What Happened to the Concordes?
airandspace.si.edu
These days, it takes seven hours to fly from New York to London, compared to under three hours flying at twice the speed of sound on the Concorde. When I started my internship at the National Air and Space Museum, I was determined to learn why.

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.

  • Boomer Humor Doomergod@lemmy.worldEnglish
    15·
    2 days ago

    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.)