Even though they are no longer in the air, you can still enjoy them in different parts of the world. It is one of only two supersonic aircraft to ever operate commercially.
Built by a British-French consortium, the Concorde was a turbojet supersonic airliner, capable of flying at Mach 2. The 14 commercial models operated from to their retirement in British Airways and Air France were the only airlines to buy and operate the Concorde.
All but two are preserved. Among the destinations, the Concordes flew regular flights across the Atlantic. It flew these routes in under half the time of conventional airliners. Flying from London to New York took just under three and a half hours. Being a British-French aircraft, a large number of the remaining Concordes now reside in the United Kingdom.
In fact, a total of 7 Concordes now call the United Kingdom their home. British Airways operated four of them while the remaining three were test and development aircraft. The Concorde was built in both United Kingdom and France.
The purpose of this prototype was to prove that the performance and supersonic capabilities were correct. Engineers would then concentrate their efforts on making it into an airliner that would meet certification requirements. The pre-production models introduced new improvements and refinements before full scale production began. Among the improvements were a new wing plan, more fuel capacity and a different engine intake system.
This was the first aircraft in history to carry people at supersonic speeds in It is one of the heaviest Concordes as aircrafts produced later benefitted from the design changes and weight reductions. It was also the first Concorde to perform a commercial flight for the British Airways. They, and Air France, did so simultaneously on 21 January It is now used for personel training by the British Airways.
This aircraft was never fitted with the return-to-flight modifications following the Paris crash. Today, France is home to six Concordes. Half of them are former prototype or development aircraft, while the other half is Air France production models.
It performed its first flight on 2 March and its final flight 19 October Engineers built this prototype to prove the supersonic calculations and verify the performance of the airframe. The invaluable data eventually allowed the designers to proceed with construction of the pre-production models. It first flew on 10 January and was the first Concorde to have the shape and features of the future production models.
It featured British Airways livery on one side and Air France livery on the other side for several years. It first flew on 6 December and had its last flight on 19 April It retired to the Aeroscopia museum with a total of flying hours. Absolutely spectacular. The beautiful aircraft would accelerate down the runway and then lift off into a pretty steep climb; with all that power, you could do that with a Concorde. Then once she'd gone you could just hear all the car alarms in the fields the local farmers used to open up their fields and sell parking space to the Concorde watchers protesting at their violation by the intense shockwaves from the afterburners.
At the end of the weekend, she'd make her final departure, and the crowds would then disperse to their shrieking cars. Now, we locals knew better.
For one thing, we didn't have shrieking cars; we'd walked to the viewpoint. For another thing, we knew that it was usually the pilots' habit to come back for one final pass, coming in from the north-west and usually making a slow pass along the airfield in that characteristic Concorde nose-high attitude with the nose drooped for better pilot view.
The aircraft would be empty, of course, with no passengers aboard. On one occasion, however -it may have been the last time they did a Concorde weekend at LBA, in fact -they did things just a little differently. On this occasion, it was an Air France aircraft and she had departed to the south-east and the crowds had dispersed as normal.
We'd waited about ten to fifteen minutes for the customary 'surprise' return of the aircraft. And boy, was it worth it. She came in from over the Chevin -you could see her, coming in nose-low and very, very fast -so you could tell that something different was going on. She crossed the end of the runway at about feet, doing something that looked like about knots -that's about mph or 0. You could tell she was at transonic speeds because you could actually see the shockwaves on the wings; the little feathers of cloud that show you that parts of the airflow over the wings is already beginning to 'bunch up' and form pressure fronts, the really weird transonic aerodynamics that slower aircraft simply don't have to cope with.
Of course, the crash didn't help Concorde flights were grounded for a year, pending modifications , but the main reason behind Concordes no longer taking flight is simple: a general downturn in the economic industry, especially following the September 11 terrorist attacks. Concordes were also pretty high maintenance in terms of upkeep, and literally bled fuel — they flew 45 miles per ton of gas versus today's miles , and that carrying fewer passengers.
Thus, Concordes were only profitable on long haul flights, which explains why they mainly flew between New York and London or Paris. Essentially, they just weren't profitable enough. And while they might be on the verge of making a comeback with this new group, there are still major obstacles, including the high cost of fuel. For you. World globe An icon of the world globe, indicating different international options. Get the Insider App.
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