Concorde Production Concorde

Supersonic, for a while

10 m · person 1.75 m · behind it, the A380 at the same scale

The story

Concorde crossed the Atlantic in about three and a half hours at twice the speed of sound. Because of the time difference, passengers landed in New York earlier by the clock than they had left London. Fuel costs, noise and the kept it to 14 aircraft in airline service, and it retired in 2003. One is at the Udvar-Hazy Center.

Britain and France signed a treaty in 1962 to build it together, and argued for years over whether its name should end in an e. It first flew from Toulouse on 2 March 1969. Its slender had no flaps or slats: at low speed it flew nose-high, held up by vortices rolling off the sharp leading edges.

Only Air France and British Airways flew it. On 25 July 2000 Air France Flight 4590 crashed just after take-off from Paris, when a strip of metal on the runway burst a tyre and the debris ruptured a fuel tank; 113 people died. Concorde flew again in 2001, but passenger numbers fell and maintenance costs rose, and the last flight landed at Bristol in November 2003.

How it works

Why the nose bends. At Mach 2 the visor shields the windscreen from the heat; below Mach 1 it slides down. At 5° the pilots can see to taxi and take off, and at 12.5° they can see the runway past the long nose on a nose-high landing.

How Concorde flew slowly with no flaps. Raise the model's nose and the air stops turning round the sharp leading edges: it rolls up into two cone-shaped vortices over the wing, traced here in smoke and fully formed by about 10°. Their low pressure adds lift, a third more by 14°.

Drawn for the SR-71 Blackbird

How an afterburner works, on an engine in a test cell. Drag the throttle past full power and fuel sprays into the hot gas behind the turbine and lights; the nozzle opens wider to let the extra flow out, and thrust jumps. The SR-71's J58s and Concorde's Olympus engines both did this.

Drawn for the Heinkel He 178

How the first jet breathed. Open the throttle and the impeller flings air outward, the burners set it alight, and the hot gas spins a turbine on the same shaft before it leaves the nozzle as a jet.

The whole aircraftDrag to turn it, and pinch to zoom. Pick a part to fly the camera to it.

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Specifications

Top speed: 2,180 km/h
Wingspan: 25.6 m
Max weight: 185,070 kg
Ceiling: 18,300 m
Range: 7,220 km
In 12 seconds: 7.3 km
Power: 4 × Rolls-Royce/Snecma Olympus 593, 169 kN each with reheat

Where it flew

London and Paris

London Heathrow. The simulator starts here, over today's ground and imagery of the place.

Fly it yourself

Take the Concorde up in 3D, with its real weight, wing area and power.

Climb to 15,000 m and cruise at Mach 2.

On displaySteven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Chantilly, Virginia