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.

Trivia

• Due to the heat generated by the compression of the air as Concorde traveled supersonically, the fuselage would extend by as much as thirty centimetres, the most obvious manifestation of this being a gap that would open up on the flight deck between the flight engineer's console and the bulkhead. On all the Concordes that had a supersonic flight before retirement, the flight engineer placed their hat in the gap before it cooled, where it remains to this day. However in the case of the Seattle museum's Concorde, the protruding cap was cut off by a thief in an apparent attempt to steal it, leaving a part behind. An amnesty lead to the severed cap being returned, the museum has been examining options to reattach it in some way.
• Held an Imperial Mark for British Airways (which expired when the aircraft was decommissioned).