The "good" old days

There are legends here and there about advanced civilizations which existed in antiquity. Of course there's no evidence for them. IN fact, progress between the beginning of cities until the XV Century CE was painfully slow. Egypt's history since the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt until Rome absorbed it as a province lasted over 3,000 years. Yet the life of an Egyptian in the First Dynasty wasn't much different from that of one in the late Ptolemaic period just before Rome moved in.

To be sure there were changes. A latter Egyptian had iron tools rather than stone and wood tools with a little bronze mixed in. But these were the same tools. An iron or steel sickle is better than one made of wood and stone in that it lasts longer and needs less maintenance, but both accomplish the same job for the same effort.

And yet, Egypt has some really hard to miss monuments attesting to greater capabilities in the past.

You surely know about the Great Pyramids in Giza, right outside Cairo. They can be seen from an awful long distance, too. The Ancients saw them, frequently, for millennia. Less time elapsed from Cleopatra's time to our own, than from the building of those pyramids to Cleopatra's time. The ancients could also see no more pyramids were built. So those in the past must have had abilities we in the present no longer have.

Well, no.

The Great Pyramids were also awfully expensive to build. They took decades each. Had latter pharaohs continued at that pace, the kingdom would have collapsed in short order. Latter kings built smaller, less sturdy pyramids elsewhere for many centuries afterwards. But eventually such monumental gravestones (essentially what Egyptian pyramids are) simply proved too expensive and too easy a target for tomb robbers. So in time they changed how kings were buried.

But the latter Egyptians right until the end were as capable of building in such monumental scale. In fact some monumental building kept on going. See the temple of Rameses II, for instance. It puts the Pyramids to shame.

In our time we also find such things. At one time we had supersonic passenger travel. It was expensive, limited to a few routes, restricted over much of the planet, and affordable only by the very rich. we no longer have it.

But we haven't lost the ability to make planes like the Concorde. The military has advanced supersonic designs, and even hypersonic designs for missiles. And expensive passage in luxurious accommodations is still available to the very wealthy. Only now the luxury is space (room) rather than time.

Quote: Nareed

. Only now the luxury is space (room) rather than time.

The fuel argument and supersonic travel has always seemed a little weak to me. Fuel Economy in aircraft lays out a basic table where jets got about 68 miles per gallon per seat three decades ago, but now 100 mpg per seat is the norm, with 125 mpg the projected future in five to ten years.

Now take a car with average fuel economy of 22 mpg. If you fully load it with four people and allow for the weight you may get 80 miles per gallon per passenger. Normally you don't drive a car for hundreds of miles, but it is possible. People drive cars all over the country without passengers.

So the Concorde may have had 15.8 miles per seat per gallon (fully loaded). Of course that sounds terrible next to 125 mpg. But it is only 3445 miles from London to NYC, so that is about 218 gallons of jet fuel per passenger each way. But most of that was in take offs and landings as cruising speed was closer to 28 miles per gallon per seat.

But 218 gallons of jet fuel is probably less than $400 (or the price of an economy ticket from NYC to London one way. It is certainly far less than the thousands of dollars some people are willing to pay for luxury on their trips.

The Concorde did pitch trim by shifting fuel around the fuselage for center-of-gravity control. Maybe it isn't the most elegant design, but it's an easy way to account for the massive shift in CG when a vehicle moves from subsonic to supersonic speeds.


So while I appreciate that it uses a lot more fuel, the price of fuel doesn't normally stop people with money from flying their own plane, driving fast or heavy cars, and having expensive boats. By itself it shouldn't have killed the supersonic transport across the Atlantic.

Quote: Pacomartin

So while I appreciate that it uses a lot more fuel, the price of fuel doesn't normally stop people with money from flying their own plane, driving fast or heavy cars, and having expensive boats. By itself it shouldn't have killed the supersonic transport across the Atlantic.

I'm not familiar with the economics or the arguments. But what one person does is usually not the same thing a business will do. Also the airline business operates on rather thin margins. aside from fuel, there were other costs associated with Concorde, like training or hiring maintenance personnel, a stock of spares that are exclusive to it, training pilots in its operation, etc.

If Concorde was ahead of its time, it was way the hell ahead.

Consider the 747 was rather quickly followed by other wide-bodies. Smaller, yes, and with a single deck, but built on the general idea (twin aisles and multiple big engines). The DC-10, the L-1011, I think the A-300. No supersonic planes followed the Concorde.