Concorde: Gone but never forgotten

A dream that started as a discussion between a group of French and Britons, and ended next to a golf course near Bristol almost 35 years later, Concorde was never described as boring in her lifetime.


And rightly so, for she was, and still is, revolutionary. The only passenger aircraft – unless you count the space shuttle - to break the sound barrier, the only one that could make the seven hour journey across the Atlantic a three hour hop across the pond, the first passenger aircraft that truly caused “the world to shrink”.

There are many such quotes that have been used to try and describe the essence of Concorde, and she was marketed well enough:

“To put the matter quite simply, supersonic travel is better travel. It will cost more, but for those passengers whose time means money, it will be better value. Nor does one need to apologise for the fact that, at first, supersonic service will be an elitist form of travel. Middle-aged people today have seen the subsonic airliner develop from a transport vehicle for the privileged few into an essential component of the mass-market package-tour holiday.”


The airline industry, however, has never been one for sympathy, or spending money for the sake of it. And so only British Airways and Air France, out of the 15 airline companies that placed orders or options for the aircraft, were the ones to put her into commercial use. If you lived anywhere along the M4 corridor after 1977, you knew about it, as your day would tend to be interrupted twice as the unmistakeable white dart grumbled her way across the sky above you. The noise factor, despite being one of the more appealing aspects of the aircraft in the eyes of many young boys, was one that stopped many companies following up their interest in the aircraft, and stopped many airports allowing Concorde onto their runways.

Another was the fuel consumption levels. Nowadays, in our world of “carbon offsetting” and the Toyota Prius, the 17 miles to the gallon per person would be looked at with disgust, and it also meant Concorde simply couldn’t last the distance between Europe and, say, Australia or Japan, as the slower Boeing 747 could.

So Concorde was destined to life as a showpiece, a novelty for the two airlines that were privileged and dedicated enough to own her. Being a “she”, Concorde was expensive to maintain as well – British Airways themselves claim they spent over £1bn keeping their fleet in action, whilst Airbus maintained that they could not, and would not, assist in her maintenance beyond 2003.

And then the unthinkable happened. On the 25th July 2000, one of Air France’s fleet suffered a ruptured fuel tank on takeoff at Paris Charles de Gaulle and crashed into a nearby hotel, killing all 109 people on board and 4 on the ground. The fleet was grounded; people worldwide wondered whether we’d seen the last of the delta-winged bird. However, the cause was discovered, fuel tank linings installed, and she flew again – but not for long.

Most of Concorde’s passengers by this time were businessmen – the ability to fly out of Europe, attend a meeting in the States and be back home before midnight was much appreciated, even at £6,000 per return flight. It has been said that much of Concorde’s regular clientele died in New York on September 11th 2001.

It’s not certain which of the two was truly the beginning of the end for Concorde, but when it was announced that she was to be retired, bookings for flights escalated and her popularity with the public and the media increased at a surprising rate. The television coverage surrounding the final flights of British airways’ aircraft have certainly never been seen for any other aircraft type, and the fleet performed a farewell tour of UK airports.

Now, all the Concorde aircraft have their own resting places around the world. One can be found sheltering from the sun in Barbados, one alongside the USS Intrepid in New York, one at East Fortune in Scotland, one remains at Heathrow and one – the final Concorde ever to be made and ever to fly, landed at its birthplace, Bristol Filton airfield at 12:45 on 26th November 2003. And that was that. Gone forever.

But not quite. Because, to an unsuspecting 7 year-old boy perched at the end of the runway at Cardiff Airport, Concorde was not just a passenger aircraft that could fly a bit faster and cost a bit more to go on than the others. It was, at that particular moment, noise, heat and flame as her four Rolls Royce Olympus engines fired up and sent her out towards the Bay of Biscay with 38,000lbs of thrust helping her to what would eventually be Mach 2.04 – just over twice the speed of sound.
   Those specifics, for a passenger aircraft, have never been bettered. Can it really be argued that we’re seeing technological advances?  Whilst Airbus’ “Whalejet” is a phenomenal piece of engineering, it will never generate the same passion and enthusiasm as Concorde did.  By its very design, the Airbus A380 is flying for the masses, whereas the whole idea of Concorde was that she was a privilege to see fly, let alone be inside when she did so.  Perhaps Concorde could have been that flying for the masses, but perhaps she was too much of a good thing.



I still want to be a Concorde pilot when I grow up though.