Future Past

But the projects that would become Concorde date back further than fifty years. As the post-war era shaped the supersonic military jets of the future, Britain’s aviation research house, the Royal Aircraft Establishment, began studying how to introduce this technology into passenger service in the 1950s. The RAE’s reports on the new slender-delta wing planform were to prove revolutionary for Concorde and for other aviation projects.

As was usual at the time, the genesis of this aircraft was driven by government, with the Supersonic Transport Aircraft Committee deciding that a passenger aircraft travelling faster than the speed of sound was a jolly good idea. Seeking industry partners for development, the STAC found them in what was then the Bristol Aeroplane Company and Hawker Siddeley.

Bristol would combine with English Electric, Vickers-Armstrongs and later Hunting Aircraft to create the British Aircraft Corporation, while BAC itself would later merge with Hawker Siddeley and Scottish Aviation to create British Aerospace, the forerunner of BAe and, with Marconi, today’s BAE Systems.

The threats of this history of consolidation in the aircraft industry, and the politics that go with it, are a crucial part of the Concorde story on both sides of the English Channel.

Across La Manche, the French government had also directed its own industry, in the shape of Sud Aviation, Nord Aviation and Dassault Aviation, to develop supersonic transports.

Sharing of innovative research and reports from the UK Supersonic Transport Aircraft Committee, as part of a wider push among British politics and industry to move toward the European Common Market, led the Sud Aviation team to develop a perhaps understandably similar concept in delta-winged shape — but not size and market — to Bristol’s.

Building on the positive reception to the rear-engined Caravelle shortrange jet, Sud called its concept the Super-Caravelle.

Sud and Nord Aviation would merge in 1970 to create SNIAS, the société nationale industrielle aérospatiale, renamed Aérospatiale the same year. Aérospatiale would later merge with Matra and then Spain’s CASA and Germany’s DASA to create EADS, the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company, renamed in 2017 to Airbus to reflect the primacy of its commercial arm.

‘A passenger aircraft travelling faster than the speed of sound was (seen as) a jolly good idea. ’

Back in the early 1960s, however, the British and French governments hammered out a treaty to finance the development of the airliner — a level of government involvement that would be largely unthinkable in Europe today in the context of state aid regulations.

But politics does not always make for efficient production. Both Sud and BAC housed final assembly lines, at Toulouse and Filton near Bristol respectively, with odd-numbered Concordes built in France and even ones in the UK, but parts coming from across Sud, BAC and their subsuppliers in a way that might seem very familiar to the trans-European (and indeed global) Airbus supply chain of today.

A question of design: one Concorde or two?

During the early development of supersonic aircraft in Europe, two designs dominated thinking, French pilot and aviation journalist Michel Polacco, author of the book Concorde, tells Australian Aviation.

“BAC wanted to make an aircraft able to cross the Atlantic Ocean, and the French company Sud Aviation wanted to make an airplane able to fly in Europe and from Europe to Africa,” Polacco explains, noting that Sud “were not on the way to making the long-range aircraft as the English were. ” (Australian Australian interviewed Michel Polacco in both English and French, and some of his responses have been translated into English by the author of this article. ) Essentially, BAC wanted an aircraft with a range of substantially more than the 2,000 miles that would allow Sud to serve French interests in the Levant and the Maghreb. Crucially to the Sud Aviation proposals that eventually became the Super-Caravelle programme, Polacco highlights, aircraft at the time were not prohibited from flying at supersonic speeds over populated areas as they are today.

Sud’s focus on Europe and Africa was unsurprising. French late colonial interests around the Mediterranean and northern Africa and growing integration with neighbouring European economies meant that France’s geopolitical demand was closer than Britain’s. BAC’s focus on the transatlantic market stemmed from Britain’s ‘special relationship’ with the United States of America, as well as its Commonwealth interests to the east in South Asia and beyond.

The additional complexities of adding range to an aircraft already pushing the boundaries of aeronautical engineering were not lost on Sud either, but the longrange and medium-range transports gradually coalesced, with the aid of the two governments — politics, again — into a single aircraft with slightly different configurations and specifications to serve the two markets, and which would eventually become one single aircraft.

