The project started off on the wrong foot. As the result of a political obligation (said treaty), both sides were compelled to proceed despite hindrances and setbacks. Hindrances like the gargantuan cost of each aircraft – which cost French and British taxpayers billions of dollars, between research, testing and manufacturing.
And despite its record-setting performance (2 hours, 52 minutes, 59 seconds between New York and London, the fastest of all time), it simply wasn’t terribly well liked. It was a source of nationalist pride for the English and French, but for many others, it was considered a bit obnoxious. A toy of the rich. A luxury of the jet setter.
And extremely loud. It was supersonic after all, and those sonic booms were never appreciated by anyone within earshot – noise from the jet during takeoff exceeded 110 decibels (about what you’d hear at the front row of a rock concert), and was described as “intolerable” in archival reports.
It also was not exactly eco-friendly, using three times the fuel of a standard transatlantic passenger plane, and dumping an inordinate amount of exhaust into the sky.
So it shouldn’t have come as too much of a surprise that only 14 Concorde were sold, compared to an anticipated 200. Think of it as sort of the Laserdisc of aircraft.
But as much as it was ultimately a bust – retired in 2003 after the project was embroiled in a legal conflagration surrounding a terrible runway crash – the craft was still a spectacular achievement in many senses. When the first routes began – a quarter of a century ago today – between London and Bahrain and Paris and Rio, they were the first flights of their kind. The flights were loud, polluting and expensive, yes – but they were fast as hell, and for the first time in history, supersonic travel was available to anyone with the scratch for a ticket. Not exactly a democratic moment, but still – it was out there, and it’ll always be history. And for that, we recognise you, brilliant, booming failure. Happy birthday, Concorde.
Photo by teclasorg
Nick Partridge
Saturday, January 22, 2011 at 10:34 AM25 years ago? WTF more like 35 for service and 42 flying. Wiki it.
Des
Saturday, January 22, 2011 at 12:50 PMYeah, it’s amazing that the writer makes a mistake on something so easy to check.
Geil
Sunday, January 30, 2011 at 11:02 PMSo what’s the point, Sam?
I wonder if people realize that 99% of the Post here in Gizmodo about Concorde is either bashing it or is negative or “haha concorde failed, good for it!”
How about some more constructive explanation?
We don’t really need a biased view over Concorde, one can always go to Wikipedia or a Library to know more about it.
Let me ask one fundamental -read: FUNDAMENTAL- question:
How in the heaven’s sake, is the final crash accident, a Concorde’s fault?
GET THE FACTS right: A plane that took off BEFORE that concorde left a particle of metal on the runway, which it got flicked up by the concorde’s Wheels and flung through the Fuel compartment of the Concorde.
How in -whatever your deity/god/religion- ‘s name, is that Concorde’s fault and mistake and demise?
Oh, so if a boat sunk because there was a hurricane, that’s the boat’s fault?
What kind of outlandish logic is this?
Failure? know better before calling Concorde a failure. A technological marvel and a failure, is totally different story.
At least call it “financial failure” if you so desire to chop down on Concordes.
I don’t see the point of all the anti-concorde nagging in Gizmodo.
It’s a good plane, it’s a good scientific product, nothing more nothing less. Regardless of political/financial/economical smudges.
Hari
Friday, April 15, 2011 at 3:12 PMhey is it too late to put a concorde up for olympics or soon after & fly her in air shows etc