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Representative image for Concorde
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Concorde Image Gallery (there are a total of 47 images)
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Aircraft description (most info is taken from Wikipedia)
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The Aerospatiale-BAC Concorde supersonic transport (SST) was the more successful of only two supersonic passenger airliners to have operated commercially (the Tupolev Tu-144 being the other). First flown in 1969, Concorde service commenced in 1976 and continued for 27 years. It regularly flew from London Heathrow (British Airways) and Paris Charles de Gaulle (Air France) to New York JFK. It set many records, including a time of 2 hours, 52 minutes and 59 seconds between New York and London, on 7 February 1996.
The costly development phase represented a substantial economic loss for the French and British governments, although it made large operating profits for British Airways for much of its service life. Commercial flights, by British Airways and Air France, began on 21 January 1976. As a result of its only crash (in 2000), the September 11, 2001 attacks and other factors, operations ceased on 24 October 2003, with the last "retirement" flight on 26 November that year. In retirement, Concorde remains an icon of aircraft history. General features Concorde had an average cruise speed of Mach 2.02 (about 2,140 km/h or 1,330 mph) with a maximum cruise altitude of 60,000 feet (18,300 metres). The speed of sound varies greatly with the air temperature, meaning that if Concorde entered a warm pocket of air, her speed could increase from Mach 2.0 to more than Mach 2.04, without her actual velocity changing. The speed of sound is around 332 m/s at standard temperature and pressure. Concorde was an ogival delta-winged aircraft with four Olympus engines based on those originally developed for the Avro Vulcan strategic bomber. The engines were jointly built by Rolls-Royce and SNECMA, the latter gaining its first foothold in civil aviation turbojet engine manufacturing. Concorde was the first civil airliner to have an analogue fly-by-wire flight control system. It employed a trademark droop snoot lowering nose section for visibility on approach. In regular service, Concorde employed a relatively efficient cruise-climb. As aircraft lose weight from consuming fuel, they can fly at progressively higher altitudes. This is (generally) more efficient, so conventional airliners employ a stepped climb, where air traffic control will approve a change to a higher flight level as the flight progresses. With no other civil traffic operating at her cruise altitude, dedicated oceanic airways across the Atlantic were allocated in which Concorde would be cleared in a 10,000- ft block, allowing her to slowly climb from 50,000 to 60,000 feet during her crossing. Throughout the landing approach Concorde was on the "back side" of the drag curve. Design and development In the late 1950s, the United Kingdom, France, United States and Soviet Union were considering developing supersonic transport. Britain's Bristol Aeroplane Company and France's Sud Aviation were both working on designs, called the Type 233 and Super-Caravelle, respectively. Both were largely funded by their respective governments. The British design was for a trans-Atlantic-ranged aircraft for around 100 people, while the French were intending to concentrate on a medium-range sector. The designs were both ready to start prototype construction in the early 1960s, but the cost was so great that the British government made it a requirement that BAC look for international co-operation. Approaches were made to a number of countries, but only France showed real interest. The development project was negotiated as an international treaty between the two countries rather than a commercial agreement between companies and included a clause, originally asked for by Britain, issuing penalties for cancellation (Britain's Treasury twice came close to cancelling the project). A draft treaty was signed on 28 November 1962. By this time, both companies had been merged into new ones, thus the Concorde project was between the British Aircraft Corporation and Aerospatiale. At first the new consortium intended to produce two versions of the aircraft, one for long range and one for short. However, while shopping the design to prospective customers, no interest was shown in the short-range version. Plans for this version were dropped, and the consortium secured orders for over 100 of the long-range version from the premier airlines of the day: Pan Am, BOAC and Air France were the launch customers, with six Concordes each. Other airlines in the order book included Panair do Brasil, Japan Airlines, Lufthansa, American Airlines, United Airlines, Air Canada, Braniff, Iran Air, Qantas, CAAC, Middle East Airlines and TWA. The aircraft was initially referred to in Britain as "Concorde," with the French spelling, but was officially changed to "Concord" by Harold Macmillan in response to a perceived slight by Charles de Gaulle. In 1967, at the French roll-out in Toulouse the British Government Minister for Technology, Tony Benn announced that he would change the spelling back to "Concorde." This created a nationalist uproar that died down when Benn stated that the suffixed "e" represented "Excellence, England, Europe and Entente (Cordiale)." In his memoirs, he recounts a tale of a letter from an irate Scotsman claiming: "you talk about 'E' for England, but part of it is made in Scotland." Given Scotland's contribution of providing the nose cone for the aircraft, Benn replied "it was also 'E' for 'Ecosse' (the French name for Scotland) — and I might have added 'e' for extravagance and 'e' for escalation as well!" Construction of two prototypes began in February 1965: 001, built by Aerospatiale at Toulouse, and 002, by BAC at Filton, Bristol. 