Concorde Bomber

[Lightning 17]

Hi all

To cut to the chase, could Concorde be 'militarised' and made into a jet bomber, something like the TSR2, with a bomb bay being sandwiched inbetween the landing gears, and a host of electronic 'black magic' boxes in the tail to fend off missiles? If so, why was it not?

Thanks

Simon

[Paul J]

Somewhere in my archives I have a copy of one of the RAF yearbooks from the 1960s. In it was an article and featured artists impressions of Concorde with Blue Steels!! If I get time I will find them them and try to reproduce it here.

[Pin]

What for? ICBM technology was mature enough by the time Concorde was in production.

Soviet Navy considered military usage for Tu-144 but such plans were abandoned.

[Graham T]

Somewhere in my archives I have a copy of one of the RAF yearbooks from the 1960s. In it was an article and featured artists impressions of Concorde with Blue Steels!! If I get time I will find them them and try to reproduce it here.

I recall that & I think it was the 1968 edition which was of course prior to concord's first flight!

[Duncan B]

What about a long range Interceptor version? No need for a bomb bay anyway.

Duncan B

[depressed lemur]

Given the fact that it wouldn't have high g stress limits, making an interceptor or low level bomber may have been beyond its limits. However, given its range, speed and load carrying capability it may have made an interesting bomber destroyer with a bay containing something on the lines of a number of phoenix missiles. Would certainly make an interesting whiff.

[CockneyCol]

I do have a picture somewhere of a proposal to use Concorde as a high level Supersonic Bomber at one point, lovely Vulcan style wrap around camo too.

Cheers

Col'

[Duncan B]

Given the fact that it wouldn't have high g stress limits, making an interceptor or low level bomber may have been beyond its limits. However, given its range, speed and load carrying capability it may have made an interesting bomber destroyer with a bay containing something on the lines of a number of phoenix missiles. Would certainly make an interesting whiff.

I was thinking more along the bomber destroyer idea rather than a long range "Dog Fighter", Tu 28 Fiddler style.

IIRC were there not drawings of Vulcans and VC10's carrying A to A missiles drawn up in the late '60's?

Duncan B

[thepureness]

I remember reading about it too, I believe they called it a bombcorde

[alpine_modeller]

As someone whose father worked on the Concorde program from the avionics perspective, I understand there were some discussions and a lot of gossip thereafter generated, but a bomb bay was supposed to be a definite no-no because of how the floor inside the fuselage was suspended in order to deal with thermal expansion expected at Mach2. There were doubts it could take the weight of the payload.

[Robin]

During the 1970s while working for MOD, I was involved with Air Trooping and the movement of military personnel overseas, and I remember that on the wall outside the Boss's office was a picture of a Concorde in the markings of RAF Transport Command. Looked quite good.

Robin.

[JohnT]

Somewhere in my archives I have a copy of one of the RAF yearbooks from the 1960s. In it was an article and featured artists impressions of Concorde with Blue Steels!! If I get time I will find them them and try to reproduce it here.

Written by John WR Taylor if I recall correctly

The concept does not make much sense for the reasons stated already, airframe structure, SAM technology etc

[Giorgio N]

The supersonic bomber was already dead as a concept in the late '60s, a bomber version of the Concorde would have been a curious exercise and nothing more.

The use as a bomber destroyer would have been something unusual and something similar was studied for the B-1. Howewer I can't see what use the RAF could have had for such an aircraft: Britain is not a huge country like Soviet Russia, a very long range supersonic interceptor could make sense for the latter but for Britain ? I mean would the RAF try to intercept the enemies over Denmark ???

And of course, converting a liner into a military aircraft is never going to be easy and happened in very few occasions with any success.

It's interesting however that the opposite path was tried by many: Convair for example studied a number of airliners based on their B-58 design, but really this was too small for a commercially viable aircraft.

[Truro Model Builder]

Odd coincidence, but I had somebody in the shop yesterday who told me that they would be taking 'all those Concordes out of storage and converting them into bombers if we went to war in Iraq again'.

He was unsurprisingly vague on the detail.

[Richard E]

Odd coincidence, but I had somebody in the shop yesterday who told me that they would be taking 'all those Concordes out of storage and converting them into bombers if we went to war in Iraq again'.

He was unsurprisingly vague on the detail.

Perhaps we could dust off some of those Harriers that we're storing in Arizona at the same time

[JohnT]

Odd coincidence, but I had somebody in the shop yesterday who told me that they would be taking 'all those Concordes out of storage and converting them into bombers if we went to war in Iraq again'.

He was unsurprisingly vague on the detail.

That will include the one at East Fortune they stil sawed the wings off to transport too no doubt