Word: speeding
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Dates: during 2000-2000
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...caused problems for pilots at Charles de Gaulle for years. Marty knew the delicately engineered supersonic engines on the Concorde are particularly vulnerable to what the aviation community calls FOD: foreign-object damage. A piece of stray garbage, or rubber from a blown aircraft tire, passing through a high-speed turbine can cause the engine to fail--or worse. That is why military personnel usually scour runways before jet fighters take off and why commercial pilots check their tires. As he prepared the engine for takeoff, Marty's adrenaline may have surged a bit. Like any other Concorde pilot...
There are three key speeds that jet jockeys worry about when they are rolling down a runway: V1, VR and V2. Marcot would have called out the speeds as they passed by: V1, the "takeoff-decision speed," at which pilots decide to continue or abort their takeoff; VR, the speed at which the pilot lifts the nose; and V2, the speed at which the plane leaves the ground. After passing V1, pilots are trained how to continue the takeoff--even if an engine fails or a tire blows. Somewhere between V1 and V2, things went wrong for Flight...
...look into the possibility that a blown tire on takeoff sent scrap rubber screaming into the engine inlets, triggering a fire. In 1981 the National Transportation Safety Board in the U.S. warned Concorde operators about blowout risk after four takeoff incidents. Pilots say a fully loaded Concorde's takeoff speed and maximum tire speed can come perilously close...
...witnesses to the crash was French President Jacques Chirac, who had just returned from Tokyo on an Air France flight. Chirac's plane had been taxiing toward the terminal but paused to let the Concorde take off. As Chirac and his wife watched the pride of French technology speed down the runway, they were appalled to see flames shooting from its left side, then the cloud of smoke that followed the crash. Chirac's first instinct was to rush to the scene, but he decided his presence would complicate rescue efforts. He returned to the presidential palace, where he telephoned...
Concorde was always more than just another way to travel. In our Net-speed age, it was the embodiment of everything modern. Though designed in the 1960s, it still looks fresh long after the decade's other design fads have worn into cliche. The plane is abysmally expensive to operate--it takes three times the maintenance of a 747 and burns 50% more fuel despite carrying 100 passengers to the 747's 400--and in recent years Air France and British Airways, the only airlines that operate the plane, have taken to using gimmicks to fill the seats...