Concorde

The Aérospatiale-BAC Concorde supersonic transport (SST) was one of only two models of supersonic passenger airliners to have seen commercial service. Concorde had a cruise speed of Mach 2.04 and a cruise altitude of 60,000 feet (17,700 metres) with a delta wing configuration and an evolution of the reheat-equipped engines originally developed for the Avro Vulcan strategic bomber. It was the first civil airliner to be equipped with an analogue fly-by-wire flight control system. Commercial flights, operated by British Airways and Air France, began on January 21 1976 and ended on October 24 2003, with the last "retirement" flight on November 26 that year.

Aircraft histories

Only 20 Concordes were built, six for development and 14 for commercial service.

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These were:

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• two prototypes
• two pre-production aircraft
• 16 production aircraft
• The first two of these did not enter commercial service
• Of the 14 which flew commercially, 12 were still in service in April 2003

All but two of these aircraft - a remarkably high percentage for any commercial fleet - are preserved. The two which are not are F-BVFD (cn 211), which was withdrawn from service in the 1980s and scrapped in 1994; and F-BTSC (cn 203), which crashed in Paris.

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See Concorde aircraft histories for further details.

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