Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Long live the super airplane - The Concorde!

I was never lucky enough to fly in a Concorde plane before they took them out of service in 2003.   I wish I had the chance, they were one remarkable plane, super fast and safe!   They started flying commercially between Europe and NYC back in 1976 and for 27 years only one fatal accident ever occurred.  And that was because it ran over debris on the runway setting off a chain reaction of unfortunate events.


This plane was FAST.  The fastest flight ever on record was from London to NYC at a time of 2 hours, 52 minutes, 59 seconds from takeoff to touchdown.  BOOOO YA!   With only 20 ever built it's amazing that so much ingenuity went into just 20 units.   The Concorde cruised at an average speed of 1,330 miles per hour, that's FAST.  A 757 for example cruised around 570 miles per hour.  It went so fast in fact that the nose up front would lower up and down during flights to assist it in it's travels.

(Inside a Concorde in service)

Currently there is a group of French Concorde fans that are keeping one Concorde in near flight ready condition where the plane is being kept at the Le Bourget Air and Space Museum in Paris.  There are companies trying to come up with the next commercial super sonic airplane to take to the skies.  I hope they're successful. 

(A Concorde breaking the speed of sound -768mph- and causing a sonic boom)

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