Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
much for tuning in. Sorry, we're still kicking the gears
the landing gear on twenty twenty six. Let's hear it
for our super producer, mister Max Zoom Zoom Williams Zoo.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
That's what you do when the plane ain't working, right,
You just give it a good kick.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Yes, and raise the nose up. That's what you should
always do. Just raise the nose up. That won't cause
any problems.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
But don't forget down on the stick means up. Up
on the stick means down key key ingredients. You guys
know my flight instructor, Yeah, I played that game too.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
That is none other than the legendary, the one and only,
the mythical mister Noel Brown.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
In his own mind, it is I, and for all of.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Us they call me Ben Bullet. In this neck of
the woods, we love planes, Noel.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Love. Yeah, Okay, you know what love hate? Right, because
maybe with commercial flying it ain't always the best experience, right.
You don't love what plan represents? What they accomplish for
us in terms of moving us to far flung lands,
and also just the tech of it all. It's fascinating
that we are able to zoom around in these like
air tubes and somehow managed to walk out the other
(01:48):
side on the skates.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Man, well you think I think if you're I think
you can agree with this. My understanding of your perspective
on planes is that you like it when we're traveling well,
but you hate the process of getting on.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Oh it's a bummer. I mean, there's no two ways
about it, you know, going through security, all that stuff.
I will say that you know, with some experience comes
a certain order of operations that limits the stress of
doing those things. Where a way though, certain ways you pack,
certain ways you dress, knowing exactly what kind of window
you need to allow yourself so you're not freaking out
because there's nothing worse. And it's only happened to me
(02:28):
once in honestly my adult life, where you're in that
line and it's not moving like you think it should
and you cannot see into sight and your boarding time
is about to expire.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Yeah, yeah, we've all been there.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
That's why.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
That's why I peek behind the curtain, folks. Uh By
Palal Nole and I one time we got a real
dander up and we were we were doing something live
in a couple of different cities, and we pushed so
hard to travel by train, and they said, no, guys,
get on the plane.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
That's true. I think logistically it might have even been
or costwise it might have actually been more expensive in
the region that we were in to do the train travel.
But we also really love train travel. We love the planes,
the trains and the automobiles. We sure do, man, we
sure do.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
I mean, it's so true that aviation, as you said,
has fundamentally changed the world. And we've got it in
the notes here. Yeah, we love planes. Once you get
on them, they're dope. We also have to check in
with old Zoom Zoom, our super producer Max. I remember
(03:37):
when you were traveling to the Pacific Northwest and you
I was surprised that you were not as excited as
I would be about a flight that long.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Oh, I mean, I don't. I've gotten used to that one.
To Nole's point, the more you fly, the less annoying
it is. I am bold, clausterphelbic and afraid of heights,
but off of a pro tip from you Ben, I
always right window seat now, and I just find it's
less less just being that as'll see just feels, you know.
And I'm not the smallest guy in the world either,
(04:08):
so like but like you know, having pre check is great,
having all these things. But I remember when I was
specific Northwest, I was trying to take Amtrak up to
Vancouver from Portland, and it was so expensive and the
times are terrible, and it was so much cheaper for
me just to run a car and drive and shorter,
and it's just like, how is this thing, y'all.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
I know we got to get into the episode, but
I just wanted to say I am taking my first
ever trip to the Land of Canada. I'm going to
Vancouver at the end of the month, and I'm really
really excited. I got a really cool airbnb in gas Town,
which is like very mad Max Fury road coded, but
it's apparently I'm a mega hip area. And the airbnb
I got is like exposed brick like loft kind of
(04:52):
vibes with an awesome stainless steel kitchen. I'm really excited.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
I'm about to also go on one of the longer
flow in my history.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Man, It's gonna be it's gonna be wild longer than
Doha Grab. I'll have to check the times. That's great.
That was. That was about as long as I could stomach.
And thankfully the kind people at the event that we
were participating in did fly us out. This does not
happen ever, but they flew us out first class on
Qatar Airlines, which will ruin flying for you forever over,
(05:25):
but not necessarily because there's just nothing else will ever
measure up to it. It was like being in a
sky hotel. It was phenomenal.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
I wrote to those folks, no, and you wrote to
Qatar Era yes, And I said, what is that tea
that you guys serve at the at the beginning of
the flight?
