TIL about the Concorde aircraft that flew at twice the speed of sound, and thad passenger flights from NY to London in three hours (versus 7 hours)

Aw the Concord is a TIL now. They were really cool looking.

I loved how they looked down like a bird while landing.
- Gotta droop the snoot
- It's a very graceful machine that just happens to also sound like a volcano erupting
Yeah, until they flew over your house. If you think living near an airport is bad these days…. Concorde begs to differ
- I never understood why they could not just go slow until they got up to cruising altitude and then gun it, wouldn't that solve the sound problem?
Museum of flight has one you can go it (not just a TIL, but also in a museum!). It is pretty cool and worth checking out if you are in the area.
- IWM Duxford also has one you can go into
- Uh, you got a city, or a country for that museum?

No post on here has ever made me feel older. Just the thought that somebody might not know about Concorde because it's so far in the past makes me want to hide in a closet.

There are people having children right now who weren't born yet when Borat came out
- Frak you, man... Frak you
- There are people who still do not know Borat was not real but staged and the actor Sasha Baron Cohens parents were some of the earlier Zionist colonists. His life work is spreading Islamophobia and promoting Israel.
- Borat came out 19 years ago. Sure, 19 year olds have kids, but not many of them do. By that logic you can also say that there are people who were born after 9/11 who have kids in school.
IKR. I was in a costume hire shop a few years ago and asked the shop lady (age late ~20s), "do you have a Zorro costume?" She asked me, "What's a Zorro?" Faaark I'm officially old!
True story. Antonio Banderas then ran into the store, yelled "Oi!" and stormed out.
- And everybody clapped
- Let's have a few brewskis on the porch and yell at kids to get off our lawn.
I know, right? That was such a staple of aviation in general. Everybody knew about Concorde, just like how everyone can immediately recognise a Boeing 747. Maybe in thirty years time, some young’in will post about ‘I learned about an aircraft called a 747.’
Concorde was such an icon, they even made an entire disaster movie featuring it, Airport ‘79:
https://youtu.be/BdwoWbBduxw
Not so fun fact: the aircraft used in the movie, F-BTSC, was also the actual Concorde that crashed in 2000, ultimately killing the type.

A fun fact about Concorde: there is one aerial photo of one of them flying at supersonic speeds, and the fighter jet that the photo was taken from could barely keep up long enough to take it. Here's the pic.

The image was taken by Adrian Meredith who was flying a Royal Air Force (RAF) Tornado jet during a rendezvous with the Concorde over the Irish Sea in April 1985. Although the Tornado could match Concorde’s cruising speed it could only do so for a matter of minutes due to the enormous rate of fuel consumption. Several attempts were made to take the photo, and eventually the Concorde had to slow down from Mach 2 to Mach 1.5-1.6 so that the Tornado crew could get the shot. The Tornado was stripped of everything to get it up to that speed as long as possible.

https://theaviationgeekclub.com/heres-the-only-picture-of-concorde-flying-at-supersonic-speed/

That is awesome.
Slow down so I can take your picture
No
Don't make me use your middle name!
Sigh OK
Should have used an American F-15.
- Probably would have had the same problem. Both the Tornado and the F-15 were capable of going fast enough, it's just going fast enough for an extended period that becomes a problem. The F-15 is a bit faster but needs to carry a bunch of external fuel tanks to match the Tornado's range. Neither of them is cruising the whole way across the Atlantic at more than mach 2 like Concorde could
- IIRC the only fighters that can supercruise (go supersonic without gushing fuel out of afterburners) are super modern jets like the F22, and still not at Mach 2.
  Some older specialized craft could go Mach 2 efficiently, like blackbird or the XB-70, but they’re all long retired.
  Concorde was realistically the only plane that could do that.
Supersonic temperature giving it that extra sexy length

Time savings in today's economics would be completely negated by waiting two hours in line at the airport.

If you're paying that much to fly you're not waiting in regular security
- Terrorists taking notes.
- Still gotta arrive early, because you don't wanna miss it due to being stuck in traffic.
- What's funny is that half of the time when I fly, regular security moves faster than the expensive line.

One of today's lucky 10000.

I also think it's the younger folks who may not know what older folks already knew. OP was maybe too young to remember about Concorde.
- Probably, I still remember my physics teacher using the Concorde as part of a quiz.
- Im nearing 40 and never knew about it because:
  Never had an interest in flying to Europe until recently
  Age is making me delete memories to store new ones

Thanks to Concorde, Phil Collins was able to play at both the London and Philadelphia Live Aid concerts. He Played in London, got a helicopter to Heathrow, Concorde to NY and then another helicopter to Philadelphia.

