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21/1/26
The History of Concorde
On this day 50 years ago in 1976, Concorde’s first commercial flights took off at the same time from England and France. This was because Concorde was created and built by Britain and France together.
The British Airways Concorde flew from London Heathrow to Bahrain. The Air France Concorde flew from Paris to Rio de Janeiro. Both planes took off at 11.40am. But what was special about Concorde? Do you know?
Concorde was a type of plane. But it went incredibly fast and was called a supersonic plane! It could fly at twice the speed of sound! Concorde made the world smaller, with a flight from London Heathrow to New York taking around 3 hours, compared to the usual 8 hours.
Concorde could fly at a maximum speed of about 1,354 miles an hour. This supersonic speed was possible because of many reasons. It had a very aerodynamic shape, with specially shaped wings and an adjustable nose. It had four powerful jet engines and flew much higher up than normal planes. While most planes fly at 40,000 feet Concorde flew at around 60,000 feet. This meant it flew in thinner air, meaning there was less air resistance so it could move quicker.
Interesting Concorde Facts!
Only 20 Concordes were ever built. 14 of those were used for commercial flights. While the other 6 were built for testing and development.
When onboard a Concorde and flying at 60,000 feet you were so high up you could see the curve of planet Earth, something we can’t see from the ground or even from a plane flying at 40,000 feet.
Concorde made its first round the world flight on the 8th November 1986. It took 31 hours, 51 mins.
In 1987 a British man called Richard Noble set a new world record by crossing the Atlantic three times in one day on Concorde. He had broken the land speed record in a special car in 1983. He liked things that went fast.
In May 1991, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip flew on Concorde from London to Washington to start a tour of America.
In 1995 A Concorde Captain called Les Scott broke the New York to London flight time record with a time of 2 hours, 52 minutes and 52 seconds. This record was never beaten.
Air France Concorde
Why does Concorde not fly anymore?
Concorde flew passengers for 27 years and over two and a half million people flew on it. But it was always too expensive to run and Concorde never really made enough money.
Then on the 25th July 2000, an Air France Concorde crashed in Paris. 113 people died. For over a year Concorde stopped flying. After lots of improvements to the planes flights to New York restarted in November 2001.
But the crash had knocked people’s confidence in flying on the Concorde and passenger numbers weren’t enough anymore. People were also increasingly unhappy with the noise the Concordes made (they were very loud!).
In 2003 it was decided that Concorde would stop flying. On the 24th October 2003 Concorde made its final commercial flights. As a final goodbye the British Airways fleet of Concordes landed one after the other at Heathrow Airport.
Future of supersonic flight
Supersonic planes are still used today. Supersonic fighter jets for example are used by air forces. But commercial flights, the type of flights passengers buy tickets for, haven’t been around since Concorde stopped flying. Concorde will never fly again but there are companies developing types of supersonic planes that people think will one day carry passengers again.
British Airways Concorde
Photos and illustrations in this blog post are Whizzbots and Shutterstock Images.