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Like I bought some of it. It's actually like a coffee.
It's this it's sort of the sandy gritty uh. It
is called uh I forget the name of it, but
it's like the sandy gritty stuff that you just boil
hot water, poured it and then you gotta strain the
stuff out or you'll get these chunks of sand in UK.
But it's sort of Arabic coffee, is they call it.
And I bought some in one of the markets and
(06:03):
it's really good. It's sort of a combination between coffee
and tea and one of the other beverages that I
really enjoyed they started on the flight was Saffront, which
I had come mega mega a fan of absolutely.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
And this is another thing that we have to point out. So, yes,
aviation has changed the world. Depending upon where you live
and how much you have in your bank account or
your sky miles or your whatever their DMB power wallet, right, yeah,
and your commissary, your sky commissary, you can literally hop
(06:34):
around the planet from one plane to the next way
faster than previous generations could have dreamed while traveling by
sea or by land.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
But I was thinking about this too, man, the runway
to modern aviation, to getting the three of us JR.
Broni's up in the sky. That passage of innovation has
been littered with missteps and false launches and peril. And
it reminded me, dude, of our series on the many
(07:08):
many inventors who.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Died trying to figure it out, the Darwin Awards of
it all. Right, Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was recurring to
me too, and I couldn't remember the fellow's name. But
wasn't there a dude that like invented like a flying machine,
like a winged kind of suit, and then he crashed
to his death like into the side of a mountain,
like Wily Coyote style. Yes, yeah, I might be conflating
it with an actual Wily Coyote cartoon now that I'm
(07:32):
thinking about it, But it wasn't too far off. It
was very acme coded. It was.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Yeah, it was so weird that when we started our
series on inventors who died by their own inventions, the
first iteration was just about people who died trying to fly,
and it turned into a two parter.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Oh and by the way, in case you wanted to
do a little more digging if you don't want to
re listen to the episode if you haven't listened to
two already. Otto Lelenthal, known as the Flying Man, in fact,
did meet his demise in eighteen ninety six after his
glider stalled out and crashed. He broke his neck, though
he did contribute significantly to what would ultimately be the
(08:17):
first successful flight by the Wright Brothers.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Yeah, in fact, this is a guy who is a
candidate for an upcoming episode.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
We have on famous last words. Oh gosh, I don't
remember what he said.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
He is rumored to have declared in German, sacrifices must
be made.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
She is so German. It's so German. It's like when
my German is what he accepted his fate in the
furtherance of science.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
It's like when my German ex girlfriend, as a compliment,
told me she found me severely adequate.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Ben. In my mind, I pictured that your German next
girlfriend's name was as a compliment, and I thought that
was the That's a very unusual German name, because it's
all in the accent.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Yes. So today we are rocketing into one of the
most ridiculous stories in all of flight history. As we're
thinking about the new year in travel. It is the
rise of something called the Concord Jet.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Oh may we, oh, may we.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Please introduce this with a commercial from nineteen seventy six.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
I sure hope so, because you're setting it up so well.
Speaker 4 (09:37):
Now, when you fly the flag, you can fly the future.
British Airways Concord the first supersonic passenger airline to fly
you at more than twice the speed of sound. The
Concorde has crossed the Atlantic in three and a half
hours and now she will fly you to Bahrain faster
(09:58):
than ever before. Hats all of taking more care of you,
giving you what you need first, best and fastest. Fly
the future, Fly.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
The flag, Fly the future, Fly wave the flag. I'm sold, Ben,
How come we haven't heard about this? This seems great,
it seems pretty great. But they did it not take offs?
