Celebrating Concorde

Concorde used the most powerful pure jet engines flying commercially. The Aircraft's four engines took advantage of what is known as ‘reheat’ technology, which added fuel to the final stage of the engine. This produced the extra power required for take-off and the transition to supersonic flight.

Concorde measures nearly 204ft in length and stretched between 6 and 10 inches in flight due to heating of the airframe. It was painted in a specially developed white paint to accommodate these changes and to dissipate the heat generated by supersonic flight.

In November 1986 a British Airways Concorde flew around the world, covering 28,238 miles in 29 hours, 59 minutes.

More than 2.5m passengers flew supersonically on British Airways Concorde flights.

Concorde was subjected to 5,000 hours of testing before it was first certified for passenger flight, making it the most tested aircraft ever.

Concorde’s fastest transatlantic crossing was on 7 February 1996 when it completed the New York to London flight in 2 hours 52 minutes and 59 seconds.

On 24 October 2003, British Airways withdrew Concorde, bringing to a close the world’s only supersonic passenger service. The final scheduled commercial flight was BA002 from JFK operated by G-BOAG. BA’s fleet of seven aircraft were subsequently dispersed for preservation at Barbados (AE), Edinburgh (AA), Filton (AF), Manchester (AC), New York (AD) and Seattle (AG) with one (AB) remaining at Heathrow.