only flirted with profitability. Due to the aircraft’s small size (it seats just 100 passengers) and the tremendous fuel consumption required to fly supersonically (twice as much as a Boeing 747) expenses, for the most part, have outpaced revenue. After the Paris crash of a Concorde in 2000 which killed all 113 people aboard–and the subsequent grounding of the aircraft for more than a year–then the events of Sept. 11, 2001, seat occupancy rates fell to less than 50%. <a href="http://www.goldvk.com/Game.gw2_us.Guild Wars 2.gw2.Gold.Info.aspx">gw2 gold</a> Concorde never recovered. Nevertheless, the supersonic marvel, which has flown more than 2 million people across the Atlantic (each in less than three and a half hours), is an important part of aviation history. So when British Airways graciously asked me to tag along on one of its last flights, I immediately accepted. While I had never been on the Concorde, I had flown faster than sound before, over Moscow. Strapped into the cramped cockpit of a Cold War-era Soviet MiG-25 with pressure suit and oxygen mask, my Mach 2.6 jaunt to 84,000 feet was more like a carnival ride than anything: It thrilled the hell out of me. By contrast, the Concorde, which travels at Mach 2 and reaches 60,000 feet, promised a more civilized experience: champagne, a gourmet lunch, comfortable two-abreast seating, and a smooth ride to Bermuda and back–all in an hour and 40 minutes. What’s not to like? Sure enough, our takeoff from New York’s Kennedy Airport was uneventful. The only difference was a more abrupt acceleration on the runway than with typical jets–to 250 mph versus 190 mph. We climbed fairly quickly to 40,000 feet, then it was time for the fun. Friendly flight attendants dispensed expensive champagne. At the front of the plane, numbers on signs displaying speed and altitude changed constantly. The mood was festive. As we approached Mach 1, the pilot weighed in on the intercom, and passengers whispered and gestured. A crew from The Travel Channel positioned its bulky cameras for the money shot. On my MiG flight, the plane had shuddered when we broke the sound barrier, so I put a hand over my drink in anticipation of a spill. Nothing of the kind in the Concorde! We slipped through the barrier without the slightest disturbance. As we continued to climb–to 45,000; 50,000; 55,000 feet–and to accelerate, the color of the sky began to change dramatically. So, too, did the plane of the earth below: It was not a plane at all, but distinctly curved. When we hit Mach 2 (1,300 mph at 11 miles up), the sky above was a deep bluish-black. But we were so far above the clouds that any sensation of speed was muted. <a href="http://www.goldvk.com/Game.gw2_us.Guild Wars 2.gw2.Gold.Info.aspx">guild wars 2 gold</a> “I found hitting Mach 2 as exciting a physical experience as going 22 mph,” says Alan Farnham Alan Farnham , a Forbes editor who before this had never flown supersonically. “But looking out at the curvature of the earth–at the deep blues and purples of the high sky–that was exciting, and beautiful. Being able to see the individual waves of the sea from such a height was also interesting. Doing all this while drinking a nice champagne was even better.” I couldn’t agree more. But I also felt a twinge of guilt. On Oct. 14, 1947, Chuck Yeager Chuck Yeager almost crashed breaking the sound barrier for the first time in his Bell X-1, and many pilots before him had died in the process. Here we were, cruising smoothly at twice that speed, eating gourmet food! Imposters we were, but that’s progress, I guess. We dipped our wings over Bermuda and headed back toward New York. <a href="http://www.goldvk.com/Game.gw2_us.Guild Wars 2.gw2.Gold.Info.aspx">guild wars 2 gold</a> What will take the place of the Concorde? “It will never really stop flying because it will live on in people’s imaginations,” Jean-Cyril Spinetta Jean-Cyril Spinetta , chairman of Air France, reasons. He says four of his aircraft will be displayed at museums, and a fifth will be on show at Charles de Gaulle airport. But, largely because of the high cost associated with development, nothing supersonic for flight by any major aircraft manufacturer is scheduled for production in the near future. If you want to break the sound barrier, better do it before Oct. 31. After that, you either need to be an astronaut or a military pilot, or pony up $12,000 for that hair-raising MiG ride to the edge of space. Forbes Adventurer columnist James M. Clash’s book, To The Limits: Pushing Yourself to the Edge, in Adventure and in Business , was published this year by John Wiley Sons and is available wherever books are sold. xboter 2014