Did it not? Do they made a commercial sounds so confident.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Oh yeah, very patriotic because that's you know, British Airways,
that's what they're talking about, will fly the flag.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
So this is like a commercial fighter jet basically, right,
that's sort of the idea, similar technology. Yeah, okay, So
where did the Concord come from? And to our earlier question,
why is it not around today? Perhaps most importantly will
it return? And most most importantly is this where the
delightful New Zealand comedy du a Flight of the Concords
(10:52):
derived their name. That's a good quest to be They
spell it different They do spell it differently, and it
is plural, but can't be a coincidence. So what's the
hearken back to Britain? If you couldn't guess in the
nineteen fifties when a bunch of plane buffs plane lovin
doven boffins, really, you know, fell all in head over
(11:16):
tea kettle with the idea of a super sonic passenger plane,
hence the breaking of the sound barrier.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Yeah, And for quick context, folks, obviously commercial aircraft, regular
regular peasant aircraft already existed. But the world was so
excited and a little bit frightened when the news spread
that some plane, some aircraft could feasibly fly faster than
(11:45):
the speed of sound. We're talking mock one, baby, because it.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Makes that sound, right, doesn't it? When it breaks, it
makes this it makes the the pop pop. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
A guy named Charles Chuck Elwood Jeger he achieved or
he broke the sound barrier in something called the Bell
X one on October fourteenth, way back in nineteen forty seven.
This proved to the world that the sound barrier could
be broken by the way speed of sound at sixty
eight degrees fahrenheit, it's around seven hundred and sixty seven
(12:19):
miles per hour.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Is this a mock something situation? What is it? Okay?
It is?
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Because when you break the speed of sound,
you hit mock.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
One, mock one, and is mock two a thing? It is?
It is twe how many mockatives can we achieve as
a human species. It's a work in progress. Okay, fairenough.
What is the maximum mocks currently? What are the maximum
mocks currently? Jeez, Louise ben, It looks like we've achieved
(12:53):
mock nine point six, which is yes, that was unmanned
though experimental scramjets a name, get out of here your
jet in two thousand and four, Mock nine pointy six. However,
manned we have kind of like manned humans, we've only
achieved mock six point seven to two, or about four thousand,
five hundred and twenty miles per hour. That happened nineteen
(13:14):
sixty seven.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Let's not say only come on, that's so fat bad.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
You're right, I don't mean to poo pooh. That's very
very meaningful, especially again I was remarking nineteen sixty seven,
that's very impressive by William J. Pete Knight.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Yeah, and so we see this technology goes back decades
and decades. Breaking the sound barrier also broke everybody's mind.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
No idea we.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Could achieve this, so world militaries immediately keep in mind, folks,
we're still in the forties world. Militaries immediately rush to
explore this as a tool of war. But about well
over a decade later, a couple of the big boys
in the game started asking each other.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Hey, what if we can also, you know, make some
money on this. Yeah, because when you think of fighter planes,
like they're typically kind of a one person deal or
two maybe you know, one in the front, one in
the back. How does one scale something like this? It
seems like it needs to be as low weight as
possible to be super nimble and to be able to
(14:19):
achieve those levels of speed. And in order to make
it commercial, you got to shove more humans on there.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Right exactly. And you also have to give a bit
of a boon to the private aerospace companies that are
constructing the supersonic craft. So maybe it was maybe it
was someone in the private aerospace industry who said, yeah,
(14:46):
we'll build your death jets, but also we'd.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Like to make a little bit more money.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Yeah, So this this is something that was very front
of mind for these folks. In nineteen sixty two, Britain
and France joined forces on the Concord Supersonic Transport or SST.
And you can just hear the optimism seeing in the
name concord meaning agreement. The British and the French supposed
(15:15):
to discord, right, the British and the French, who historically
don't always like each other. They were like, ah, jets
are cool though, friend situation there, yeah, yeah, yeah, And
the French folks said, oh, and the US also got
in the game a little bit. You know, the US,
especially post World War Two, has all of the coolest,
(15:37):
most dangerous toys, right, yeah, so.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Those get these wonderful toys.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
Right. It's no surprise that the president at the time
in the sixties, a guy named Johnny K to his friends.
He said, we're gonna do an American version of the
of the supersonic transport. This would be the Boeing two
seven seven three hundred. But then later Uncle Sam scratched
(16:03):
the whole thing. They never even built a prototype.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Which is a little bit fortuitous, wouldn't you say. Yes,
It's almost like somebody at the drawing board stage got
to a point where they're like, ah, not sure that
this is gonna fly literally right, or you know, I
mean it might fly, but it also might like, you know,
cdit land, Can it take off? Can it do the
(16:26):
hard part? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (16:27):
The Soviets were playing the game too, and put the
tremendous heft of their centralized economy into building something called
the Tupolev Tu one four. This is the world's first
passenger plane to ever fly supersonic above the speed of
sound in nineteen sixty nine, and they launched the passenger
(16:48):
service of their own in you know, communists in the
Soviet Union.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
And I know sometimes we give the Soviets a little
grief for flying too close to the sun, right, but
you know, they did certainly achieved some incredible things. But
wouldn't you say that had something to do with the
fact that they were willing to take a lot more risks.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
One hundred percent. The space race shows us the same thing.
