13
Mar
Concorde Day
50 years ago this month the world’s first supersonic passenger plane had her maiden flight. Concorde was a joint project of Great Britain and France. In her 27 years of service, over 2.5 million people enjoyed an unforgettable flight experience on this elegant plane.
Faster than a rifle bullet, the supersonic airliner was able to overtake the sun and allowed the passengers to see from her windows the curvature of the Earth. Aircraft flew twice the speed of sound, allowing it to cover one mile in just 2.75 seconds. Long before the Internet would shrink our world, Concorde made it smaller with a flight from London Heathrow to New York taking under three and a half hours, instead of the usual 8 hours.
Concorde’s pointed nose was its most distinctive feature, which used to droop downwards during take-off. The 203-foot long and 37-foot high aircraft could carry 100 passengers, 9 crew members and 1,300 pounds of cargo up to 3,740 miles at cruising speed of 1,336 mph to an altitude of 55,000 feet. The standard cost of a one-way ticket from London to New York was 4,350 GBP and up to 8,292 GBP for a return ticket.
Only 20 of this most advanced aircraft were built over a 15-year period. 14 Concordes entered airline service while the other six included two prototypes, two pre-production models and two “first off the line” production models.
Concorde 211 was used as a spare-parts source after 1982 and scrapped in 1994. Concorde 203 was destroyed in an air crash outside Paris, France on 25th July 2000. Out of 18 remaining Concorde jets, kept in museums or hangars, seven are in Britain:
- Concorde 002 is now resting at the Fleet Air Arm Museum, Yeovilton, Somerset, England.
- Concorde 101 is now resting at the Imperial War Museum, Duxford, Cambridge, England.
- Concorde 202 is now resting at the Brooklands Museum, Weybridge, Surrey, England.
- Concorde 204 – G-BOAC “Alpha Charlie” is now resting at Manchester Airport, England, where visitors can tour and board the jet.
- Concorde 206 – G-BOAA “Alpha Alpha” is now resting at the National Museum of Flight, East Lothian, Scotland, where visitors can tour and board the jet.
- Concorde 208 – G-BOAB “Alpha Brave” is now resting at Heathrow Airport, London, England. Sited near Runway 27L, it is not accessible to the public but can be seen by passengers at the airport.
- Concorde 216 – G-BOAF “Alpha Foxtrot” is now resting at Aerospace Bristol as a major display, in Bristol, England. Previously, it was rested at Filton Airport, the birthplace of the Concorde 002.
Others can be found either in France, Germany, or the Americas:
- Concorde 001 is now resting at the Museum of Air and Space, Le Bourget, France.
- Concorde 102 is now resting at the Musée Delta at Orly Airport, Paris, France.
- Concorde 201 is now resting at the Airbus Factory, Toulouse, France.
- Concorde 205 is now resting at the Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, VA, which serves as a partner facility to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. Admission is free.
- Concorde 207 is now resting at the Auto & Technik Museum Sinsheim, Germany.
- Concorde 209 is now resting at the Airbus Factory, Toulouse, France.
- Concorde 210 – G-BOARD “Alpha Delta” is now resting at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, New York, NY, where visitors can tour and board the jet.
- Concorde 212 – G-BOAE “Alpha Echo” is now resting at Grantley Adams International Airport, Barbados, where visitors can tour and board the jet as well as enjoy an unforgettable flight simulator Concorde Experience.
- Concorde 213 is now resting at the Museum of Air and Space, Le Bourget, France.
- Concorde 214 – G-BOAG “Alpha Golf” is now resting at The Museum of Flight, Seattle, WA, where visitors can tour and board the jet.
- Concorde 215 is now resting at Charles de Gaulle Airport, Paris, France. The aircraft is not currently open to the public but it can be viewed externally.
In 1964 the British Aircraft Corporation’s experimental ‘mini-Concorde’, known as the BAC 221, made its first flight from Filton in Bristol, with test flights taking place in the Bordeaux region in France.
On 19th September 1968 Concorde 002 (G-BSST), which was the first British assembled aircraft, was rolled out of the hangar at Filton, Bristol.
Two months before the first Concorde flight, on 31st December 1968 the Soviets built supersonic aircraft Tupolev TU-144 (SST) flew for the first time from Zhukovsky Airport near Moscow.
The Soviets built sixteen Tupolev TU-144; fourteen of them been airworthy while two others been prototypes. Along with some engine problems, the noise inside the plane did not allow the passengers to have a conversation, making them pass notes to communicate.
On 3rd June 1973, during the demonstration of its abilities at the Paris Air Show, the TU-144 crashed, killing six crew members on board and eight civilians on the ground.
Despite the continuous failures, Tupolev TU-144 started weekly passenger flights in 1977 on route Moscow-Almaty. Out of 102 flights it made, the TU-144 suffered 226 failures, 80 of them in mid-flight.
Half a century ago, the Concorde 001 prototype took off from Toulouse in the south of France on 2nd March 1969 and made its first test flight, piloted by André Turcat.
On 9th April 1969, Concorde prototype 002 (G-BSST) took off for the first time from Filton near Bristol. The crew members were the chief test pilot for commercial aircraft BAC, Brian Trubshaw, co-pilot John Cochrane, and the engineer observer Brian Watts.
With both radar altimeters failed and the crew being 35 feet above the landing gear, Brian Trubshaw made an impeccable landing 50 miles to the north-east, at the RAF station at Fairford in Gloucestershire, which became the main flight test centre. The first flight of 002 lasted 22 minutes.
On 21st January 1976, both British Airways and Air France commenced their commercial service flights from London Heathrow to Bahrain and Paris Orly to Rio. They both took off at exactly 1140 hours.
British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher took her first supersonic Concorde flight from London to Vancouver in July of 1986. Same year Concorde made its first round the world charter flight with a total flying time of 31 hours and 51 minutes.
In May of 1991, HM Queen Elizabeth II and HRH Prince Philip flew on Concorde to Washington, DC, to start their 12-day tour of the states. Then the royal couple moved onto Miami, Tampa, Austin, San Antonio, and Dallas. The tour ended with a visit to Kentucky horse farm owned by Will and Sarah Farish.
On 26th March 1993, British Airways Senior First Officer Barbara Harmer became the first female Concord pilot.
In 1995 Captain Les Scott broke the New York to London flight time record with a time of 2 hours, 52 minutes and 52 seconds. This record has never been beaten.
On 10th April 2003, British Airways and Air France made an announcement that Concorde would make its last passenger flight at the end of October.
On 24th October 2003 Concorde made its final commercial flights, and the British Airways fleet landed one after the other at Heathrow Airport.
On 26th November 2003, the final ever flight of Concorde departed Heathrow, flying over Bristol and landing at Filton Airfield; thus the beautiful era of supersonic aircraft has ended.
Concorde can be visited at the aviation museums in different parts of the world:
Aerospace Bristol (UK)
Brooklands Museum (UK)
National Museum of Flight (UK)
Museum Air and Space Paris Le Bourget (France)
Auto & Technik Museum Sinsheim (Germany)
Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly (Virginia, USA)
Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum (New York, USA)
The Museum of Flight (Seattle, USA)
Grantley Adams International Airport (Barbados)
But the best thing to do before arranging a trip to any of these museums is a Concorde virtual tour offered by Musée Delta in France.