001 made her first test flight from Toulouse on 2 March 1969 and first went supersonic on 1 October. As the flight programme progressed, she embarked on a sales and demonstration tour on 4 September 1971. 002 followed suit on 2 June 1972 with a tour of the Middle and Far East. 002 made the first visit to the United States in 1973, landing at the new Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport to mark the airport's opening. These trips led to orders for over 70 aircraft, but a combination of factors led to a sudden number of order cancellations - the 1973 oil crisis (Concorde used considerably more fuel per passenger mile than her subsonic competitors), acute financial difficulties of the partner airlines, a spectacular crash of the competing Soviet Tupolev Tu-144, and environmental concerns such as the sonic boom, take-off noise and pollution. Only Air France and British Airways (the successor to BOAC) took up their orders, with the two governments taking a cut of any profits made. In the case of BA, 80% of the profit was kept by the government until 1984, while the cost of buying the aircraft was covered by a state loan. The United States had cancelled its supersonic transport (SST) program in 1971. Two designs had been submitted; the Lockheed L-2000, looking like a scaled-up Concorde, lost out to the Boeing 2707, which was intended to be faster, to carry 300 passengers and feature a swing-wing design. Industry observers in France and the United Kingdom suggested that part of the American opposition to Concorde on grounds of noise pollution was orchestrated by, or at least encouraged by, the United States Government, out of spite at not being able to propose a viable competitor, despite President John F. Kennedy's impassioned 1963 statement of commitment. Other countries, such as India and Malaysia, ruled out Concorde supersonic overflights due to noise concerns. Both European airlines flew demonstration and test flights from 1974 onwards. The testing of Concorde set records that have not been surpassed; it undertook 5,335 flight hours in the prototype, pre-production and first production aircraft alone. A total of 2,000 test hours were at supersonic speeds. This statistic equates to approximately four times as many as similarly sized subsonic commercial aircraft. Unit costs were £23 million (US$46 million) in 1977. Development cost overrun was 600%. Technological features Many features common in early 21st century airliners were first used in Concorde. For high speed and optimization of flight:
Although Concorde was a technological marvel when introduced into service in the 1970s, 30 years later her cockpit, cluttered with analogue dials and switches, looked dated. With no competition, there was no commercial pressure to upgrade Concorde with enhanced avionics or passenger comfort, as occurred in other airliners of the same vintage (e.g. Boeing 747). The key partners, BAC (later to become BAE Systems) and Aerospatiale (later to become EADS), were the joint owners of Concorde's type certificate. Responsibility for the Type Certificate transferred to Airbus with formation of Airbus SAS. Comparison with other supersonic aircraft The only other supersonic airliner in direct competition with Concorde was the Soviet TU-144. Although the TU-144 entered service earlier, it was retired in 1978. The still-born project, the Boeing 2707, was America's entry into the supersonic sweepstakes. As a result of a rushed development program, the TU-144 was cruder and much less refined than Concorde, with cabin noise notably higher. The early version of the TU-144D had significantly lower range than Concorde, largely due to its underpowered engines. It required reheat to maintain Mach 2.0 and cruised at Mach 1.6. The vehicle had poor control at low speeds because of a simpler, dedicated supersonic wing design. In addition, the Tu-144 required parachutes to land while Concorde had sophisticated antilock brakes. It also had two crashes, one at the 1973 Paris Air Show, which made further sales impossible, and another during a cargo flight. Later versions had retractable canards for better low speed control, and military engines from Tu-160 that gave them nearly the range of Concorde. It had 126 seats. With a top speed of Mach 2.35 (made possible due to titanium and steel leading edges), while theoretically a more competitive aircraft, this version was not exportable due to the military engines. The American design was to have been larger, seating 300. It was also intended to reach higher speeds of up to Mach 3.0, which made the construction much more difficult, as high temperatures ruled out the use of duralumin. Running a few years behind Concorde, the extra costs of these features may have helped to kill the project. The discovery that sonic booms were quite capable of reaching the ground also meant that the aircraft was subject to the same environmental concerns that contributed to hindering commercial success of Concorde. The American government had spent over $1 billion on the project. General characteristics
Performance
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