The Concorde

When I started this blog…I had no idea that I would concentrate on single songs. I was going to cover pop culture and I did at the beginning more. I would like to get one in every now and then.

Today… everything seems to be bigger, stronger, and faster. That isn’t true though with a certain passenger airplane. A flight from New York to London now will take around 7 hours and 35 minutes to 8 hours and 10 minutes long. How fast would that flight be in the 1970s on the Concorde? That would take you a cozy three-and-a-half hours. The fastest flight was two hours and fifty-two minutes. It would travel at 1,354 mph. It was more than twice the speed of sound.

I’m not a huge airplane guy but this aircraft fascinated me and I always wanted to ride on one. The nose cone would come down so the pilots could see the runway…it looked like something from a Scifi movie. It would reach Mach 2 between London and New York. I would see pictures of it as a kid or on the news and I thought it was the coolest plane I’d seen. I probably still do. I do remember complaints about the sonic boom.

In November 1962, the British and French governments signed a treaty to jointly develop the Concorde. The Concorde prototype made its maiden flight on March 2, 1969. After some more prototypes, they tested and made modifications, including addressing issues with noise, fuel efficiency, and environmental impact. received its airworthiness certificate in 1975, with the first commercial flights beginning on January 21, 1976, by British Airways and Air France.

There was a plan for a Concorde-type supersonic plane in the US called a Boeing 2707. It would have gone 3 times the speed of sound and held 277 passengers compared to the 100 passengers the Concorde held. It was too expensive to build and was called “the most expensive aircraft never built.” Here is a picture of a 1966 mock-up of the 2707.

Boeing 2707
Boeing 2707

In 1977, it cost £431 to fly one way onboard Concorde between London and Washington. Adjusted for inflation, that’s about £2,200 ($2,800) in today’s money. However, fare prices gradually went up, and by 1996, a roundtrip across the Atlantic would generally be priced at around $12,500 in today’s money. So it was very expensive. The meals and service were great but it was cramped inside compared to other airplanes at the time. It was also noisy…

All together… two prototypes, two pre-production aircraft, two development aircraft, and 14 production aircraft for commercial service. All of them except the two pre-production builds are preserved in museums.

This all leads us to why the Concorde is in museums now and not in the sky. The price, noise, and it was so expensive to operate. Every hour in the sky had to have 22 hours of maintenance. Also on July 25, 2000, the Concorde crashed. It was shortly after takeoff and 109 people died onboard plus 4 on the ground. That was its only crash. They did go on until 2003 but officially retired the plane that year.

A New York Times writer wrote this about the food served. “What followed the coffee was a breakfast of fresh papaya, guava, pineapple, strawberries and mangoes, croissants and brioche that might have come from a Paris bakery, a pretty good approximation of eggs benedict and a soufflé Gruyère, all washed down with Piper‐Heidsieck Cuvée Diplomatique. The china, of course, was Limoges.”

This video shows the take-off from inside the plane by a passenger.

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

48 thoughts on “The Concorde”

    1. You know…it does look like it! They had the concorde in the 60s….it was well known as being tested…I think…so that could have been it.

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  2. It was a cool looking plane if nothing else. I didn’t know there were that many of them or that they kept flying into the 2000s. Seemingly it had potential for making trips to East Asia or Australia from here much more reasonable, but maybe they didn’t have fuel capacity for those types of distances.
    Have you ever seen one?

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    1. They had the fuel capcity for 4,143 miles… they only held 100 people…that is a big reason as well…you had to charge so much.
      No I never did…but always wanted to.

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      1. I believe one came to Toronto occasionally – not for regular flights but air shows, I suppose- but never saw one. I’d like to see one in a museum especially if you could go in & see how tight it was inside.

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      2. Yes it did…I think I read that it did sometimes go to Canada.
        I would love to see that as well. I loved the nose cone…

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  3. The Concorde was an amazing story – just not accessible to most of us, other than as a story. You can claim a PowerPop connection, since the long video shows a brief flash of Sting at 10:30 (and ends with a really long commercial).

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    1. You are right! I never noticed him.
      I look back on how I started…I blogged around bands, commercials, movies, toys, books, or events but never just songs until after almost 60 posts…then a while after that before I started just songs everyday.

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      2. The sonic boom also…it only held 100 people…that didn’t help on the prices…but it had a nice run… 1976-2003

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      2. Yea they used special material so the outside wouldn’t melt because of all of the friction from going so fast.

