Why didn’t it succeed?
Concorde flights came to a screeching halt after only 27 years of operation on October 24, 2003. The reason? Excessive cost, high fares, and loud noise. On a regular flight, Concordes consumed 6,771 gallons of fuel, which quickly exceeded the profit made from the flight. In addition to that, only a total of 20 Concordes were built and no airline ordered them except for Air France and British Airways, who had to as they were state-run airlines at the time.
Oh, and a 2000 crash that killed everyone on board (109 people) and four people on the ground.
Aw the Concord is a TIL now. They were really cool looking.
I loved how they looked down like a bird while landing.
Gotta droop the snoot
The snoot would droop.
d r o o p
D R O O P
It’s a very graceful machine that just happens to also sound like a volcano erupting
Yeah, until they flew over your house. If you think living near an airport is bad these days…. Concorde begs to differ
I never understood why they could not just go slow until they got up to cruising altitude and then gun it, wouldn’t that solve the sound problem?
Weren’t they basically horribly inefficient at slower speeds? That’s how I understand most supersonic craft to be. In order to maximize their efficiency at their intended cruising speed, they sacrifice efficiency at slower speeds. Spend too much time at those lower speeds you end up not having enough fuel to get to your destination.
That may be true, but don’t forget about the aerodynamics. They have smaller, swept wings to lower any drag and to provide the proper lift at cruising speed.
At slow speeds they likely have the ailerons cranked near maxlift, just to stay aloft. (This likely causes or at least contributes to the fuel inefficiency, due to the increased drag.)
It’s the whole “I’ll fall out of the sky if I go any slower with this delta wing” thing.
To create enough lift on a smaller wing you’ll have to go fast. A delta wing (v shape at the back) like on the Concord and almost all fighterjets makes it easier to go fast. They just suck at going slow.
Add to that the " go faster!" Engines and you’ll get a very loud plane.
A Concorde was for all intents and purposes just a very large fighterjet.
Oh that makes sense, thanks
Sonic booms are a constant noise, so they would always be making a noise at max speed
They definitely don’t go supersonic on approach over land. That’s kinda why they did transatlantic flights.
So you’d still hear them even if they are 30000 feet above you?
I would guess that the sound would still travel through the air and be loud even at altitude as it passes (passed) over.
Museum of flight has one you can go it (not just a TIL, but also in a museum!). It is pretty cool and worth checking out if you are in the area.
IWM Duxford also has one you can go into
Uh, you got a city, or a country for that museum?
Seattle, WA - it’s owned by Boeing.
No post on here has ever made me feel older. Just the thought that somebody might not know about Concorde because it’s so far in the past makes me want to hide in a closet.
There are people having children right now who weren’t born yet when Borat came out
Frak you, man… Frak you
Borat came out 19 years ago. Sure, 19 year olds have kids, but not many of them do. By that logic you can also say that there are people who were born after 9/11 who have kids in school.
Doesn’t matter how many. We’re old. Some things we experienced when we ourselves were already adults happened a generation ago…
IKR. I was in a costume hire shop a few years ago and asked the shop lady (age late ~20s), “do you have a Zorro costume?” She asked me, “What’s a Zorro?” Faaark I’m officially old!
True story. Antonio Banderas then ran into the store, yelled “Oi!” and stormed out.
Let’s have a few brewskis on the porch and yell at kids to get off our lawn.
And everybody clapped
That shop lady?
Albert Einstein.
I know, right? That was such a staple of aviation in general. Everybody knew about Concorde, just like how everyone can immediately recognise a Boeing 747. Maybe in thirty years time, some young’in will post about ‘I learned about an aircraft called a 747.’
Concorde was such an icon, they even made an entire disaster movie featuring it, Airport ‘79:
Not so fun fact: the aircraft used in the movie, F-BTSC, was also the actual Concorde that crashed in 2000, ultimately killing the type.
A fun fact about Concorde: there is one aerial photo of one of them flying at supersonic speeds, and the fighter jet that the photo was taken from could barely keep up long enough to take it. Here’s the pic.
The image was taken by Adrian Meredith who was flying a Royal Air Force (RAF) Tornado jet during a rendezvous with the Concorde over the Irish Sea in April 1985. Although the Tornado could match Concorde’s cruising speed it could only do so for a matter of minutes due to the enormous rate of fuel consumption. Several attempts were made to take the photo, and eventually the Concorde had to slow down from Mach 2 to Mach 1.5-1.6 so that the Tornado crew could get the shot. The Tornado was stripped of everything to get it up to that speed as long as possible.
https://theaviationgeekclub.com/heres-the-only-picture-of-concorde-flying-at-supersonic-speed/
That is awesome.
Slow down so I can take your picture
No
Don’t make me use your middle name!
Sigh OK
Should have used an American F-15.
Probably would have had the same problem. Both the Tornado and the F-15 were capable of going fast enough, it’s just going fast enough for an extended period that becomes a problem. The F-15 is a bit faster but needs to carry a bunch of external fuel tanks to match the Tornado’s range. Neither of them is cruising the whole way across the Atlantic at more than mach 2 like Concorde could
IIRC the only fighters that can supercruise (go supersonic without gushing fuel out of afterburners) are super modern jets like the F22, and still not at Mach 2.
Some older specialized craft could go Mach 2 efficiently, like blackbird or the XB-70, but they’re all long retired.
