Concorde - Celebrating twenty-seven supersonic years

Introduction

Concorde first flew in March 1969 after seven years of development by the British Aircraft Corporation and France's Sud-Aviation. Immediately she captured people's imagination and she went on to become arguably the world's most famous aircraft, the finest example of aviation design and manufacture ever produced.

Twenty Concorde aircraft were built, of these a fleet of fourteen aircraft split equally between the national carriers of France and the United Kingdom saw some twenty-seven years of commercial service; over 716,000 hours of supersonic flight, 1 billion supersonic miles flown. Her untimely retirement in 2003 only served to heighten the esteem in which she was held.

The affection towards Concorde parallels that generated by the Supermarine Spitfire, they are both aircraft that have become an integral part of our national identity, they speak of a time and a place in the story of our nation. They are a potent, evocative symbol, each possessing an unmistakable outline and character.

Concorde is an astonishing aircraft: her jet engines remain the most powerful, pure jet engines ever to see commercial service; no commercial airliner in service today can match her top speed of 1,350mph; the fastest commercial airliners in service cross the Atlantic in twice the amount of time it took Concorde. Today, over thirty years since she first took to the sky there is nothing to surpass her, maybe there never will be.

This website tells the story of Concorde from her development, through her commercial service, and follows her story into retirement. These pages are a celebration of Concorde and her twenty-seven years of commercial supersonic flight. Concorde stands as an outstanding technical achievement, she became a legend in her own lifetime.