I mean, from Ottoman to Kursk, the Soviets throw bodies
at a problem.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
There you go, that's that's and dogs.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Yeah, all got like my Cold War's coming out. Okay,
let me dial it back here for sure and admit
that the Soviet government did a tremendous job with the.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Tupa level that's wild that they achieved that.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Yeah, they ended up wrapping their passenger service in the
early nineteen eighties, and their issues weren't so much technical
as they were economic because spoiler fellow ridiculous historians, very
few people in a communist empire could afford the high
prices for a ticket on a supersonic craft.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
It is one of those things, ben where it's like,
is it worth paying double to get there twice as fast?
Like is it that a deal to just just just
factor in the time and work around it, you know?
Speaker 1 (18:04):
And how much is your time worth? That ultimately becomes
the decision point. So in the case of the tupe Lev,
it's not the engineering that's a fault, it's the society,
arguably in which the craft was created.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
So back to the Concord. Just a little while after
the tupe Lev Tu one forty four achieved liftoff, and
that's more of a space term, achieved takeoff, Britain and
France came through with their prototypes for the Concord. And
these little guys are big guys. They could scoot, they
(18:46):
could scoot. They were fast needles in the see guy.
So Concord's first flight takes place on March second, nineteen
sixty nine, when the French launch their prototype creatively named
Zerosie one, and the French test pilot Lo and Behold
is able to get this bad boy scooting in the
(19:07):
sky successfully lander and then when he lands, he simply says,
the big bird flies lag. Yes, yes, just so I
learned that in the Muzzy videos. Is that true?
Speaker 1 (19:23):
No?
Speaker 2 (19:23):
But I remember the Muzzy videos cartoons were talking different languages.
I just remember in the commercials used to play. It
was like Sui legrand musie.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
It's like it's like learning Japanese from old Kurosawa films.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
For sure. Yeah, corone of Blood. I wish there was
more blood spray in the Muzzy cartoons.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Yeah, you know what, let's revisit that, and maybe we
can make a case in this episode for revisiting the Concorde.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
I don't know. I'm skeptical, but optimist. It is a
good gauge if someone's like in your kind of age group,
if they remember Muzzy. It was a bit of a
moment in time where those commercials were on like children's
television channels like all the time.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
Yeah, but I think you're right, more blood spray, more
blood spray really amped up their game. So not to
be outdone are pals over in the Kingdom. They make
a prototype and they call it in a burst of
creativity zero zero two.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Such a bick move and really even think about it.
So yeah, they flew from Bristol's Filton Airfield in the
United Kingdom a few weeks later, and then at this
big old air show in Peri, both of those models
were on display. Beautiful, right, And then we go to
they look dope.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Oh they still do, right, And then we go to
nineteen seventy three. It's September twenty sixth, the Concord makes
its first non stop crossing of the Atlantic. It's flight
at at average speed of nine hundred and fifty four
miles per hour.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Would you feel g G force? You know, the way
that you do when you're breaking the sound barrier and
a fight a fighter jet and where you know, squishes
your face back.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Seems like that might be a little unpleasant. Yeah, that's
a great question. Probably depends upon your rate of acceleration, right,
because they're not they're not breaking the sound barrier right
off the grounds, right. So this this is the French
version of the Concord. It flies from Washington, DC to Orlely, Paris,
(21:28):
and it does so in three hours and thirty three minutes,
which is just bathly.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
It's impressive. It's impressive, but also again, like you know,
just fact around the time. That's all I'm saying. Yeah,
it also a bummer that is sometimes lose a whole
day to travel, and if there is a time change
and all that, you know, this could potentially mitigate some
jet lag and stuff like, I mean, I can see
(21:55):
how it could be a positive thing. I'm poopooing the idea,
but I could see circumstances for transatlantic flights where cutting
the time in half like that could be pretty solid.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Yeah, And then the question becomes, is this nothing more
than a rich boy toy to help justify the war effort.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
I didn't even think about that aspect of it, been
the whole you know, war of it all.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
I guess we should say the war industry.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
That's exactly right, the military industrial compact. That's the one.