Construction began in France and the UK on Concordes 001 and 002 in 1965, and both took flight four years later: 001 from Toulouse on 2 March 1969 and 002 from Filton outside Bristol on 9 April. Delivery would not take place until 1976, however, with service beginning on the London- Bahrain and Paris-Dakar-Rio de Janeiro routes, thanks to politics.

Government posturing from the United States, which did not offer a supersonic competitor, and local campaigns about environmental and noise impact at airports, meant that US service did not begin until Washington Dulles flights were inaugurated in 1976. These were not a major success, and Air France withdrew its Washington Concorde flight in 1982, while British Airways continued to operate until 1994.

A local ban on Concorde at New York’s John F Kennedy International Airport was overturned in late 1977 and the operation of Concorde on its signature routes, from Paris or London to New York, began on 22 November.

The world’s major airlines ordered, then cancelled

Airlines from five continents ordered Concorde, though only two would take delivery. Air France, British Airways’ longhaul predecessor BOAC, and Pan Am ordered six aircraft each in June 1963, followed later that year by American Airlines, Continental Airlines, Middle East Airlines and Trans World Airlines.

Orders from Air Canada, Air India, Braniff International Airways, CAAC of China, Eastern Airlines, Iran Air, Japan Airlines, Lufthansa, Middle East Airlines, Olympic Airways, Panair do Brasil, Sabena, Singapore Airlines and United Airlines followed, at a time when fuel prices were not the concern that they would later become.

“All those companies placed orders for Concorde,” Polacco explains. “But at the end, in 1973, it was [becoming clear] that petrol was very expensive after the first oil crisis, and overflying of inhabited areas was prohibited.

Concorde was not able to make all the flights except coastal Europe to the coastal United States. It was not possible to make Frankfurt-New York or Rome-New York or that sort of route. So it was possible to be used only by countries just on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean from New York. ” Cancellations rolled in through 1973, heightened by the crash at the Paris Air Show that year of the supersonic “Concordski”, Tupolev’s Tu-144. Eventually, “all the aircraft being built were given to [Air France and British Airways]: 14 aircraft, seven for each one, and they did not pay for the aircraft. The began to pay when they ordered, but afterwards, when all the airlines in the world cancelled their orders, the governments of France and Great Britain decided to give the aircraft for a token sum to the companies on the proviso and they had only to put them in flight and use them, but it was not possible to sell them. ” Only two airlines other than Air France and British Airways can be said to have operated Concorde, and even then with a series of asterisks and footnotes.

‘All the aircraft being built were given to (Air France and British Airways) … for a token sum. ’ MICHEL POLACCO

In 1977, British Airways and Singapore Airlines started a one-stop service between London Heathrow and Singapore’s then-hub, Paya Lebar on a wet lease plus cabin crew basis.

The flights took nine hours with a single one-hour stop in Bahrain. That might not seem much shorter than today’s 13-hour nonstops, but at the time the early Boeing 747 aircraft used on the route did not have the range of today’s widebodies, and were operated with at least one stop via a combination of Bahrain, Kuala Lumpur, Muscat and Mumbai adding at least three hours to that total.

(Imagine a Qantas supersonic Kangaroo Route from Sydney to London with a stop in Singapore or Kuala Lumpur, another at a Gulf hub, and then on to London, saving more than eight hours on the three-hop route. ) Political issues and noise sensitivities forced the suspension of the route in 1977 and eventually, after a very brief resumption in 1979, its cancellation in 1980. Singapore Airlines did, however, paint its livery on the port side of Concorde G-BOAD, the only airline other than the two primary operators to have done so.

In 1979, meanwhile, US carrier Braniff International Airways used its own pilots and cabin crew to operate Concorde subsonically between Dallas/Fort Worth and Washington’s Dulles. The Air France and British Airways aircraft were temporarily re-registered with adhesive decals and US-type N-numbers for the domestic service, and service continued on to Paris and London. The operation was not a success, given that Concorde was limited to half its speed and thus subsonic jet aircraft took only a few minutes longer.

