Concorde Air Plane

Concorde Air Plane

Concorde Plane Faster Than Speed Of Sound Nearly 374 miles per Second!!! Concorde was the only supersonic airliner that regularly fle... 8:12 AM

Concorde Plane Faster Than Speed Of Sound Nearly 374 miles per Second!!!

Concorde was the only supersonic airliner that regularly flew above the speed of sound. Concorde was first flown in 1969 and began commercial service in the mid-1970's.
British Airways had seven Concordes and Air France had five aircraft. All concordes are now retired after 25 years of passanger service and nearly 35 years of flight. They have gone to their final resting places at museums around the world.

The Aerospatiale-BAC Concorde supersonic transport (SST) was one of only two models of supersonic passenger airliners to have seen commercial service. Concorde had a cruise speed of mach 2.04 and a cruise altitude of 60,000 feet (17,700 metres) with a delta wing configuration and an evolution of the afterburner equipped engines originally developed for the Avro Vulcan strategic bomber. It is the first civil airliner to be equipped with an analogue fly-by-wire flight control system. Commercial flights, operated by British Airways and Air France, began on January 21, 1976, and ended on October 24, 2003, with the last "retirement" flight on November 26, that year.
The Anglo-French supersonic Concorde was once the world’s most advanced aircraft, and the only supersonic airliner to serve regular routes across the Atlantic, for both British Airways and Air France. At an 18,000 meter cruising altitude and a speed of 2,200 km/h - over twice the speed of sound (Mach 2.04) - the Concorde could reach New York in around 3.5 hours. With a length of 62.6 m and a span width of 25.6 m, it was powered by 4 Rolls Royce/Snecma Olympus 593 engines producing over 17,000 h.p. per unit. It made its maiden flight in 1969 and its last flight in 2003. The Concorde F-BVFB shown here was flown to Baden Airport on 24.06.2003, then disassembled and transported to the Auto & Technik Museum Sinsheim, Germany in very spectacular fashion by road and river. Concorde’s final journey, but the start of a new career with many visiting “passengers”!

Technological features
Many features common in the early 21st century airliners were first used in Concorde.

SPECIFICATIONS

* Length: 204ft 6 ins(62.19m)
* Fuselage width : 9ft48ins(2.88m)
* Ranges: 3740miles
* Cruising speed: 1336mph(Mach2.04)
* Passengers: 128

For speed optimization:
double-delta (ogive) shaped wings
afterburning Roll-Royce/Snecma Olympus turbojets with supercruise capability
thrust-by-wire engines, ancestor of today's FADEC controlled engines
droop-nose section for good landing visibility

For weight saving and enhanced performance:
Mach 2.04 'sweet spot' for optimum fuel consumption (supersonic drag minimum, while jet engines are more efficient at high speed) mostly aluminium construction for low weight and relatively conventional build full-regime autopilot and autothrottle allowing "hands off" control of the aircraft from climb out to landing
fully electrically-controlled, analog fly-by-wire flight controls systems multifunction flight control surfaces
high-pressure hydraulic system of 28 MPa (4,000 lbf/in) for lighter hydraulic systems components fully electrically controlled analog brake-by-wire system pitch trim by shifting fuel around the fuselage for center-of-gravity control parts milled from single alloy billet reducing the part number count.

Experience in making Concorde later became the basis of the Airbus consortium and many of these features are now standard equipment in Airbus airliners. Snecma Moteurs, for example, got its first entry into civil engines here. Experience with Concorde opened the way for it to establish CFM International, with GE producing the successful CFM International 56 series engines. The primary partners, BAC, later to become BAE Systems, and Aerospatiale, later to become EADS, are the joint owners of Concorde's type certificate. Responsibility for the Type Certificate transferred to Airbus with formation of Airbus SAS.