The Concorde could cruise at Mach 2. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. As soon as Chuck Yeager crossed the sound barrier in , commercial aviation companies began planning to take passengers past Mach 1.
On November 29, , the governments of France and Great Britain signed a concord agreement to build a supersonic jetliner, hence the name of the plane that resulted: Concorde. At the same time, engineers in the US and the Soviet Union were working on supersonic airliners of their own. The American Boeing never made it past the drawing board, while the Soviets' Tupolev TU made it into service but was quickly retired because of performance and safety problems.
As part of the agreement, the Concorde was built in the UK and France. The Olympus engine's afterburners gave the Concorde its signature smoky takeoffs.
Each engine produced 38, pounds of thrust. The Concorde had features found on no other Western commercial airliner, such as the double delta wing and In normal flight, the nose and visor were raised. The Concorde was operated by a crew of three: two pilots and a flight engineer. In , the Concorde was presented to the public for the first time in Toulouse, France. The first Concorde prototype made its maiden flight in March On October 1, , Concorde made its first supersonic flight.
The sleek supersonic jet captivated the public immediately. More than a dozen airlines from around the world placed orders for the jet. But the Concorde soon encountered opposition. One of the byproducts of supersonic flight is the sonic boom, which can be unpleasant or distressing to those on the ground. As a result, the Concorde was limited to routes over water, with minimal time spent soaring over land. In addition, residents near airports that were home to the Concorde fleet protested the amount of noise generated by the plane's four massive turbojet engines.
As a result, Concorde flights were further curbed. Because of environmental and economic concerns stemming from the oil crisis, most of the Concorde's customers dropped their orders. This left British Airways and Air France as the plane's only operators. In total, 20 Concordes were produced. Six were prototype test planes. Of the 14 production Concordes, seven entered service with Air France and On January 21, , two Concordes — one from each airline — took off simultaneously to mark the plane's first supersonic passenger flight.
Later that year, British Airways started scheduling transatlantic flights between London and New York. The final Concorde departed three years after an Air France Concorde flight crashed into a hotel shortly after take-off from Paris - claiming the lives of people on board and a further four people on the ground in Those savings could make it possible for United to offer both premium and economy seating - although no final decision has been made about cabin layouts, Mr Leskinen said.
The seat plane will be the first supersonic airliner to have zero carbon emissions by running on "pure sustainable aviation fuel", United said. Flight trials are scheduled to begin in , in the hope passengers will be carried on commercial flights in The company has declined to discuss any financial details however an executive said a deposit had been put down.
United chief executive, Scott Kirby, said: "United continues on its trajectory to build a more innovative, sustainable airline and today's advancements in technology are making it more viable for that to include supersonic planes. Meanwhile Boom Supersonic founder and chief executive, Blake Scholl, described the agreement as a "significant step" to "create a more accessible world".
Virgin Galactic revealed designs for a supersonic passenger plane with the ability to fly three times the speed of sound last August. The delta-wing jet has a top speed of 2,mph 3,kmh and could fly to New York in less than two hours - but would only be able to carry between nine and 19 passengers. There was a lot of mental arithmetic and I probably changed my camera's settings 10 times before Concorde arrived.
Capturing the moment. There was no trial and error. When it flew by, I would get one chance to take the picture. And then it was there, banking in the sky beneath me. I was standing on the helicopter's skid and leaning out, pulling against the harness, over thin air and shooting the picture, just as it passed the bridge. I didn't realize the photograph would make that shape it does -- with the cliff face, the bridge and the crowd all kind of framing the aircraft, against a relatively clean background and almost mirroring the shape of the wing.
Everyone loved Concorde, so having that human element in there meant that the picture was elevated a bit more than if it was just empty scenery behind. Brunel's Suspension Bridge also helped -- the engineering triumphs of the 19th and 20th centuries together. After the fly-by, we landed at Filton airfield, where Concorde had also landed. I took other photos of it being towed into its hangar with the pilot waving from the window. Then I started to edit my images to send them back to the office.
I remember people looking over my shoulder when I brought the bridge picture up on my laptop. I really didn't know what I had, right then. I didn't know that it was a special picture and people would really love it. I was just thinking, "job done. Then people started crowding behind me. Other photographers said: "Well, what's the point in us sending anything, because that's the one that everyone's going to use.
I had no idea at the time that that would turn out to be true. It did run in all the newspapers -- of course they used other shots too -- but that was certainly the main one. Some produced it as a collector's poster. I got my mum to collect the tokens needed to send off for them. Some of the newspapers sent me bottles of champagne. I'd never known anything like it. Enduring image. The image certainly made an impression with aviation fans. I've been contacted by a few groups asking if I can help get Concorde flying again.
Ironically, I thought it would be better for my photo if it didn't ever take off again, as that would no longer be the last flight. But it is an incredible machine. I didn't ever get the chance to fly on it and, in fact, I've never actually been on it. I've only seen it from the outside, beneath me. That was the first and the last time that I saw it flying. In the 15 years since , I've taken other memorable pictures, but you're always remembered for your greatest hits and I guess that will always be -- in inverted commas -- one of my "greatest hits.
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