Concorde
The Concorde is the only successful civilian supersonic airplane. It reaches a top speed of Mach 2 and a traveling altitude of 17.000 meters, using afterburners adopted from war planes.
In a joint venture between France and Great Britain, the first Concorde planes were designed and built in the 1960s with the first test flight on March 2 1969, the regular traffic on the routes Paris-New York (Air France) and London-New York (British Airways) started on November 22, 1977 in Paris at 3:20 p.m. when the Anglo-French Concorde left on its first regular flight to New York from Paris and later London; after two years of legal wrangling over limiting sonic booms from the supersonic airplane. The average flight time on either route is between 3 and 31/2 hours, depending on the velocity and location of the jet stream.
The Concorde was considered to be the safest airplane, until a plane crashed during take-off in Paris on July 25, 2000. As a result, all Concorde flights were shut down for an investigation into the cause of the crash and possible remedies. After safety updates on the aircraft, both routes were re-opened on November 7, 2001.
The investigation into the crash determined that a scrap of titanium metal that fell onto the runway from an earlier Continental Airlines DC-10 flight punctured a tire in the latter stages of takeoff. Chunks of shredded tire penetrated the skin of the aircraft's wing, rupturing a loaded fuel tank. A tremendous fire rapidly ensued, disabling the aircraft, which then stalled and crashed into a hotel just miles from the airport, killing all aboard and four persons on the ground.
In all, twenty Concorde planes have been built, twelve are currently in use.
- See also : Tupolev Tu-144 "Konkordski"
- Official site : http://www.concorde-jet.com