Jack William Bell's Journal: Last flight of the Concorde

I am driving one handed while I fumble for my cell phone. Quick glance, select the number, press 'Call'. Put phone to my ear. It rings.

"Hello?"

"Anita, it's me. I am driving down Pine and guess what I just saw in the sky?"

"What? Oh, the Concorde. Very cool! It was supposed to come in at 3:00."

"Ya, I think it was on final approach to Boeing Field."

"Well, now you have something to blog."

Yes, I suppose I do. But just what do I blog? Do I talk about how this particular Concorde was on its final flight because British Airways had given it as a permanent loan to Seattle's Museum of Flight? How cool it is that I will get to walk through it just as soon as the exhibit is ready?

Or do I talk about the mix of feelings that swept through me as I watched that bright arrow slip through the Seattle skyline as it came in for what may well be its last landing? The joy of being in the exactly right place at exactly the right time to get that amazing view? And the sorrow that I felt knowing that an era which never really came to be was somehow coming to an end? How this was yet another proof that the future had failed to deliver on the promises Heinlein, Clarke and Asimov had made to me when I was a child? How truly bittersweet that moment was?

I don't know what to say. I really don't...

Concorde

[SlashChick]

So they were just too expensive to maintain? That's the impression I get from reading the linked articles.

If so, here's hoping that technology will catch up to the point where every flight will be that quick. :)

Re:Concorde

[Jack William Bell]

Pretty much. The Concorde is an old airframe now, with all the associated problems. Expensive to operate even when new, they became untenable economically and even dangerous in the last few years.

The part that makes me sad is twofold. First off, when I was young they dropped the US SST program which was to create an American competitor to the Concorde. (Which is why I linked to that.) I remember being very dissapointed about it at the time. But second off there seemed to be no push to create any followup s