As well as his own set at both venues, he also played the piano for Sting in London, then drums for Eric Clapton, and played with the reuniting surviving members of Led Zeppelin at JFK. On the Concorde flight, Collins encountered actress and singer Cher and told her about the concerts. Upon reaching the US, she attended the Philadelphia concert and can be seen performing as part of the concert's "We Are the World" finale.
Love Cher just chilling on Concorde, might go to a gig
TIL Phil Collins is an asshole
- He ruined Genesis, so we already knew that
- Why?
- Seems like he's showing his True Colors.

I remember fantasizing about flying in that thing when I was a kid. Not because it was a super luxury flight, only because it was supersonic. I was sad the day they mothballed it.

Well I might have some uplifting news for you!
https://euroweeklynews.com/2025/07/07/concorde-is-set-to-make-a-comeback-in-2026/

Never have I felt as old online.

I flew on it . . twice. Round trip NYC - London and home a week later. BA obviously.

At altitude (60,000 feet) the sky was black, not blue. And for any flat-earth'ers out there . . sorry, but from 60,000 feet you could see the curvature of the earth.

The only interesting physical difference I remember was the difference in acceleration departing JFK vs. departing from Heathrow. Out of JFK you are instantly over the Atlantic, so it accelerated from 0 mph to Mach 2.0 in one continuous push. Whereas departing Heathrow, you are over land until the English channel. So it accelerated down the runway like any other plane, cruised until over water, then it felt like it was taking off a second time, with a much longer acceleration push.

I lived under the Heathrow-Noo Yoik flight path, and every evening within a couple of minutes, there'd be a dull thud sound on the roof.

By that point, the plane has reached a supersonic speed and the sonic boom was striking the ground in a reduced fashion. It just sounded like someone had dropped a bag of sand on the house.

This was of course back before the days of ADSB tracking.

My grandpa was a mechanic on one of these. Impressive plane it's too bad it didn't work out.

They flew for 27 years, partly thanks to your grandpa. I’d say they worked out just fine
A guy I worked with put himself through university working ground crew for Braniff at Dulles when they were flying interchange flights taking the Concorde on from Dulles to Dallas-Fort Worth. He commented on how crazy some of the tools were that the mechanics were regularly using while the plane was at the gate.

The snoot drooped.

I used to have outdoor PE up on a hill near the sea and we would hear the booms from Concorde out over the ocean. Takes me way back. Also makes me feel way old that someone old enough to write this didn't already know about it lol

They also occasionally took off and landed at a local airport and we would go and see them sometimes. Noise on takeoff is unimaginable unless you've witnessed something like a Typhoon jet. The kind of noise you can feel entirely through your body.

British Airways used to sell these really nice double-sided leather bomber jackets at events that were imprinted with the British Airways logo on the black leather side and the Concorde sown into the quilted side. The reason I know this is because somebody found one in a thrift store and gave it to me as a gift, and I did a lot of digging to find out where it came from as they never sold them in stores or anything, only at events. The leather was worn thin and torn even when I got it like 20 years ago, but the Concorde looks just as good as it ever did:

The crash was caused by part of the engine cowl from the previous flight (continental DC10) falling off and remaining on the runway

wiki

Whilst taking off from Charles de Gaulle Airport, Air France Flight 4590 ran over debris on the runway dropped by an aircraft during the preceding departure, causing a tyre to explode and disintegrate... five minutes before the Concorde departed, Continental Airlines Flight 55, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30, took off from the same runway for Newark International Airport and lost a titanium alloy strip that was part of the engine cowl...Concorde ran over this piece of debris during its take-off...cutting the right-front tyre of its left main wheel bogie and sending a large chunk of tyre debris into the underside of the left wing... It did not directly puncture any of the fuel tanks, but it sent out a pressure shockwave that ruptured the number 5 fuel tank at its weakest point, just ahead of the left landing gear well.

Concorde is cool as heck, but honestly, supersonic travel is fundamentally impractical.

It’s kinda like space "colonization." It’s a really cool dream, but once you take a hard look at the physics (never mind engineering, just assume that will be worked out), it just makes little sense outside of science missions or niches like that.

And if it’s really urgent these days… teleconference. Or charter a private jet between closer airports.

I think it would be cool to have one or a few SS passenger planes in operation for weird niches (medical emergencies? Charity? Political flights? Stuff like that,) but that’s about it.

