On 28/11/2003 at 04:18:04: [[ Pointy thing comes in. aka HOW FAST CAN YOU AFFORD TO GO? ]]

As viewable in the artistic bit. Now, here's an interesting one:

Concorde cruise altitude: 60,000 ft. Edge-o-Space [tm]

If there's a cabin/cockpit pressure failure, that means all passengers are dead after 30 seconds.

After 7 seconds, the pilots will have passed out due to no air. (Assuming cockpit pressure failure, which kind of renders the plane a tad useless)

So:

Count to 7. Do it, in terms of "One thousand two thousand" &tc.

By that time, probably around 3, the equivalent to the facemask of airbag comes out from the control stalk, and it's up and running.

Pilots grab and slam over head. It then deflates to form-fit and they start being force-fed air to get the plane home and keep the human contents of the plane alive. This was a Concorde custom design job.

For "home", insert major vertical dive of aircraft nosewards to planet, at mach $WHATEVER, to hit around 10,000ft to pull outta the dive, and ensure that everyone on board stays alive.

That's the price of Supersonic. Which is why only the *best* BA pilots got to fly it. Cos they were shipping the "important" people from coast to coast.

(There was, apparantly, an interesting decision for the top pilots of BA - "You can become a Director of the Board and represent BA Pilots at Board Level, or you can pilot Concorde")

Respect to those who did it for the Kicks rather than going for the Beans. The Kicks and being able to say "I did this" will *always* outnumber the Beans.