Concorde was not alone in having separate flight engineer controls, nor in having a complex cockpit. In many ways, it improved on designs and layouts from earlier aircraft. But the aircraft's special abilities meant there were a few new switches, gauges and elements to the panels.

The Concorde cockpit is a masterpiece of 1960s analog engineering, and its complexity stems from the extreme technical challenges of sustained supersonic flight. Unlike modern glass cockpits with digital screens, the Concorde relied on hundreds of dedicated dials, switches, and gauges to monitor four powerful Olympus 593 engines and a highly sophisticated fuel transfer system. This fuel system was critical; to maintain aerodynamic stability as the center of pressure shifted during the transition from subsonic to supersonic speeds, the flight engineer had to manually pump fuel between various tanks across the aircraft. Additionally, the pilots had to manage the iconic "droop nose" mechanism and complex engine intake ramps that slowed incoming air to subsonic speeds before it reached the engines. There was no automation to simplify these tasks by modern standards, requiring a three-person crew—pilot, co-pilot, and flight engineer—to work in perfect synchronization while managing high-temperature sensors and Mach meters that were far more sensitive than those on a standard commercial jet of the era.