And Okay, so we are you.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Max and I and you listening at home, folks, are
we are major airlines around the world, and we start
putting in our bids. We want to have a concord fleet.
We want to have a Concord service. But then in
our own boardrooms we start thinking through the economics, the
nuts and bolts per passenger ticket prices. One by one
(22:50):
we all withdraw from the game. So only two airlines
ultimately purchase the concord Air France and British Airways.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Then I can't remember if I mentioned this. I took
an Air France flight recently on the way back from Germany,
Oh cocaagg Denmark. Yeah, and I don't know that I'd
been on an Air France flight before. And the thing
that was most remarkable that at the moment those wheels
touched down on the runway, they dropped the most banging,
daft punk esque track and it just like it was
almost like someone was there wait and wait and wait
(23:20):
and waiting and touchdown boom, just like the.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Guy in any orchestra during a big number who just
holds the symbols for like ten minutes.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
Yeah, and then hits the big one for the counter boom. Yes,
it was pretty impressive. I like, can't I can't lie.
And also the plane had rear and front cameras that
you could access while in flight and that was a
really cool feature. So kudos to Air France. They've always
kind of been ahead of the curve a little bit.
British Airways I'm not as familiar with, but they both
(23:51):
launched that service in seventy six, like you said, and
it was super limited. Ben. We lived near a major
airport here in Atlanta, and I think we all can
get a little fatigued with just the sound, constant sound
of commercial flights taking off. Can you imagine if we
also had to deal with the explosive ear shattering noise
that is a sonic boom?
Speaker 1 (24:13):
Yeah, yeah, this is this is the next issue they
run into. Service is limited, not solely because of the
capabilities of the craft itself, but because to your point,
Noel breaking the sound barrier is spoiler beep us here Max.
It is loud as it is so thank you for
(24:34):
the beetbacks. It is so gosh darn loud. So both
the French and British governments they said, all right, the
Concord can only fly at supersonic speeds over water, basically
over transatlantic routes, and also would it makes sense to
hop a Concord jet from London to York or something
(24:56):
that close, you know, certainly not I don't see how
it works. So it's not only expensive to build these guys.
It's not a strike one, it's not only limited in
its deployment Strike two. It is still kind of you know,
for rich people.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
But the science of it is so incredibly impressive. Ben, you,
by the way, excellent work on this research for this episode.
Ben found that this is actually constitutes flying faster than
the speed at which the Earth rotates. Yes, so it
can pick up passengers from London at breakfast time and
then zoom zoom them all the way to New York
City before us breakfast time, double breakfast, breakfast, second breakfast.
(25:39):
That's a yeah, potato right, the whole day on the
same dang day.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
Right, So yeah, jumping he real quick, considering what considering
the amenities on the flight that we will get to,
you could say it's the third breakfast.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Oh gosh, yeah, that's a great right there, Max.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Because this this inspired, you know, the upper crust of
society to brag to each other. Oh, you must fly
the concord. Oh, I've I'll see you. I'll see you
in a few hours when you land. You see, old boy,
I'm on the Concord flight.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Yes, of course, and you were. Of course there have
been doing an impression of Sir David Frost, who loves
to brag about flying the Concord being the only way
to fly because it constituted being in two places at once,
the only way in this human life to achieve such wonders.
I love that David Frost. Obviously it is the richie
(26:38):
rich Londoner.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
Yes, yeah, we can maybe do an episode on him later,
but okay, he loved the Concord and he definitely paid
out of the nose for it because in this white
surprise folks, it continued through two thousand and three. So
these are some of the most relevant numbers we have
(27:00):
for ticket fair. In two thousand and three, the standard
return fair like a round trip from London to New
York was six thousand, six hundred and thirty six British pounds.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Which if we inflation calculator it with a boop and
a dude, Max, where's your thank you? Creacious? That would
be a whopping What are we talking eleven thousand, two
(27:38):
hundred and forty two British pounds sterling today or fifteen
grand roughly.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Yeah, and this gets a little complicated. Uh well we
have to double dragon it. That's fifteen thousand, one hundred
and thirty one dollars and seventy two cents in todayish prices.
