Encore, Encore

"Welcome aboard the last ever Concorde flight. Tomorrow this aircraft will join its sister planes in a well-earned retirement."

In the year 2005, such an announcement could greet the passengers crammed into the slim fuselage of the last Concorde in service. But frequent Concorde flyers will be happy to learn that the crunch may never come. Last week British Aerospace and Aerospatiale of France said they will spend $36 million over the next five years to study the feasibility of a second-generation supersonic jetliner. It is a high-flying ambition. The current Concorde, operated by British Airways and Air France, has a range of 4,000 miles and a payload of just 100 passengers. Concorde II would fly twice the distance carrying as many as 300 passengers. The new plane would streak through the stratosphere at Mach 2.5 (2 1/2 times the speed of sound, or about 1,875 m.p.h., in contrast to the current model's Mach 2, or 1,500 m.p.h..

The biggest problem in getting Concorde II off the ground will be financial. Aerospatiale President Henri Martre estimates that the program would spend $10 billion to get production rolling. But European aerospace officials with memories of the horrendous cost overruns incurred by the first Concorde program fear the figure could end up much higher, raising doubts about the plane's commercial viability. A new Concorde project might be unable to turn a profit without government subsidies, which are unlikely to be forthcoming this time around.

More problems could arise if the U.S. aerospace industry enters the race. Last week Martre warned that the market for such a plane was too small to justify two competing models, and indicated that the Europeans were prepared to involve planemakers from the U.S. and elsewhere, including the Soviet Union, in their project.