Fact Sheet: Concorde
- Concorde was the world’s first supersonic airliner
- A specification for the Anglo-French Mach 2.2 airliner was published in October 1962
- Concorde 001 made her maiden flight on 2 March 1969. Concorde 002 took to the air for the first time one month later on 9 April 1969
- The first Concorde to be delivered to British Airways – 206: G-BOAA – arrived on 14 January 1976
- Concorde entered commercial service on 21 January 1976. British Airways opened up a London to Bahrain service with G-BOAA and Air France launched a Paris to Rio service via Dakar with F-BVFA
- The airline’s second Concorde, 204: G-BOAC - which is now in retirement at Manchester Airport’s Aviation Viewing Park – was delivered one month later on 13 February 1976
- During flight Concorde could stretch between 15 and 25 centimetres due to heating of the airframe. She is painted in a specially developed white paint to accommodate these changes and to dissipate the heat generated by supersonic flight
- Concorde’s top cruising height was 60,000 ft – that’s more than 11 miles above the surface of the Earth
- Concorde could accelerate from 0-225 mph in 30 seconds. She could travel faster than the earth rotates.
- More than 2.5 million people travelled on Concorde since she started commercial passenger services in 1976
- The first flight to New York was on 22 November 1977
- On 11 August 1999 two British Airways Concordes flew in a supersonic formation to chase the total eclipse of the sun
- 35,500 people travelled on Concorde since her re-launch in November 2001
- Concorde’s most frequent passenger, an oil company executive, clocked up almost 70 round trip transatlantic crossings a year