Future Past

Gone but not forgotten, the original speed machine

It was supposed to be the first example of the aircraft of the future, jetting across the world at twice the speed of sound, straddling 41 kilometres every minute, cutting the effective size of the world in half. Fifty years ago, on March 2 1969, the first Concorde lifted into the skies above the then-Sud Aviation headquarters in Toulouse. It wouldn’t enter into service for another seven years, and would retire just 27 years after that, but for a generation — and still today — Concorde’s legacy is woven throughout aviation.