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  8. As a kid I was like most every boy, making plastic models of Monogram and Airfix airplanes. Even as a stoopid sticky-fingered (accidentally) glue sniffing kid the unintentional history lessons I learned about aircraft development during WW2 were amazing. At the start in 1939, ssome air forces till had propeller driven biplanes mostly made out of flapping fabric fuselages, with piano-style wires hopefully holding the flapping wings together. Fast-forward 6 bloody years later to 1945 when jet aircraft were whizzing around at 3 times the speed of the old biplanes was simply phenomenal. But less than 20 years later to be able to put the twice doubly fast Concorde together, with all the crazy newfangled Tech requirements must have been such a steep learning curve. Was the Concorde a failure or flag waving halo project? A failure in terms of cost and being a blind alley up till now but- Wow- It was and is such a beautiful freak.

    Sorry, rambling on all nostalic-like. Great change-up Max.

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    1. That was totally intersting obbverse. The progress is astonishing in such a short time. I love hearing history so never stop…I love it.
      It is…and an active life between 1976-2003 isn’t too bad but what gets me…where is the newer one? When you only hold 100…that kept the price up.
      But it was a failure in a way…it should have spurred more progress.

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      1. Well I guess progress flew off on another tangent. At the time the Concorde was the right call, and there’s always an elite riche niche market. When we go from here to Scotland and travelling time is 30+ hours I wonder if I’d have tried to save up for a Mach 2 flight? But unless my Monster Mega Millionaires Lucky Power Ball Lottery numbers come up its’ back in cattle class and the cheap seats when we go again.

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      2. Yep! That is the same as I am….I’ve never went first class in my life. You would think they could cut the cost now but probably not.

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      2. I was thinking about you when I wrote it…I thought of all my readers…Jim or John could have rode on it since you guys did fly a lot.

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  10. I remember quite well when that bird was unveiled. On the cost, I’ve booked a flight from Toronto to Calgary (less than half a coast to coast flight) for July, Preferred Economy they call it, basically not a sardine seat, cost me more than that ($2,800)! Air flight in Canada has become prohibitively expensive.

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    1. WOW Randy…that price is beyond crazy! Bailey went from Nashville to London for $800 last year. I’ve read where a lot of things are getting very expensive there.

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  11. I always wanted to fly aboard the Concorde also. I read that American Airlines and Boom Supersonic announced an agreement to purchase up to 20 Overture aircraft.
    Overture is expected to carry passengers at twice the speed of today’s fastest commercial aircraft. Perhaps that option will open up another opportunity for Buck Chuckster in the 21st Century! I feel the need, the need for speed!

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    1. Thank you for reading! I hear you…you would think in this tech society that a supersonic jet would be normal now.
      Buck Chuckster in the 21st Century! That is good!

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  12. The Concorde was a quite stunning-looking airplane. Plus, the world wouldn’t have had Phil Collins perform at both Live Aid concerts in London and in Philadelphia, had it not been for the supersonic jet! 🙂

    Based on your post and other accounts I’ve read, unfortunately, the Concorde just wasn’t viable. As such, it’s surprising to me that it stayed as long in service as it did. I imagine that crash in July 2000 was the final nail in the coffin.

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    1. Yea I agree but when you think about it Christian…one crash in in 27 years is probably better than others. BUT…the cost did it in…if they could have carried more than 100…they could have brought the price down.
      I guess my goal in this post was…with technology like it is now…where is the second Concorde?

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      1. That’s a good point, Max. With technological advances, you’d think they could build bigger supersonic passenger airplanes that also would be more economical to operate. I have to believe fuel efficiency and environmental concerns are key factors.

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      3. Also Christian…it was nice to write something about any thing but music…although you know I love music…it’s nice to cross lanes sometimes.

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  13. I remember being glued to the TV as the big crash in Paris happened. Was fourteen or so. It’s a good example of the idea that not all technology is ‘good’, if you know what I mean. You can travel across the Atlantic at supersonic speeds, but other factors made it not viable. Still, it’s an iconic plane. Even just the silhouette and you know what it is…

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    1. Yea that was awful…it picked up some debris from the runway. I’m very surprised we don’t have Concord 2 by now…that carries more passengers.

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  16. We lived with sonic booms during the Cold War. I guess supersonic flight over urban areas was only okay for the military. But I wouldn’t have wanted booms on a daily basis. Would we have gotten used to them? Probably not, since they come without warning. But maybe on a schedule it would be different.

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