Concorde British Airways

The Aérospatiale-BAC Concorde aircraft is a turbojet- powered supersonic passenger airliner, a supersonic transport (SST), which flew from 1969 to 2003. It was a product of an Anglo-French government treaty, combining the manufacturing efforts of Aerospatiale and the British Aircraft Corporation. (The French word concorde translates to the English concord as agreement, harmony, or union.) Concorde entered service with Air France and British Airways in 1976

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Concorde flew regular transatlantic flights from London Heathrow (British Airways) and Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport (Air France) to New York JFK and Washington Dulles, flying these routes at record speeds, in less than half the time of other airliners.

With only 20 aircraft built, the development phase represented a substantial economic loss. Additionally, Air France and British Airways were subsidised by their governments to buy the aircraft. As a result of the type’s only crash, (on 25 July 2000), economic effect arising from the September 11 attacks, and other factors, operations ceased on 24 October 2003. The last “retirement” flight occurred on 26 November 2003.

Regarded by many as an aviation icon, Concorde has acquired an unusual nomenclature for an aircraft. In common usage in the United Kingdom, the type is known as “Concorde” rather than “the Concorde” or “a Concorde”.

Scheduled flights:

Scheduled flights began on 21 January 1976 on the London-Bahrain and Paris-Rio (via Dakar) routes. Then, the route Paris-Caracas (via Azores) began on 10 April of this year. The U.S Congress had just banned Concorde landings in the US, mainly due to citizen protest over sonic boom, preventing launch on the coveted transatlantic routes. However , the U.S Secretary of Transportation, William Coleman, gave permission for Concord service to Washington Dulles International Airport , and Air France and British Airways simultaneously began service to Dulles on 24 May 1976.

Engines:

To be economically viable, Concorde needed to be able to fly long distances, and this required high efficiency. For optimum supersonic flight, turbofan engines were considered, but rejected, as due to their large cross-section they would cause excessive drag. Turbojets were found to be the best choice of engines. The quieter high bypass turbofan engines such as used on Boeing 747 could not be used. The engine developed was the twin spool Rolls-Royce/Snecma Olympus, a development of the Bristol engine first used for the Vulcan Bomber, and developed into an afterburning supersonic variant for the BAC TSR-2 strike bomber.

General characteristics

Crew: 3 (pilot, co-pilot, and flight engineer)

Capacity: 92–120 passengers
(128 in high-density layout