I am sure people decades ago spoke of tech we now consider as granted in the same way!
It would make a lot more sense nowadays for Europe/NA to east Asia (or would for Europe if Russia were a reasonable country that could be trusted to fly over).

The former president of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) had a Concorde-capable airport built at his home village, so that his wife could charter it to go shopping in Europe.

The CIA assassinated his predecessor and put him in power so that he would do their bidding and that of the American mining companies. It's estimated that he was worth around $6 billion, $30-40 billion in today's money.

When flying supersonic the entire plane would expand and get longer to the point where flight engineer could put his hat between his console and bulkhead.

However, when it slowed down and cooled the engineer had to remember to get his hat or it would be stuck in the shrunken space.

The Concorde on display at the Udvar-Hazy Center had this happen, and it has a hat permanently stuck in the cockpit.

(At least according to the tour guide.)

Thought the story was that the whole crew did it on purpose on the last flight.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HjaumLnK4I

To expensive to operate, you needed a lot of fuel to flew few passengers faster, they decided regular airliners were fast enough.

They needed 3x as much fuel as a 747 per passenger. The Concord was also banned from flying over cities because of the noise, this pretty much limited it to routes between east coast and Europe.
But now, I wonder if supersonic flight could work today. We know a lot more now than we did when the first Concordes were built. There have been numerous advances in the fields of engineering, materials science, avionics, and such since the last Concorde jet was grounded.
- Boom supersonic is trying to bring supersonic passenger flight back. They have a test bed prototype that flies out of a Colorado airport. But last I heard they were in big trouble without an engine supplier.
- Boom Supersonic is a private company working on it, with an eye towards better fuel efficiency than the Concorde. They're still in the early stages, though, so who knows if they'll actually be able to finish a design, much less manufacture a working model.
  And NASA has been doing some research on sonic boom characteristics, to see if a plane can be designed to fly faster than the speed of sound without causing a sonic boom.
- No. Going slower will always use less energy than going fast. You cannot cheat physics.
- In the field of aviation there have been almost no innovations except better electronics and manufacturing techniques.
  All old principles still hold. Going faster requires a ton more energy.

Never flew in a Concorde, but I've been inside a grounded one, at the Museum of Flight near Edinburgh. Not sure if they still have it or not, this was some years ago.

It's so small inside! I mean, I'm a tall guy, but even allowing for that, it was horribly cramped and generally not very nice inside. IIRC it had a brown and cream colour palette, and not in a tasteful way.

Still beautiful from the outside, of course.

That is 1970's designs and fashion vs designs today. What people liked back then isn't liked a lot today, but surely will be popular again in about 30 years from now
- Possibly. Although the way I remember it, it's hard to imagine anyone ever liking it! 😁

My boss at the time, took one of the last flights on the Concord. I asked him if it was expensive, and he said he had to get back from Europe, and he figured he would never get another chance, so he wanted the adventure - and he could afford to pay for that sort of adventure.

And dumbass musk and his followers said we'll use rockets for intercontinental flights.

Boom Supersonic is essentially trying to bring it back.

They have a demonstrator flying which is honestly farther than I thought they would get. I still have a lot of doubts about the actual viability when all the engine manufacturers told them they could not supply an engine that meets their needs so they decided they would design and build their own engine, too. On the one hand, kudos for not giving up. On the other, how likely is it they’ll be able to do something the rest of the industry says can’t be done, or at least can’t be done economically? But I really hope they’re able to succeed!
Well that should be fucking illegal
Beautiful website. Let me know when they plan to actually sell tickets.
- They are just selling planes, not passage.

What killed the Concorde was economics. It simply wasn't worth while doing and then when one finally crashed that one time, the entire fleet was mothballed

the entire fleet was mothballed
For anyone who was as confused as I was -
To mothball: to stop using a piece of equipment but keep it in good condition so that it can easily be used again
I've spent over 35 years speaking (and studying) this bizarre language we call English. Yet until seeing your comment, I had no idea "mothball" could be a verb. TIL!
- Wait until you hear about pickling. A number of military aircraft at the “boneyard” At Davis-Monthan AFB are still suitable for service; their engines having been removed and pickled within a special crate beside the aircraft.
  Marine desalination systems are pickled between extended periods of non-use.
  And there’s also the traditional use for pickled.
- Stop it! I’ve had enough “want to feel old?” for one day and it’s barely gone 9.
- Anything in English can be a verb. Fucking "squeegee" can be a verb.
- Honestly I haven't seen it often. I think the first time I saw it was actually in a Crusader Kings 2 or Europa Universalis 4 tutorial video because it was an option you could do to your forts or something to reduce upkeep.
True. And the fact that because of sonic boom it was not allowed to fly supersonic above land. Only when it reached the atlantic supersonic was allowed. So it's practical use was quite limited.
Boom is working on a 'successor' to the Concorde without the loud boom when going above speed of sound.
- That’s specifically a US regulation, but costly as coast to coast across the US would be the only other viable route.
Nonsense, rich people constantly buy expensive things.
- They do but if you saw pictures of the inside you would see it was pretty tight. The super rich have their own jets and the regular rich prefer their pods.

I was staying at a hotel nearby Heathrow that overlooked the runway and got to see a Concord land and take off. Thing was so loud even with sound dampening windows it still shook the place where normally you couldn’t hear any other plane.

I have been on board of one in Le Bourget museum. They are beautiful but very small.

Well There's Your Problem | Episode 78: Supersonic Transport

Supersonic planes were a victim of the end of the Soviet Union, curiously enough. It was a new iteration of The Space Race that just stopped being worth public funding.

That, plus a high profile crash pretty much ended civilian supersonic travel

The channel Mustard on YouTube has some good videos on concord. I think reallifelore had some too

*Concorde - with an e :)
It was a bit of a political tiff at the time what the aircraft should be called.
Initially, the aircraft was named 'Concord' in the UK and 'Concorde' in France, but the UK government later adopted the French spelling, claiming the 'e' stood for ‘Excellence, England, Europe, and Entente Cordiale.’
Source

early 2000s air crashes were so hot. everyone had one, some had two.

only 27 years. That's pretty long, no?

As a side note, Braniff Airlines flew the Concorde on interchange routes from Washington Dulles on to Dallas-Fort Worth (which contributed to the airline’s demise). Here’s an interesting story about the only known gear-down ferry flight, flown by a Braniff crew. Seems like it’s only ever been recorded on Facebook, unfortunately.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1BzgwMKVUu/

