Faster than sound
- POSTED ON: 2 Mar, 2024
- TOTAL VIEWS: 501 Views
- POSTED BY: Bhavya Venkatesh | Text: Nimi Kurian
- ARTICLE POINTS: 150 Points
Concorde was a supersonic airliner, the construction of which began in November 1962. The first flight took off from Toulouse on March 2, 1969. Its tailless aircraft design with a narrow fuselage allowed four passengers to be seated abreast and had the capacity to seat up to 128 people. Four Rolls-Royce/Snecma Olympus 593 turbojets with variable engine intake ramps allowed it to maintain a supercruise up to Mach 2.04 (2,170 km/h) at an altitude of 60,000 ft.
Designed and built by Aérospatiale of France and the British Aircraft Corporation, the Concorde was the first major cooperative venture between the two countries. A treaty was signed on November 29, 1962, to share costs and risks in producing the airliner. While British Aerospace and the French firm Aérospatiale constructed the airframe, Britain’s Rolls Royce and France’s Société Nationale d’Étude et de Construction de Moteurs d’Aviation (SNECMA) developed the jet engines.
On September 26, 1973, the Concorde made its first transatlantic crossing. On January 21, 1976, the world’s first scheduled supersonic passenger service was inaugurated: British Airways flew the aircraft from London to Bahrain and Air France flew from Paris to Rio de Janeiro. In 1976, two additional services — to Washington D.C. and to New York — were introduced. Other routes were added temporarily or seasonally, and chartered flights were flown to destinations across the globe.
Decline
Though the Concorde crossed the Atlantic in less than four hours, operating costs were high, which led to a hike in fares. This meant not many people could afford it. The resultant financial loss meant that routes had to cut down. Finally only New York remained as a regular destination.
The Concorde saga came to an end in 2003, when both Air France and British Airways stopped operations in May and October respectively. Earlier, in 2000, an Air France flight from Paris to New York had crashed shortly after take off, killing all 109 people on board. In the 27 years of operations, this was the only fatal accident that a Concorde suffered. After ceasing operations, Air France donated a Concorde aircraft to the National Air and Space Museum, honouring an agreement it had signed in 1998.
Photos: Wikimedia Commons