And then there were two: Air France and BA

“When they designed Concorde, it was an aircraft made for transporting 140 passengers in one class and even 100 passengers in economy class and 20 passengers in first class. But the performance of the aircraft showed it was not possible because of the load: Concorde consumed a lot of fuel and it was not possible to have more than 10 tonnes of payload,” Polacco explains.

“So they decided to make only 100 seats on the aircraft, in only one class, and they called it Concorde class, between economy and first, without as much room for each passenger but with very good service on board: very good meals, wines, and staff to take care of passengers as in first class. ” In a way, Concorde could be said to have preceded business class in the late 1970s, although less comfortably, since the size of the fuselage dictated how the aircraft was and could be used. In modern terms, Concorde’s passenger dimensions are very close to regional jets: an interior fuselage width of 2. 62m is actually closer to a Bombardier CRJ’s 2. 57m than an Embraer E-Jet’s 2. 74m. And both those regional aircraft, when outfitted with a business class or US domestic first class cabin, offer a 1-2 seating configuration instead of Concorde’s 2-2.

Concorde by the numbers

Length: 62.1m
Wingspan: 25.5m
Height: 11.3m
Fuselage width: 2.9m
Fuel capacity: 119,500
litres
Load: 100 passengers,
2.5t cargo
Range: 3,600nm
Crew: 2 pilots
1 flight engineer
Engines: 4 Rolls-Royce/
SNECMA Olympus 593,
each producing 38,000 lb of
thrust with reheat
Maximum operating
altitude: 60,000ft
Maximum takeoff
weight: 408,000lb
(400,000lb limit for US takeoffs
owing to environmental
regulations)
Maximum landing
weight: 245,000lb
Takeoff speed: 217kts
Nose Down speed: 270kts
Nose 5° or Visor down/
operating speed: 325kts
Cruising speed: Mach 2,
1,877kts
Data: British Airways, FAA Type
Certificate Data Sheet No. A45EU

Both British Airways and Air France opted for Concorde seats that today feel like somewhere between extra-legroom economy class and premium economy: 38 inches of seat pitch, and a seat width of just under 18”.

Of course, Concorde was designed for flights maxing out at around four hours, as Polacco explains. “When you flew on Concorde, after takeoff you took an apéritif, then you started lunch or dinner, and after the end of lunch or dinner you had something to drink and it was time to descend and land. It was not the same product as the aircraft of today where you can stay 19 hours on board. ” An Air France menu from 1977 offers Iranian caviar, a supreme of chicken Jeannette, a paupiette of sole archiduc, steamed mushrooms in butter, pilau rice, a cherry gateau, and fruit, accompanied by a 1971 Cuvée Dom Ruinart Champagne, a 1973 Meursault, 1970 Pauillac, and a 1970 Burgundy.

Ten years later in 1987, Air France was offering caviar (of unspecified provenance after the Iranian revolution), a fresh salad, Lobster Thermidor, pilau rice, spinach in butter, a chestnut and whisky charlotte, and fresh fruit. 1979 Mumm Cuvée René Lalou Champagne preceded a 1983 Meursault, 1979 Sauternes, 1980 Pauillac and 1982 Burgundy.

While culinary tastes have evolved almost as quickly as aeronautical engineering in the meantime, the wine lists of today’s Air France first class flights are, as a general rule, similarly opulent.

The onboard service was dictated by the size of the 40- and 60-person cabins, as well as by the logistics of tray tables in an 18-inch seat, not markedly larger than today’s Airbus A380 economy seats. It resembled nothing quite so much as what would be an above average business class meal today, though with more individually delivered courses and, of course, the all-important Concorde brand everywhere.

Concorde and a lesson in international cooperation

Concorde is perhaps best known for allowing a few hundred people to zip eastbound across the Atlantic and land before they left, thanks to the five-hour time difference and an aircraft that punched through the sound barrier.