That's more than fifteen grand o boys per ticket. Random boy,
it's a word we made up to mean fifteen grand.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Love it, love it. Thank you. You did it with
such confidence that I absolutely believed this was a thing,
and you know what now it is.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Oh, thank you man. I feel like I just got knighted.
Hey knighted me. But also we have to point out
because of the limited size of the fuselage, there's no
real basic economy option. You were paying the same ticket
price as the celebrities, yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Like Robert de Niro as in cashish, which it would
cost you quite a lot of As we previously mentioned,
you did get a lot of perks. This is borderline
like the glory days of sixties pan Am you know,
luxury though it had to of course be contained a
little bit, but you did get fine foods and wines.
(28:50):
It was a limited cabin size, so it was incredibly exclusive.
The service was immaculate, The champagne was a flowing.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Seriously, this is about when you could smoke on planes.
They would give you cigars, you would eat cavia and lobster.
I don't even like that there's still last trays on
some older planes.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
It's really weird to see. But also like, I don't
think either of us were old enough to have ever
been on a flight when smoking was still a thing,
though I do seem to recall people smoking in airports,
but ports, yeah, can you imagine though, on a limited
sized cabin like that, it's getting hot box by cigars.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
There's not enough ventilation, of course, And also I remember
I've been on private planes where I've been small like
puddle jumpers, where the pilot was smoking, and I was like, oh,
that's not that's a choice. It's not the choice I
(29:47):
would have made. But thanks for getting us there, man.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
Recycled air But yeah, I think Hartspeel is actually one
of the last airports to have smoking areas. It's been
in the last like fifteen years, at least last night
they cut it.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Yeah, way less than that. We it's just been in
the last five to ten years, more like.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
Five, which is funny because I think they're all pet
relief areas. So if someone's walking through Heartsfield and they
have a pet with them, enjoy the smoking areas.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
And those a man looking up at the ceiling in
those smoking areas, it's just probably covered in gook. But
of course in Europe you're still going to have smoking areas,
and nearly every major.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Airport one hundred percent, a lot of different a lot
of different countries around the world are still much more
friendly to that kind of stuff anyway. So there we are.
We've got our caviat, We've got our lobster. This is ridiculous.
We're champagne drunk. We're trying out cigars for the first time.
And then we start watching the other people on the flight,
(30:47):
and the people watching is bonkers.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Oh I got second to none celebrities, royalty, the upper
crust of the upper crust, the one percent of the
top one percent of the top one percent. When Queen
Elizabeth flew, which of course she did, she always got
seat one are for the Queen.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
And does it as one of the only people on
the planet who actually doesn't need a passport.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
I mean, it's it's weird, even sound barrier gimmick of
it all too. They kind of commercialized that aspect into
a fun collectible. Oh yeah, Yeah, they gamified it. Right.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
There's this big mock meter at the front of the cabin,
and the cabin is small enough that you can see it, right.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
And when they break the sound bear, they drop some
French disco.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
And yeah, they dropped some They dropped some French disco
that will later become Daft Funk. They pass out yet
more champagne, and this thing just says it's a big
celebration when it hits mock one, and then it's a
big celebration when it hits mock tw twice the speed
of sound, and that's when people have a champagne toast.
(32:06):
Every time.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Mock two is when they drop the French disco and
they do the champagne toast.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Yeah, And so they got a lot of flights in
if what we say British Airways starts in nineteen seventy six,
so all the way up to two thousand and three,
their Concord fleet operated close to fifty thousand flights, clocked
up more than one hundred and forty thousand something flight hours,
(32:32):
traveled almost one hundred and fifty million miles, and along
with that, everybody riding on there, including the Queen of England,
collectively consumed over one million bottles of Champagne.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
I mean, that's again I say to you, there must
be a reason. This isn't something that we hear about anymore.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
I mean, it's like the first time we saw the
Hoover dan man who has spat in the face of God,
for sure.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
But I just mean, like, it seems like they've found
some pretty consistent success, you know, running these flights for
the super super rich. So I mean there must have
been something that caused things to change. I think we
know that there is. That's what this episode's kind of about, right, Absolutely,
this is our turn.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
I mean, those numbers from British Airways don't even count
Air France. For just a few decades, the concord was
high and mighty. Was a different world, was a faster
one if you could afford it. It was a future
in the sky. Until we fast forward to July twenty fifth,
two thousand.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Two thousand. It's yeah, yeah, I just again, it blows
my mind. This was as recent as two thousand. That's
when an Air France concord flight. Air France flight forty
five ninety crashed just after takeoff at Charles de Gaulle
airport over there in Paris. One hundred passengers, nine crew
and four people on the ground were sadly killed. Both
(33:57):
Air France and British Airways found their concord grounded in
order to run significant safety.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Checks one hundred percent. Yeah, and this is the standard
operating procedure in this situation, you know what I mean,
just like a car gets recalled or a model of
car gets recalled after accidents. However they endured for a time.
In two thousand and one, the concord is officially back.
The skies are looking a little less gloomy. But as
(34:24):
will recall, no something else occurred that year. In the
United States, September eleventh, two thousand and one, one of
the worst disasters on US soil in the country's history.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Changed a lot of things.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Oh gosh, yeah, man, remember when we could just did
you ever do this? Pre two thousand and one? I
would just go hang out at the airport to meet people. Also,
like at their gates, you not have to go through security.
I mean we we It's hard to remember even a
time before TSA. Yeah, it really is strange how quickly
things get normalized. And as we say, because of various
(35:00):
laws both France and Britain were largely dependent on the
United States for their Concord roots, and so when travel
air travel, especially around US areas, doesn't exist, those are
empty seats. They're crazy travel restrictions.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Like you just mentioned, the operating costs of these things
must have been astronomical. And if you're running these things
as a loss leader, I mean, that's not gonna that's
not going to last, that's not going to be sustainable
for them.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
Yeah, so this is a double whammy. It's spelt doom
for the profit. As you said, right, these are expensive
to run, and therefore it's spelt doom for the birds.
And we would acknowledge this. All plane crashes are terrible.
All crashes are terrible, But folks run back what Noel
just said. This crash in two thousand is the only
(35:51):
fatal Concord accident in the entirety of its operational history.
It was just so new and so fancy that one
thing going wrong. It's kind of like when Tesla's first
came out, or when electric vehicles first came out. There
was a lot of skepticism about this, this new rollout
(36:12):
of an automobile. Also, the cyber truck is trash.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
Not only is it trash, and it's in the way
it operates, not as advertised, but it's just boy, it
is a dumb looking car, a real barnacle, a real
albatross for anybody driving that thing around.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
I love nineties video games, and I think they belong
on the screen and not in real life.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
And whenever I'm on the highway and I have one
of those things next to me, I'm like, I got
to merge over as fast as possible because I'm like, man,
I just feel like I'm going to get run over
by something made by someone who watched a knockoff of
Tron like way too many times.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
So Ugly will riddle me this, guys.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
If the Tesla company came to us and said, do
an episode on cyber trucks and we'll give you each one.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
Cyber trucks will become a footnote in history, sort of
like the DeLorean.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Sure, yeah, Delarey, it's a good cop. Even the El Camino.
You know, it's just a weird looking thing.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Well yeah, well, I mean like, if you want a car,
get a car. If you want a truck, get a truck.
Who needs a truck, right, car.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
You can sell one, according to Google AI for around
seventy two hundred thousand dollars. So if I'm allowed to
sell it, sure, I'll take it.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Well again, because of the historical curio of it, all right,
it's I would.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
I don't know if anybody really drives them not well,
So later investigation did, oh that's the Camino though.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
We're talking oh cyberdrug Yeah yeah, yeah, no wait, I
see those cyber drugs rolling around here in Atlanta plenty,
and a lot of them have really awful like rat decals. Yeah,
it's a real humiliation ritual.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
Well, uh, you know, if that's, for some reason or another,
the only vehicle that you could get that, we wish
you well on the road. Just be careful because they
have some design flaws, kind of like the Concorde.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
So I hear, and you know, there's a reason I
just can't believe it was as recent as the early
two thousands that these things were happening. I just had
was complete blind spot for me, did not realize that
it was that recently. But you if you can imagine,
I think we talked about did we talk about the
last kind of nail on the coffin here?
Speaker 1 (38:25):
Oh. The The investigation for the accident shows shows us
what happened, and we want to recommend a great deep
dive on YouTube by a guy called Mentor Pilot me
N t O U R Pilot. He will walk you
through all of the blow by blow events and factors
(38:48):
leading to that tragic accident of flight four five nine zero. Essentially,
it failed due to compounding known defects and unfortunate happenstance.
It ran over debris in the runway. That in the
debris was small stuff that was left behind by the
aircraft that took off just before it. So it runs
(39:11):
over this the boom boom, and it causes one of
the concord's tires to explode. The tire explodes and disintegrates,
and it shoots little tire pieces all across yeah, shrapnel
just so all across the underside of the wing. It
damages landing gear so they can't retract it. It ruptures
the one of the fuel tanks and I've got like
(39:32):
thirteen fuel pods on these things that the fuel starts leaking,
It ignites, it knocks out the engines one on two
on the left side. Everyone dies. This happens in less
than two minutes real time.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
Oh jeez, it's really it's pretty awful. So on April
tenth of two thousand and three, British Airways announced that
they were retiring their fleet of seven Concords. They did
a farewell tour of the United Kingdom in North America
with tens of thousands of you know, Concord stands saying
there goodbyes to this iconic aircraft. And in May of
(40:11):
that year in France also retired their fleet.
Speaker 1 (40:15):
And so it goes, we flew to supersonically close to
the sun. And now, fellow sky lovers, we don't want
to get all MOPy about what could have been. When
you're talking about inventions and you're talking about experimental ideas
and innovations. Even a even something that ultimately doesn't work out,
(40:38):
is a learning opportunity and hopefully informs the next big idea.
And let's remember, you can still go see some Concords
live and in person to day. Just get to your
browser choice and you can find you can you can
maybe find some in your area.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
You just can't, you know, fly on them for no,
you sure can't. And this was all in news to me,
super super interesting. I really really enjoyed doing this one
with you. Thanks for the excellent research.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
Oh, thank you, Nola, and thanks to everybody for tuning
in question. Knowing what we know now, would you guys
fly at Concord Jet if we didn't have to pay
full ticket price?
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Absolutely? Yeah, I think I would.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
I would lobster caviar things I can't eat from the condition,
but still.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
I would pay extra for the no cigar flight. Honestly,
not to sound like I'm not still a cool person
in my old age, but when you described it as
hot boxing, Nol, that really stood out to me, because cigars,
even in like a big room are they announced them,
so even just.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
The recycled air of it all, the mouth breathing of
it all, you know, I mean, can you imagine if
we were literally mouth breathing smoke.
Speaker 3 (41:58):
Just imagine the mouth feel from all the recycled cigar smoke.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
Ah, Yes, it turns the stomach.
Speaker 1 (42:06):
Big, big thanks of course to our super producer, mister
Max William Saxon. Before we give it thanks to our
favorite mouth breather, Jonathan Strickland ak the quizt uh we
did here in the chat, Max was looking up the
origin story of flight of the Concord, So how about
(42:27):
we end on that one.
Speaker 3 (42:28):
It is very long, but I found it from what
appears to be their official websites. But basically they had
booked a gig and they didn't have a name. So
one of them went to the bathroom and noticed on
a toilet that I was titled the Concord and the
other guy was like, what about Flair of the Concords.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
They're like, okay, that's the d story Max with the
facts disappointing as they may be. Nothing to do right
(43:16):
the fact, nothing to do with the topic of today's episode,
But well done, my friend.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
Big big thanks of course, aj Bahamas, Jacob's the rude
Dudes of ridiculous crime.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
Who else well, you know who else been? Christopher Hasiote,
isn't even the Jeff codes here?
Speaker 1 (43:31):
And spirit of course Yes, and big thanks to everybody
who works with the airline industry.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
Thank you so much for putting up with our stuff.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
Flight attendants and I think a lot of pilots are
severely unappreciated.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
Here here We'll see you next time, folks. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the Iheartdeo app Apple Podcasts or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows,