Introduction
Trubojet powered passenger airplane with cruising speed of approx. 2179 KMPH. This supersonic aircraft used to carry 92 to 128 passengers.
Concorde started its service in 1976. Till now there are only two supersonic airplanes used for commercial flights the another one is Tupolev Tu-144 manufactured by Voronezh Aircraft Production Association situated in Voronezh, Russia.
There were only two Airline companies who were able to operate Concorde and gain profit. They were British Airlines and Air France.
Research & Development
It Originated in 1950 when the director of Royal Aircraft Establishment shown interest in 1950s. The first report on supersonic transport was submitted in April 1955. It was believed, that the short wing span is the cause for gaining supersonic speed. But, this idea failed as short wing span will have the following issues.
- Requires long runway to take off.
- Greater engine power to take off on short runways, this will consume the great amount of fuel.
- Landing speed was also increased with small wing span.
Dietrich Küchemann and Johanna Weber introduced the new wing design known as "slender delta". The fact was the delta wings were able to produce the strong vortices on the upper side of the wing with the high angle of attack. The pressure will be lowered by the vortex and this will increase the lift. This concept changes whole design on the wings.
In November 1956, the committee decided to create a test plane with the delta wing concept to understand the wing design further.
A treaty between the British and French government had been signed for the construction of this supersonic airliner. There is a french word "Concorde" which means union, agreement. It was named as Concord by Harold Macmillan and later on its spellings were changes to "Concorde" by British government.
Testing
In February 1965 the construction of two prototypes started which were named as 001 and 002. 001 started building at Aerospatiale at Toulouse and 002 at Filton. 2 March 1969 was the day the 001 made its first test flight from Toulouse. It's test pilot was Andre Turcat. 002 made its first flight on April 9, 1969 from Filton its test pilot was Brian Trubshaw.
Concorde attained the highest altitude on 68,000 ft in 1973.
Life
The Concorde had a life span on approx. 27 years. It started the service in 1976 and retired on April 10, 2003.
After the crash on July 25, 2000 people started avoiding the travel on Concorde, due to this decline in the passengers, British Airways announced to retirement of Concorde the same year.
On May 30, 2003 Concorde of Air France made the last landing at New York city from Paris. The last flight of Concorde was to Toulouse on June 27, 2003.
The Concorde's cockpit and other technologies were also outdated one in 2003.
Accidents
The most fatal Concorde accident took place on July 25, 2000 when Air France flight 4590 crashed in Gonesse. The flight was from Paris to John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York. There were 100 Passengers and 9 crew members on board.
All passengers and crew members were killed in this crash along with the 4 people on ground. This was the one and only fatal accident of Concorde.
After investigation the main cause of this crash came into light and it was due to a small metallic piece fell on the runway from the last flight that took off from the same runway. This metallic piece punctured the tyre of the Concorde. The tire parts of the Concorde made a leakage in the fuel tank and also caused fire in the engines.
At this time the aircraft had attained that much speed that breaking was not possible. It had to take off, which resulted in crash.