Concorde was realistically the only plane that could do that.
The SR-71 Blackbird is the closest thing I’ve seen to evidence that we had alien technology in the 60s. That thing is fucking wild. It doesn’t even look real in photos, it looks like mediocre cg
Supersonic temperature giving it that extra sexy length
Time savings in today’s economics would be completely negated by waiting two hours in line at the airport.
If you’re paying that much to fly you’re not waiting in regular security
Terrorists taking notes.
modern day terrorists can’t be bothered with such extravagant, risky and expensive methods as hijacking a plane, they prefer less complicated and cheaper ones like driving into a crowd of people or a mass shooting
Or just donate to Israel, even easier!
You mean paying taxes?
Or just spin up some minimum wage nobodies/chatbots to spread misinformation online so their own citizens do the terrorism for you
also easier to use a bomb truck, or a suicide bomber in a crowded area. plus to maximize damage, they wait til first responders come in and do it a second time.
they wait til first responders come in and do it a second time.
Other than the US and Israeli military, I’m not aware of any instances of terrorists using a second strike to target medical personnel.
Still gotta arrive early, because you don’t wanna miss it due to being stuck in traffic.
FFS, you helicopter in. What are you, fucking poor?
What’s funny is that half of the time when I fly, regular security moves faster than the expensive line.
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Thanks to Concorde, Phil Collins was able to play at both the London and Philadelphia Live Aid concerts. He Played in London, got a helicopter to Heathrow, Concorde to NY and then another helicopter to Philadelphia.
As well as his own set at both venues, he also played the piano for Sting in London, then drums for Eric Clapton, and played with the reuniting surviving members of Led Zeppelin at JFK. On the Concorde flight, Collins encountered actress and singer Cher and told her about the concerts. Upon reaching the US, she attended the Philadelphia concert and can be seen performing as part of the concert’s “We Are the World” finale.
Love Cher just chilling on Concorde, might go to a gig
TIL Phil Collins is an asshole
He ruined Genesis, so we already knew that
Why?
Those planes burn enormous amount of fossil fuels, which is currently causing mass extinction of species and mass death in humans.
Seems like he’s showing his True Colors.
One of today’s lucky 10000.
I also think it’s the younger folks who may not know what older folks already knew. OP was maybe too young to remember about Concorde.
Probably, I still remember my physics teacher using the Concorde as part of a quiz.
Im nearing 40 and never knew about it because:
- Never had an interest in flying to Europe until recently
- Age is making me delete memories to store new ones
I remember fantasizing about flying in that thing when I was a kid. Not because it was a super luxury flight, only because it was supersonic. I was sad the day they mothballed it.
Well I might have some uplifting news for you!
https://euroweeklynews.com/2025/07/07/concorde-is-set-to-make-a-comeback-in-2026/
I lived under the Heathrow-Noo Yoik flight path, and every evening within a couple of minutes, there’d be a dull thud sound on the roof.
By that point, the plane has reached a supersonic speed and the sonic boom was striking the ground in a reduced fashion. It just sounded like someone had dropped a bag of sand on the house.
This was of course back before the days of ADSB tracking.
My grandpa was a mechanic on one of these. Impressive plane it’s too bad it didn’t work out.
They flew for 27 years, partly thanks to your grandpa. I’d say they worked out just fine
A guy I worked with put himself through university working ground crew for Braniff at Dulles when they were flying interchange flights taking the Concorde on from Dulles to Dallas-Fort Worth. He commented on how crazy some of the tools were that the mechanics were regularly using while the plane was at the gate.
The snoot drooped.
I used to have outdoor PE up on a hill near the sea and we would hear the booms from Concorde out over the ocean. Takes me way back. Also makes me feel way old that someone old enough to write this didn’t already know about it lol
They also occasionally took off and landed at a local airport and we would go and see them sometimes. Noise on takeoff is unimaginable unless you’ve witnessed something like a Typhoon jet. The kind of noise you can feel entirely through your body.
Concorde is cool as heck, but honestly, supersonic travel is fundamentally impractical.
It’s kinda like space “colonization.” It’s a really cool dream, but once you take a hard look at the physics (never mind engineering, just assume that will be worked out), it just makes little sense outside of science missions or niches like that.
And if it’s really urgent these days… teleconference. Or charter a private jet between closer airports.
I think it would be cool to have one or a few SS passenger planes in operation for weird niches (medical emergencies? Charity? Political flights? Stuff like that,) but that’s about it.
I am sure people decades ago spoke of tech we now consider as granted in the same way!
It would make a lot more sense nowadays for Europe/NA to east Asia (or would for Europe if Russia were a reasonable country that could be trusted to fly over).
The former president of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) had a Concorde-capable airport built at his home village, so that his wife could charter it to go shopping in Europe.
The CIA assassinated his predecessor and put him in power so that he would do their bidding and that of the American mining companies. It’s estimated that he was worth around $6 billion, $30-40 billion in today’s money.
When flying supersonic the entire plane would expand and get longer to the point where flight engineer could put his hat between his console and bulkhead.
However, when it slowed down and cooled the engineer had to remember to get his hat or it would be stuck in the shrunken space.
The Concorde on display at the Udvar-Hazy Center had this happen, and it has a hat permanently stuck in the cockpit.
(At least according to the tour guide.)
Thought the story was that the whole crew did it on purpose on the last flight.