MY ABNORMAL OF ALL ABNORMALS PILOTING CONCORDE DFW - IAD -JFK
Thanks to my good friend Shaun English for reminding me of this adventure!
It was May 17th, 1980, and Braniff Concorde Flight 54, operating an Air France Concorde, had just made a scheduled departure of 9:30 from DFW International Airport with a destination of Washington Dulles Airport. There were always many observers for our departures and arrivals as Concorde was so unique to Texas. It wasn’t long after Concorde rotated, then at 35 feet above the runway began the first segment climb, that hushed concerns could be heard throughout the various groups of those who were watching. Something was wrong. Well, it was a Saturday morning, and I was at home in Duncanville, TX, finishing my coffee and “looking forward to the honeydew list” that Lindy had prepared for me. If I hurried, I could catch qualifying for the Formula One, the IndyCar, and the NASCAR races. I was literally saved by the bell from Lindy’s “honeydew list” when the Bell Telephone rang (pardon the pun). I can’t remember which of the kids beat me to the phone, but the one turned to me and said, “It’s Braniff, Daddy!” I answered the phone and Captain Dale States, Vice-President of Flight Operations said, “John.” I was surprised he would be calling me, let alone on a Saturday morning. My curiosity quickly vanished when he said, “54 has had a problem. I need you to meet Jerry (White) and Bill (Dugan) in Operations right away.” In a monotone, l bluntly said, “I’m on the way!” I had no idea what to expect. Obviously, Captain States did not have the time to brief me on the phone. Do I wear my uniform? Do I pack a bag? Once I gathered my wits, I knew that it was prudent to error on the safe side, so now the race was on to get out the door. Once I got into the car, it was about 50 minutes to arrive at our Operations facility. My mind was reeling, “What is going on? What has happened?” I reached Operations and met up with Jerry and Bill. The Lead Maintenance Supervisor appeared and greeted us with a smile, which was the first reassurance that the worst had not occurred. The Lead briefed us that the crew of Flight 54, after takeoff, could not retract the landing gear. After unsuccessful attempts using the abnormal checklist to retract the gear, the crew returned to DFW for an uneventful landing and taxied back to the gate. We were advised that Maintenance had worked on the problem for over 2 hours and discovered that the problem was the nose gear hydraulic actuator, and it could not be repaired. Braniff did not carry a spare, so with no repair, the three of us assumed that Concorde was grounded until a spare nose gear hydraulic actuator could be flown in. About that time, Captain States arrived in Operations. He said he called us because what we were doing required a Supervisory Crew. Jerry, Bill, and I were in the Training Department, all of us Concorde Check Airmen and FAA Concorde Aircrew Program Designees. Then Captain States broke the news that the three of us were going to fly the broken Concorde to JFK with the gear extended. Concorde had never been flown on a gear down ferry flight before, and has never been flown on a gear extended ferry flight since. Well, we glanced at each other, I don’t remember if it was in shock or amazement. We had never heard of a gear down ferry, let alone how are we going to execute this mission. As if Captain States had read our minds, he produced a Braniff Airways Gear Down Ferry Manual, which none of us had ever seen, let alone knew that it even existed. He handed it to Jerry, and as if it was a hot potato, Jerry immediately handed it to Bill, and I guess it was still hot because Bill immediately handed it to me. I think their parting words were, “Let us know what you figure out!” As I recall, I think they went for coffee to calm their nerves! Well, I started turning pages, your typical spaghetti charts with all the performance requirements, weight, fuel, altitude, airspeed and all the other limitations and restrictions you would expect. I had a good handle on the manual when Jerry and Bill returned, so we went through each page as I briefed them. I had planned on a fuel stop in Dulles since the Manual said we were fuel/distance limited to reach JFK. When we got to the fuel burn page, “brilliantly” l said, take a look at this. If we extend the spaghetti lines beyond the graph, we can add enough more fuel to make JFK. Like I said, “BRILLIANT!” So we called in our fuel load, and accepted our gear down ferry release. As soon as we completed our briefing, I hightailed it to Concorde to proceed with my 1 1/2 hour exterior and interior preflight inspection. We were now Braniff Concorde Flight 563F, designating a Ferry Flight. After all the necessary preparations for a flight that had never been attempted before, we were off the gate at 3:30 PM, on our way to JFK. The unfamiliar “call out” just after rotation was, “Positive Rate,” instead of “Positive Rate, Gear Up.” We could tell a huge difference in our initial performance, even with the afterburners. The noise level on the flight deck was significantly louder as well. Our cruising altitude was lower as well as our Mach number. Not far into the flight, red faced, I said, “Hey guys. The extra pounds of fuel that we added, for every pound of fuel we added, we burned that pound of fuel to reach our cruising altitude. We have to stop at Dulles for fuel.” (I told you I was brilliant!) The moral is, don’t second guess your performance spaghetti charts. Our flight to Dulles took 2 hours and 50 minutes. We landed at 7:20 PM ET. It was as if we had driven a Maserati through a school zone! Well, our refueling in IAD was uneventful. (I got it right this time!) We left the gate at 8:30 PM. We were comfortable now that we had the first leg under our belts. It was only a one hour flight for us in route to JFK, so it was a little busier. Once we arrived at the gate, we completed our post flight checklists and duties and then turned Concorde over to the Air France Station Manager to deal with the inoperative nose gear hydraulic actuator. We were gathering up our bags when the galley door opened. It was catering to offload the carts. He ask where we were going, and for the second time today, we had to admit we had no idea. He asked us if we were in any hurry. We told him we guessed not. Then he told us Concorde had been catered for 100 passengers and he was going to just throw everything out, including food, bottles of wine and champagne, everything. He said to us, “knock yourselves out, eat all you can, and take with you all you can carry. I’ll be back after you’ve gone and unload the carts.” We hadn’t eaten, and we were in disbelief. Jerry, Bill, and I took turns playing Flight Attendant, and because Braniff served only the finest cuisine and libations on our old buddy Concorde, we had the feast of our lives. John
- There, now it's on piefed.zip
- I don’t know why I didn’t think of doing that!
- Jesus Christ, no way I'm reading that lol

I clearly remember thinking... No, being absolute certain that I'd fly in a Concorde when I grew up. 🙁

Beautiful plane

Yup, never got to fly on it, but got to see it land and take off a few times. Was beautiful.

Concorde was a failure but Airbus was a success.

Fun fact: I had its commemorative album (LP).

Too old, too expensive.

We need to ban all fossil fuel planes. This one was especially important to stop running

Yes, everyone must hate this marvel of engineering because it burns fossil fuel like every other commercial aircraft in existence because we haven't found a reasonable replacement yet.
- Lol wut. We've had the replacement since before planes existed.
  Saying we don't have a replacement for planes is like saying we don't have a replacement for plastic :facepalm: