Forum: Civil and General Aviation

Why are there Concordes in museums outside of Europe? The four I'm referencing are the ones in Seattle, New York, Dulles Airport, and Barbados. British and French taxpayers payed for the aircraft and it's really a sign of national pride so they should deserve to have all of them in their territory. At least BA still owns their Concordes, but Air France even gave up ownership of one of theirs to the Smithsonian. Anyone else want to shed some light on this topic?

BTW, I'm American.

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Hi
In France the museums are a lot smaller than in the USA or elsewhere. So most of them have not enough space to store an Concorde. Fact is, the Air France had finally the choice to scrap the birds or to give them away.
1 Concorde p.ex. is in the " Technikmuseum Sinsheim" in Germany.
Btw, Sinsheim is the only museum worldwide who owns an Concorde and an Tupolev TU-144 " Concordski"
In the UK you can find much more aviation related museums than in France, so the BA had much more opportunities to place an bird ( and to keep it in his hometerritory)
In my opinion its better to see an Concorde in the USA or in Germany then to scrap it in France.
Greets
Ray

Actually, Air France kept more of their Concordes in France than British Airways did in the UK. I just feel that aircraft like Concorde should be kept in the countries that built them, not somewhere on an aircraft carrier in New York City(Intrepid).

Using that same logic I guess we should pull all of the American airplanes out of the Duxford museum, and here locally the SAC musuem should just go ahead and scrap the Vulcan bomber they have on display. To me it's always better to display an aircraft than to see it melted down and turned into soup cans.

I understand where you're coming from bdn12, however, I'm with Elliboom
on this one.. Using the logic that the country who made it should be the only one to show it means the USAF should get back the two SR-71s they have on display in Japan and the UK.. Also our Air museum in Darwin will have to give back the B-52 as well...

I personally think New York is a rather fitting place to display Concorde regardless of her country of origin because the London to New York routes was one of her major and most famous routes ever.. That's the one people remember.

Not to be picky aussie, but the US only has one SR-71 on foreign soil, the one at duxford. There isn't one in Japan. Anyways, I get you and elliboom's points, but I just think that such high performance aircraft that weren't exported are meant to stay in their birthplace. That Concorde in New York could easily be damaged or graffitied just sitting out in the open in front of a sports complex.

Yes, sorry my mistake... Should have checked first...

I hope the birds are well cared for, the one at my regional airport in Manchester, UK is out in the open in the "Concorde Park", but it was immaculate the last time I took the tour.

bdn12 wrote:

...but I just think that such high performance aircraft that weren't exported are meant to stay in their birthplace.

One thing aviation has done, and the Concorde reenforced, was to open up the world by closing the time it took to travel. The "birthplace" is irrelevant. The Concorde's home is "the world". It changed the Atlantic from an ocean to a large pond. Aviation is an international community, not limited to just some country's borders.

Yes, some forms of aviation are international huggy, but not all. If that was the case, why didn't we just export the Blackbird, B-2, or the F-22 now? Why don't we even let U.S. citizens get a peak inside Area 51? Some forms of aviation do just remain within a country's borders. I've read countless times that Concorde was a symbol of national pride for the British and French and there is absolutely no problem with that. They built the great aircraft, deserve to be proud of it, and they should remain in those countries when retired.

Disagree.

I agree with Huggy. bdn12 - google "national security" Wink

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Elite 1K Joined: May 26, 2005 - 08:39 PM Posts: 1496

bdn12 wrote:

They built the great aircraft, deserve to be proud of it, and they should remain in those countries when retired.

Nonsensical nationalistic ramblings.

What greater way to show pride in an achievement than to display it in a museum and say "Look what WE did"?

Guysmiley wrote:

bdn12 wrote:

They built the great aircraft, deserve to be proud of it, and they should remain in those countries when retired.

Nonsensical nationalistic ramblings.

What greater way to show pride in an achievement than to display it in a museum and say "Look what WE did"?

Guy, I agree with you.

The line running through this thread should read

"Look what WE did and what WE are doing now!" if the current and future states are not measurably better then you have stagnated.

Forum: Civil and General Aviation

Foreign Concordes