The thing people don’t seem to appreciate, is that Concorde was literally a time travelling machine. If you flew from London to New York, you would arrive before you left. You could leave London after an early lunch, and arrive in New York for a late breakfast…
The Wright Brothers to Concorde is only 66 years, counting from 1903 to 1969. Concorde until today is 53 years. That should put things in perspective....
@@RRIA_America The Cold War era really was THE time when governments threw insane amounts of money at ambitious projects that actually ended up working.
I remember my dad taking me to the airport nearby our house to watch it take off, most unreal experience of my life to this day... the sound it made to takeoff was breathtaking...
Ugh, the Concorde was like the epitomie of elegance for me as a little girl. I always wanted to ride it when I was little. Alas, that will never happen. I also remember it being a movie plot device in 90’s movies lol
My mom actually flew on the concord in the late 90s from new york to Paris , rod steward on the plane - she said it was absolutely amazing experience when they got to altitude they took the passengers to the cockpit so that you could see the curvature of the horizon , the pictures that she has are amazing
Worst part was that the aircraft really weren't at fault. They worked fine. That crash was caused by debris from another aircraft which could've happened to anyone. But time marched on and it never got improved.
Sort of. Although it’s impractical to make a plane immune to every piece of runway debris, there was a known design flaw in the tanks; they were susceptible to rupture from rubber fragments when tires failed. They made some changes to try to improve it, but maybe not enough.
@@DoubleMonoLR Not to mention that was a tiny flaw on top of a number of others. The biggest being that BA and France were barely breaking even even with those prices. They were talking about scraping them in the 90's WAY before the accident.
And that debris was a metal strip that fell from an engine cowling of a McDonnell Douglas DC-10 during its takeoff 5 minutes before the Concorde did. And no one picked it up. It was just left there, waiting to puncture one of the tires of an aircraft's landing gear on landing or takeoff and Concorde was the victim of it! The pilots of Concorde Air France Flight 4590 didn't see the strip and they ran the plane over it, popping a tire and bursting one of its fuel tanks and starting a fire. It stayed in the air for many seconds until falling on an airport hotel killing all 109 people aboard and 4 in the hotel, the death toll hitting 113 in total
@@x808drifter British Airways actually made profit with their Concorde flights contrary to popular belief (eventually it did). That was until the crash. Air France did not operate it at a profit unfortunately.
The fact that the Concorde can hit over mach 2 makes it faster than most aircraft ever produced. Still wish they could update, digitize its controls, and update the engines. It's still a fantastic airframe. It will forever be my personal favorite aircraft.
A friend of mine worked at Charles de Gaulle airport when the Concorde was in service. He said the windows would vibrate and items on his desk would move around whenever one of them was taking off. When it came to landings, they'd typically be very low on fuel by the end of their journey, and would be given high priority.
I was 18 when the final flight of the Concord took place. I wish it was still around today. I would pay extra to fly supersonic in a heartbeat. Anyone who experienced this, is an extremely lucky person.
Thanks for your take on the Concorde! Excellent as ever! ❤ As others have pointed out, one thing about the Concorde's speed was that it could literally fly faster than the Earth rotates. And a bunch of astronomers once took advantage of that. In 1973, they chartered a Concorde prototype (no. 001), and flew across the Sahara to chase a solar eclipse. By flying along the eclipse track at _juuuust_ the right speed, they stretched the 7 minutes of totality out to _74_ minutes, giving them a _ton_ more time to observe the Sun's atmosphere than they usually would. To this day, it's the longest anyone has made a total eclipse last on Earth. They even got permission to add observing ports in the roof, since that prototype was at the end of its flight testing. These days, there's no scientific need for such a flight. Specialized spacecraft (like SOHO) can observe the Sun's atmosphere at any time by "eclipsing" the sun with a round piece of metal in front of their camera/telescope (a _coronagraph_ ). In the vacuum of space -- with no air or ground to scatter sunlight -- it works just as well as the Moon does. ...Though in 1999, a few Concorde tourist flights _did_ briefly follow an eclipse near Europe. (For more details, search for "concorde eclipse". There are a bunch of articles online about the flight and what the astronomers were observing.)
You only need 1 nail to make a tire flat. You only need a tiny bit less insulation to allow a spark to form inside an oxygen-rich capsule, hot enough to prevent it from opening. You only need a tiny O-ring that has been exposed to cold too long to prevent it from expanding properly and allow superheated gas to blow through and burn the Challenger. You only need a few coins, placed on a train track to keep a train from braking. It's not really that insane, one can only imagine so many things to go wrong. 👍
It's the Americans again it was their crappy plane that the bit fell of. Also they were pathetic enough to ban SST's because we beat them to it. Funny how while developing their SST there was no noise concerns
@Ashley Ward It wasn’t the fault of “the Americans”, rather the fault of the airport that failed to clean it up. Accidents happens and this was preventable. Take your prejudice elsewhere.
