What was special about Concorde airplane?

Indeed, Concorde's technological innovations still awe aviation experts today. British and French engineers designed features for the unique challenges of traveling at supersonic speeds: the aircraft's adjustable droop nose, revamped brake systems, delta-shaped wing and expandable fuselage.



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Concorde used the most powerful pure jet engines flying commercially. The Aircraft's four engines took advantage of what is known as 'reheat' technology, adding fuel to the final stage of the engine, which produced the extra power required for take-off and the transition to supersonic flight.

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Concorde guzzled a staggering 25,629 litres of fuel per hour. Over one million bottles of champagne have been consumed on Concorde passenger flights. More than 2.5 million passengers have flown supersonically on British Airways Concorde since 1976.

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The Concorde's retirement was due to a number of factors. The supersonic aircraft was noisy and extremely expensive to operate, which restricted flight availability. The operating costs required fare pricing that was prohibitively high for many consumers.

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Such speed didn't come cheap, though: A transatlantic flight required the high-maintenance aircraft to gulp jet fuel at the rate of one ton per seat, and the average round-trip price was $12,000.

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As a former Concorde pilot puts it, You don't actually hear anything on board. All we see is the pressure wave moving down the airplane – it indicates the instruments. And that's what we see around Mach 1. But we don't hear the sonic boom or anything like that.

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Concorde service was profitable by the late 1980s and if not for the economic downturn and Air France Concorde crash of 2000, may have survived to this day. Concorde earned £500 million for British Airways after tax profit, this was between a loss making 1982 and a highly profitable 2000 with just seven aircraft.

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Cruising at Mach 2 – or 1,350 mph – at 60,000 feet, Concorde flew five miles above and 800 mph faster than the subsonic 747s plodding across the Atlantic. The radio chatter between aircraft could get interesting, according to Tye.

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Technical, financial, and regulatory hurdles make a return to the skies extremely unlikely. Concorde is an aircraft that captures the imagination and is instantly recognizable even to non-aviation fanatics.

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Concorde is sadly no longer flying, but it is still possible to visit some of the remaining 18 airframes, there are others not open to the public but you can still see them.

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In real life, Diana took several trips aboard the Concorde, both with Prince Charles and solo.

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The Concorde was famously loud: a take-off at Washington airport in 1977 measured 119.4 decibels. By comparison, a clap of thunder hits 120 decibels while the pain threshold for the human ear is around 110.

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Over the Irish sea and rapidly running out of fuel the Tornado had a hard time catching up with the mighty Concorde. Over more than a hundred miles or so, 5–10 minutes the Concord could outrun every fighter.

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Concorde was also popular with the Queen and celebrities. Joan Collins travelled with the aircraft so frequently that she became something of an ambassador for the service. Other notable passengers included Elton John, Mick Jagger, Elizabeth Taylor and Sean Connery.

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Boom Supersonic, the US plane manufacturer, plans to have the answer with its new Overture jet, which is set to transport customers at twice the speed of today's fastest commercial aircraft, and is regarded as the new Concorde.

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Twenty Concorde aircraft were built, six for development and 14 for commercial service. All of these, except two of the production aircraft, are preserved. One aircraft was scrapped in 1994, and another was destroyed in the Air France Flight 4590 crash in 2000.

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Of course. Two people sitting in your run-of-the-mill supersonic airplane such as the Concorde can easily carry out conversations, without much trouble.

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And the jet pilots don't feel a sonic boom from the cockpit, just as passengers on a boat don't feel the effects of the wake behind them, she added.

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But when Concordes were in action, they would often break the sound barrier. Concorde's window-rattling sonic booms produced enormous sound energy, about 110 decibels, similar to the sound of explosions or thunder. The aircraft is dubbed the X-59 Quiet Supersonic Technology (QueSST).

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