In commemoration of its last flight, I have some thoughts on the Concorde, and its potential successors, over at TechCentralStation.

And yes, before anyone comments, I know that it should be "almost three decades," rather than "over three decades."

"Across three decades" would be legit. ;)

Ummm... I thought the crash in 2000 was due to a blown tire fragging the fuel tank, and not due to FOD in the engine. (Apologize for nit-picking, but I guess I'm just in a nit-picky mood today.)

- Eric.

Official line tries to dump the blame on Continental for dropping bits of a 737 on the runway which then got run over by the Concorde. Other evidence says the tire blew before hitting the scrap metal but that track starts pointing a finger at Air France's maintenance folk so it was considered 'insignificant'.

Thought it was interesting that during flight tests of the 747 certain portions of the aircraft would momentarily break the sound barrier during high speed dive tests.

Also I thought that NASA has been working on the sonic boom problem for years too. They been testing a F-16 with a highly modified wing that actually sucks air through tiny holes riddled across the skin. Then blows the air out through vents located along the trailing edge of the wing. Of course the design is a maintenance nightmare to keep all the tiny holes free and clear of debris.

I thought that NASA has been working on the sonic boom problem for years too.

Utterly ineffectually, and ignoring the real technical issues (which is eliminating shock, as I described). That's probably the subject of my next TechCentralStation column.