But more than a decade and a half after its retirement, history is starting to show that its most important contributions have been technological, industrial and organisational.

“French people and English people on the programme of Concorde learned to work together with organisation that was not very good, because they were two assembly lines of the aircraft and so it was very expensive to build the aircraft in both countries, in Toulouse and in Filton,” explains Polacco. “They learned to work together with their measures, which were not the same. In France we measured with the metric system, and the English [used the Imperial] system with feet and inches.

During 10 or 12 years they learned to work together. ” Across the 10 years of development, the research and development collaboration in particular has netted many benefits to aviation. “They discovered a lot of capacities to build aircraft with titanium, to make very good aerodynamics, to use very modern systems of flight control,” Polacco says. Indeed, Concorde was the first aircraft to feature a fully electrically controlled analogue fly-bywire system. “After came the Airbus and the military aircraft like the General Dynamics F-16 or the French Dassault Mirage 2000, but before nobody was able to make an aircraft with electric controls. Concorde could do it and was successful. ” “If Concorde was a failure because it didn’t sell a lot of aircraft, all the work made together permitted French and English industry to launch the Airbus programme with German industry, because it was necessary to have a very strong base and a lot of money to invest to launch that sort of programme,” Polacco summarises.

Even today, “English industry specialised in building the wings, and now they still build all the wings of all the models of Airbus. The Germans bring programme management capacities, the technologies were principally from France, and the engines from the United States and Great Britain. Airbus is a success, but a success because French people and British people and engineers from the two countries learned to work together and discovered a lot. ” Concorde as a project itself may have been an economic loss, a prestige project, a white elephant. But as with the Airbus A380 (see elsewhere this issue) the aircraft proved to be more than just the sum of its groundbreaking, envelope-pushing parts.

Concorde was such a halo product that both British Airways and Air France still use the brand today in various ways. Concorde developed working between European aviation companies that is simply standard practice now. Indeed, Airbus is the combined international successor of both BAC and Sud Aviation.

Beyond the champagne and caviar, beyond the international intrigue, beyond the pinnacle of aeronautical achievement, Concorde’s success was in redefining the way aircraft needed to be — even could be — designed, tested, produced and assembled across borders and with international cooperation.

In Concorde, the “E stands for Excellence, for England, for Europe and for the Entente Cordiale,” said the British aviation minister Tony Benn after deciding to adopt the French Concorde and not English Concord for the aircraft’s name. In an international context, where the cooperation and partnership across borders and nationstates forged by Concorde is under political threat, the achievements of this outstanding airliner shine in stark contrast as an example of how this kind of cooperation can create new wonders of the world.

‘The work … together permitted French and English industry to launch the Airbus programme. ’ MICHEL POLACCO

Where are they now?

Six pre-production Concordes, and 12 of the 14 commerciallyoperated aircraft, are preserved in France, the UK, Germany, the United States, and Barbados.

Test Aircraft

001 Musée de l’air et de l’espace, Le Bourget, France
002 Fleet Air Arm Museum, Yeovilton, UK
101 Imperial War Museum, Duxford, UK
102 Musée Delta, Athis-Mons (Orly Airport), France
201 Aeroscopia Museum, Toulouse, France
202 Brooklands Museum, Weybridge, UK

Production Aircraft

203 Destroyed in Gonesse crash, 2000
204 Manchester Airport, UK
205 Steven F Udvar-Hazy Center, National Air and
Space Museum, Virginia (Dulles Airport), USA
206 National Museum of Flight, East Fortune, UK
207 Technik Museum Sinsheim, Germany
208 British Airways, Heathrow, UK
209 Airbus, Toulouse, France
210 Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, New York, USA
211 Broken up for spares, 1980s-1990s
212 Grantley Adams Airport, Barbados
213 Musée de l’air et de l’espace, Le Bourget, France
214 Museum of Flight, Washington, USA
215 Charles de Gaulle Airport, Paris, France
216 Aerospace Bristol, UK