Boeingfever777 From United States of America, joined Jul 2009, 409 posts, RR: 57 Posted (8 years 2 months 1 day 3 hours ago) and read 2433 times:
I was reading a article or 2 and the article stated that AF F-BVFD "Foxtrot-Delta" was broken up in 1994 at CDG. Why did AF break-up and rid F-BVFD of service? Stated her final rev. flight was May 27th 1982. What happen to this a/c?
Jetjack74 From United States of America, joined Jul 2003, 7335 posts, RR: 52 Reply 2, posted (8 years 2 months 20 hours ago) and read 2281 times:
Good question. I believe it was because it had been sitting around in a state of disrepair for so long. Back in the early 80's parts for Concorde became scarce. AF, and BA had reduced levels of parts in the inventory. So a solution was made that the each of airline would part out the last Concorde recieved by each carrier. BA Concorde, G-BOAG was the one that BA stripped of it's parts and BVFD was AF's. And the above with AF. When the popularity of the Concorde began to rise for BA, they started parting out their pre-preduction Concorde, G-BBDG to put BOAG back in service. AF had already donated theirs F-WTSS to the museum at Le Bourget, so that wasn't available. Then over the years, extensive corrosian was found in many areas of the plane and was deemed not to be airworthy, so decision was to scrap it
GDB From United Kingdom, joined May 2001, 12707 posts, RR: 80 Reply 4, posted (8 years 2 months 17 hours ago) and read 2210 times:
Actually, BA used many parts from F-BVFD to bring OAG back, G-BBDG provided some support, after that DG was the main spares source.
OAG's time in storage (it had a rash of technical problems, was stored in 1981/2 period), included much robbing of parts, which in many cases had not been recorded, so putting it back in service was protracted to say the least.
But worth it, as OAG had the first of BA Concorde's major cabin refurbishing, including seat, decor, lavs and the 'Marilake' LCD cabin displays, replacing the Mach info only LEDs.
It also was the first Concorde in the all white version of the Landor livery, which in it's standard (and for me, insipid and dull grey form), had become the BA livery in late 1984, but on Concorde, without the grey it looked great, my favorite of all the Concorde liveries.
With 7 aircraft (usually allowing for one in heavy maintenance), BA now expanded things, had full control (and all the costs too), and had hugely revamped marketing.
Charters followed thick and fast, including round the world ones and many other imaginative flights, though charters would only, at best, provide 9% of revenue. Damn good PR though.
With double daily JFK's well established, the thrice weekly IAD's were less popular, so from April 84 BA extended the IAD down to MIA, (a supersonic service, unlike the BN crewed DFW's in 1979/80), BGI later joined the schedules too.
For years, we in BA Concorde understood that F-BVFD was withdrawn in '82 due to it being heavier than the rest, due to repairs after a hard landing at Dakar in 1977, coupled with AF axing all scheduled routes except the daily JFK.
I now understand that FD's weight was not excessive, neither was handling adversely affected, in fact, in it's last year of service, G-BOAD burned more fuel than FD ever did (though OAD was due an Inter 'C' check until the retirement announcement, which would include re-rigging of the flight controls, improving fuel burn, as we found after OAG's Inter in late 2002).
So FD seemed to be withdrawn for economic reasons, BA, like mugs, purchased the intakes of FD years back, only then finding they had corrosion.
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