GODDESS OF THE SKIES By Eric S. Margolis 30 July 2000 I fell in love with beautiful Concorde the first time I saw her at Paris airport. She was sleek, white, and sexy. Yet beneath her couturier-elegant exterior lay enormous, brutal power. Her drooping, needle-nose and thin delta wings made this glorious aircraft look like great, prehistoric bird of prey. My first flight aboard the supersonic Concorde remains vivid. On takeoff from Paris, g-force pressed us back into our seats as we rocketed into the air. I was thrilled when the speed indicator in the narrow cabin reached Mach 2 - twice the speed of sound (around 1340 mph). Concorde was flying nearly as fast as a rifle bullet. At 56,000 ft, we were in inner space. This was the fastest and highest I had ever gone in my life. From our vertiginous altitude, the curvature of the earth and the dark of outer space were. Concorde's cabin walls heated up from the intense air friction on its outer skin. Three and a half hours later we had crossed the Atlantic and landed at New York's JFK. After deplaning, I wanted to run: my mind and heart were still racing at Mach 2. That night I dreamed I was flying in space. The Air France Concorde that crashed last Tuesday at Paris' Charles De Gaulle Airport killing 113 people was the first of its class to experience a fatal accident after 31 years of flight. As of this writing, the most likely cause of the accident is believed to have been an exploding tire. Fragments from the tire, and possibly the undercarriage, perforated the Concorde's wing tanks, causing an explosion and massive fire. The burning aircraft lurched through the air for three horrifying minutes before crashing. This frightful accident immediately reminded me of a tale of Cold War intrigue I've previously related, but which bears retelling. In 1962, Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev learned France and Britain were going to build a supersonic airliner. He erupted in fury that these `petit-bourgeois capitalist' nations could steal a technological march of the mighty Soviet Union. Khruschev ordered a crash program to beat Concorde. When the USSR's respected Tupelov design bureau ran into trouble designing its supersonic TU-144, KGB was ordered to steal Concorde's blueprints from the west. KGB agents in Britain repeatedly sought to obtain data on Concorde's powerful Olympus engines which had been used in Britain's V-series heavy bombers. Other KGB agents targeted French plants manufacturing Concorde's fuselage and wings. The Soviets were not alone in stealing aircraft technology. Soon after, Israeli spies stole plans of France's Mirage-III/V, which became Israel's `Kfir' fighter. The chief of Britain's RAF Bomber Command, the late Air Vice Marshall Stewart Menaul, revealed to me in the mid-1980's that British intelligence teamed up with French counterparts, DST and DGSE, to thwart KGB and teach the spying Russians a lesson. Menaul said the British doctored Concorde's drawings so that its center of gravity was too far to the rear. KGB agents were allowed to steal the corrupted blueprints. The Soviet TU-144 was rushed into production. Its first flight came on 31 Dec, 1968, beating the Concorde's debut by three months. All foreign observers who saw the TU-144- immediately dubbed `Konkordski'- commented it was `nearly identical' to Concorde. So it was, except for the Soviet innovation of small canard wings near the cockpit. In fact, `Konkordski' was a Chinese copy of Concorde. The Soviets proudly debued TU-144 to the world at the 1973 Paris Air Show. After performing a sharp turn at 1,500 ft, the aircraft broke up and crashed, killing 14 aboard and three children on the ground. This embarrassing public catastrophe brought worldwide ridicule on the Soviets and delivered a fatal blow to their supersonic program. After a second TU-144 crashed on the way from Moscow to Central Asia, the Soviets wisely mothballed `Konkordski.' After the Paris fiasco, there were stories, probably spread by KGB disinformers, that a French Mirage fighter had burst from clouds on a collision course with the TU-144, forcing it into a sharp turn whose g-force proved lethal to the airframe. The Mirage, according to this version, was trying to photograph TU-144's canard winglets. Moscow whispered the French had provoked the accident so that TU-144 would not steal the limelight from la belle Concorde. This sounds like something the French might cook up. The often out-of-control spooks of France's foreign intelligence - DGSE- were not above occasional sabotage - recall the case of the `Rainbow Warrior' - and knocking off irksome enemies of the Republic. But it was Her Majesty's Secret Service that apparently delivered this nasty, below-the-belt blow to the Soviets. Perfidious Albion had the last laugh on the spying Ruskis. Last week's Concorde crash was caused by mechanical failure, not sabotage. The pilots, who could not judge the full extent of Concorde's injuries, had the split-second choice of either taking off with a wounded aircraft, or aborting takeoff, and crashing at over 200 mph with a full fuel load into buildings or trees. They chose the air. There is nothing wrong with Concorde, recent negative press stories notwithstanding. Tiny cracks found recently on her frame are normal for older aircraft and easily repaired. Concorde's tires may be a problem. But many other airliners have also suffered from tire failure, and subsequent debris ingestion into their engines. Air France and British Airways, two of the world's top ten airlines, lavish care enormous on their Concordes. In spite of this terrible accident, I wouldn't hesitate to fly Concorde. Every time I see her, my heart always beats faster. She remains, for me, goddess of the skies. Copyright: Eric s. Margolis 2000 War at the Top of the World - The struggle for Afghanistan, Kashmir and Tibet - by Eric Margolis is available at major book outlets and online in both the US and Canada - recently reviewed in The Economist as "His account of recent warfare in Asia's highest mountains is both gripping and instructive." To send *personal mail* to Eric Margolis, please do not click reply, but use this link: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ************** To UNSUBSCRIBE to this list click the following link and enter the words UNSUBSCRIBE FOREIGNC in the body of the email. mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
