Concorde
Role	Supersonic airliner
Manufacturer	BAC (now BAE Systems) Sud-Aviation, Aérospatiale (now EADS)
First flight	2 March 1969
Introduction	21 January 1976
Retired	26 November 2003
Status	Retired from service
Primary users	British Airways Air France See Operators below for others
Number built	20 (including 6 non-airline aircraft)[1][2]
Program cost	£1.3 billion[3]
Unit cost	£23 million in 1977

Aérospatiale-BAC Concorde ( /ˈkɒŋkɔrd/) is a retired turbojet-powered supersonic passenger airliner, a supersonic transport (SST). It was a product of an Anglo-French government treaty, combining the manufacturing efforts of Aérospatiale and the British Aircraft Corporation. First flown in 1969, Concorde entered service in 1976 and continued commercial flights for 27 years.

Among other destinations, 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, profitably flying these routes at record speeds, in less than half the time of other airliners.

With only 20 aircraft built, their development represented a substantial economic loss, in addition to which Air France and British Airways (BA) were subsidised by their governments to buy them. As a result of the type’s only crash on 25 July 2000 and other factors, its retirement flight was on 26 November 2003.

Concorde's name reflects the development agreement between the United Kingdom and France. In the UK, any or all of the type—unusual for an aircraft—are known simply as "Concorde", without an article. The aircraft is regarded by many people as an aviation icon and an engineering marvel.^[4]

Development[link]

Concept[link]

Concorde's final flight, G-BOAF from Heathrow to Bristol, on 26 November 2003. The extremely high fineness ratio of the fuselage is evident.

In the late 1950s, the United Kingdom, France, United States, and Soviet Union were considering developing supersonic transport. The British Bristol Aeroplane Company and the French Sud Aviation were both working on designs, called the Type 223 and Super-Caravelle, respectively. Both were largely funded by their respective governments.^[5] The British design was for a thin-winged delta shape^[6] (which owed much to work by Dietrich Küchemann, then at the Royal Aircraft Establishment) for a transatlantic-ranged aircraft for about 100 people, while the French were intending to build a medium-range aircraft.^[5]

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 British Aircraft Corporation (which had been formed in 1960 as a consolidation of British aircraft companies, including the Bristol Aeroplane Company) look for international co-operation.^[5] 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 the UK, imposing heavy penalties for cancellation. A draft treaty was signed on 29 November 1962. By this time, both companies had been merged into new ones; thus, the Concorde project was between the British Aircraft Corporation and Aérospatiale.^[5] At first the new consortium intended to produce one long range and one short range version. However, prospective customers showed no interest in the short-range version and it was dropped.^[5] The consortium secured orders (i.e., non-binding options) for over 100 of the long-range version from the major 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, Continental Airlines, Japan Airlines, Lufthansa, American Airlines, United Airlines, Air India, Air Canada, Braniff, Singapore Airlines, Iran Air, Olympic Airways, Qantas, CAAC, Middle East Airlines and TWA.^[5][7]

The design work was supported by a preceding research programme studying the flight characteristics of low ratio delta wings. The supersonic BAC 211 was modified for flight tests of the high speed flight envelope,^[8] the Handley Page HP.115 also provided valuable information on low speed performance.^[9]

Naming[link]

Reflecting the treaty between the French and British governments which led to Concorde's construction, the name Concorde is from the French word concorde (IPA: [kɔ̃kɔʁd]), which has an English equivalent, concord. Both words mean agreement, harmony or union.

British Airways Concorde in early BA livery at Heathrow Airport, in the 1980s

The aircraft was initially referred to in the UK 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.^[10] 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.^[10] 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: "[Y]ou 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, "[I]t was also 'E' for 'Écosse' (the French name for Scotland)  — and I might have added 'e' for extravagance and 'e' for escalation as well!"^[11]

Concorde also acquired an unusual nomenclature for an aircraft. In common usage in the United Kingdom, the type is known as Concorde without an article, rather than the Concorde or a Concorde.^[12][13]

Testing[link]

Construction of two prototypes began in February 1965: 001, built by Aerospatiale at Toulouse, and 002, by BAC at Filton, Bristol. Concorde 001 made its first test flight from Toulouse on 2 March 1969, piloted by André Turcat,^[14] and first went supersonic on 1 October.^[15] The first UK-built Concorde flew from Filton to RAF Fairford on 9 April 1969, piloted by Brian Trubshaw.^[16][17] Both prototypes were presented to the public for the first time on 7–8 June 1969 at the Paris Airshow. As the flight programme progressed, 001 embarked on a sales and demonstration tour on 4 September 1971, which was also the first transatlantic crossing of Concorde.^[18][19] Concorde 002 followed suit on 2 June 1972 with a tour of the Middle and Far East.^[20] Concorde 002 made the first visit to the United States in 1973, landing at the new Dallas/Fort Worth Regional Airport to mark that airport’s opening.^[21]

Concorde's first visit to Heathrow Airport on 1 July 1972.

While Concorde had initially held a great deal of customer interest, the project was hit by a large number of order cancellations. The Paris Le Bourget air show crash of the competing Soviet Tupolev Tu-144 had shocked potential buyers, and public concern over the environmental issues presented by a supersonic aircraft - the sonic boom, takeoff-noise and pollution - had produced a shift in public opinion of SSTs. By 1976 four nations remained as prospective buyers: Britain, France, China, and Iran.^[22] 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.^[23] During the series of test flights conducted by Concorde, a large number of world records were set, several remaining unbroken up to the current day. The prototype, pre-production and first production aircraft undertook 5,335 flight hours; 2,000 test hours were at supersonic speeds. On 7 November 1974, 001 performed the fastest civil flight across the North Atlantic.^{[citation needed]}

The United States cancelled the Boeing 2707, its rival supersonic transport programme, in 1971. Observers have suggested that opposition to Concorde on grounds of noise pollution had been encouraged by the United States Government, as it lacked its own competitor.^[24] The US, India and Malaysia all ruled out Concorde supersonic overflights over the noise concern, although some of these restrictions were later relaxed.^[25][26] Professor Douglas Ross characterised restrictions placed upon Concorde operations by President Jimmy Carter's administration as having been an act of protectionism of American aircraft manufacturers.^[27]

Concorde had other, considerable, difficulties that led to its dismal sales performance. Costs had spiralled during development to more than six times the original projections, arriving at a unit cost of £23 million in 1977.^[28] World events had also dampened Concorde sales prospects, the 1973 oil crisis had many airlines think twice about aircraft with high rates of fuel-consumption; and new wide-body aircraft such as Boeing 747 had recently made subsonic aircraft significantly more efficient and presented a low-risk option for airlines.^[29] While carrying a full load, Concorde achieved 15.8 passenger miles per gallon of fuel, while the Boeing 707 reached 33.3 pm/g, the Boeing 747 46.4 pm/g, and the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 53.6 pm/g.^[30] An emerging trend in the industry in favour of cheaper airline tickets had also caused airlines such as Qantas to question Concorde's market suitability.^[31]

Design[link]

General features[link]

Concorde cockpit layout

Concorde is an ogival (also "ogee") delta-winged aircraft with four Olympus engines based on those employed in the RAF's Avro Vulcan strategic bomber. Concorde was the first airliner to have a (in this case, analogue) fly-by-wire flight-control system; the avionics of Concorde were unique because it was the first commercial aircraft to employ hybrid circuits.^[32] The principal designer for the project was Pierre Satre, with Sir Archibald Russell as his deputy.^[33]

Concorde pioneered the following technologies:

For high speed and optimisation of flight: