Concorde First FlightĪfter almost a decade of research and developments first Concorde 001 took off on March 2, 1969, from Toulouse, France.Ĭaptain Andre Turcat piloted this flight. In1965, Aerospatiale started building Concorde 001, and simultaneously 002 was built in Bristol. After the hundreds of prototypes and wind tunnel testings, engineers knew how the Concorde should be.įive years before the first test flight, world pioneer airlines orders more than 70 Concordes.
Without any advanced software or computers like today, engineers and designers had to draw the entire Concorde on thousands of papers by hand. After the moon Apollo project, Concorde was the most technically ambitious project of the century. Thousands of France and British engineers started to work together to make Concorde in reality. In 1961 British Aircraft Corporation and France Aerospatiale signed the Concorde program as a joint project. The meaning of Concorde in both languages is agreement, harmony, or union.
Both nations agree to named their prototype aircraft Concorde.
This project is called SST(Super Sonic Transportation). So France and the British came with a new idea to build the world’s first commercial supersonic airliner. At this time, military fighter jets routinely operated beyond the sound barrier. To re-enter the market, Europeans need a new aircraft with new technology. European countries lost their aircraft manufacturing market. Both aircraft got high popularity among the aviation sector, and more than thousands of airplanes were built. In 1957 Boeing launched B-707, and in 1958 Douglas launched DC-8. Learning from the Comet errors, American aviation manufacture entered the commercial jet market. After a few years of service, all the Comet aircraft were grounded. But unfortunately, this first-generation jet-age aircraft had problems to fix. This aircraft flew higher and faster than any airliner before it. On July 27, 1949, British aviation stunt the world with the first jet airliner, the DE Havilland Comet. World First Commercial Jet AirlinerĪircraft manufacturers also wanted to use military-developed technologies in commercial aviation. British RAF research center developed Fairey Delta 2 aircraft as their first supersonic fighter jet, and USSR developed Mig-19 as their first supersonic fighter jet. USAF’s first supersonic jet was a North American F-100 super fighter, and then they also bought F-104 starfighter jets from the Lockheed. When the 1955 USAF, USSR, and RAF developed and operated first-generation supersonic fighter jets fleet. In the next few years, new speed records quickly followed. This record insults the nations to create new generation supersonic fighter jets. On 1947 October 14, the world’s first time USAF test pilot Chuck Yeager breaks the sound barrier by X-1 aircraft. After the war United States, British and Soviet Russia continue their experiments with jet engines. Jet engine-powered aircraft had more benefits in the speed, and high attitude turboprop aircraft had. In the meantime, military aviation engineers researched and developed a new technology called jets for powering their fighter aircrafts. Thousands of aircrafts models and new aviation technologies have been developed for the war. When WW2 start aviation industry plays a big role in the war. Let’s find out all things you should know about Concorde. Why they stopped successfully operated the world’s fastest commercial airliner? Aviation manufacturers had the technology to create new supersonic airlines, but why they still didn’t? This looks like a major misstep in commercial aviation. But in 2003, after serving three decades, the Concorde fleet end up in the museums. The Concorde fleet service is dedicated to celebrities and people who like to luxurious. Concorde not only revolutionized aviation technology it also creates its own culture in commercial aviation. Concorde easily crowned as the queen in the sky still, no other commercial airliner couldn’t compete with her speed. Concorde flew edge of space Mach 2 speed, which is much faster than the speed of sound.
It creates a new era in commercial aviation history. But almost two decades ago, with the Concorde, we could able to do this in 2hours, 53minutes. Today airliner takes more than 8hours to complete this journey from London to New York. Crossing the Atlantic ocean always became a major milestone throughout transportation history.