I have both a Concorde and a Tu144 relatively closeby at a museum. They are propped up on the roof in takeof/landing position and configuration, and you can actually go inside. I was absolutely fascinated by them as a kid and I am still to this day, I built models of both and tons of photos :D Edit: The Tu144 showm from behind in the 'on display' section is the one I mean!
@@triple7marc that's the one :D I'd love to visit the Smithsonian National Air and Space museum at some point :D but Sinsheim and Speyer are pretty cool as well
@@IbakonFerba I'm fortunate enough to have a girlfriend who lives very close to both towns. So I definitely want to go back to Sinsheim and to Speyer for the first time. That museum was amazing!
I remember when a Concorde landed at my local airport for a celebration. Tens of thousands of people showed up! The one thing I remember most, was the incredible noise the Concorde made.
Wonderful video! Concorde was finished off by economics, lack of engine efficiency, fuel costs, skyrocketing maintenance costs, lack of trained pilots, etc. as you pointed out. She was from a unique, heady era in aviation - and she was absolutely the most beautiful bird EVER!
I live under what used to be the flight path of BA Concorde. I still remember the sonic boom of it breaking the sound barrier as it left British airspace. Very sad day for the country when it stopped flying.
18:10 During the 90s I remember this happening, a Concorde was chartered to follow a major solar eclipse, can't recall the exact year but was on the news how it flew through the eclipse totality path. Price per ticket was insane, and I think the plane was full.
Great video Jake! Love learning about the Concorde, it was such a cool engineering marvel that we won’t be able to experience. Amazing content as always, thanks for posting!
@@BrightSunFilms Legitimate safety concerns still continue. Perhaps awe & excitement overtook that in the video? Like how tech scams dupe people with the promise of flawed/fraudulent ideas.
This one has touched my heart personally, i used to listen to them test the Concorde engines daily at 4 in the afternoon ! there is one final Concorde sat in Bristol UK that is now a museum piece my grandfather took the final flight i remember the day well. she was graceful yet so wonderfully loud and so very unique. thankyou for sharing x
If anything, it came late? Wich is not possible because technology... The world will never be "ready" for the effects of sonic boom, concorde lost its value because of regulations, and its not really bad (altho sad) it went when it did. Nowadays its not even allowed to fly supersonic above deserts outside of ranges and combat situations, and that is why outside a very limited, over water use, we will never see another supersonic transport. And that is quite sad if you ask me...
@@Juanxlink Exactly, I'd say the 70s & 80s were precisely when the Concorde should've been popular, in an era of excess (though that's had a 'revival', unfortunately, in a different form) They were always going to be a problem, for humans and nature.
I know someone who is an avid plane spotter and has worked in this industry for a number of decades.. His single flight on this plane was of course an incredible experience. He explained to me that after the fuel tank puncture incident, their solution was to line each individual fuel tank inside both wings with kevlar sheets. According to howstuffworks, there are 17, though I was quoted a higher amount. Anyway, it was not deemed viable for technical reasons to take the tanks out of the wings to do this upgrade work, so they rolled the sheets up and threaded them individually through the fuel lines closest to the tanks and positioned them in such a way they would open and line the tanks as they unravelled in their designated place - it was not explained to me how they stayed put once inside. After completing this upgrade work on the first concorde, they soon realised that because every single concorde was built by hand, and as a result, the majority of the parts on the plane were not interchangeable, this included the fuel tanks. This meant they had to draw up unique kevlar sheets made to fit all 17 fuel tanks that were of different size and shape, and there were 14 commercial concorde planes in total. This took a great deal of time and money. Another fact I was told that I personally found interesting was the variable air intake system designed only for concorde and its engines, which to this day remains a top secret. The british government would seize each individual plane upon arrival and unloading of its passengers, direct the plane to a hanger, and a team of concorde engineers would dismantle the proprietary variable air intake, store it securely and cover the entire plane up in a large sheet. This would all be reversed and put right again when the plane was then needed for its next flight.
I was lucky enough to fly on it when they had a special offer after the reintroduction to service following the Air France crash. The speed at takeoff and the curve of the earth at 60,000 feet are the two things I’ll never forget. A huge waste of money, but I’m so glad I did it……interesting that the move to bigger aircraft hasn’t worked out so well for the A380.
This aircraft was a bucket list item for me when I was young...I was born when this thing was next level and flying regularly...ironically the museum I saw it at has it "next level" to the soviet equivalent. Great content mate! Cheers from Canada!
9:04 despite being the sole operators, Singapore Airlines flew one Concorde (with its left side paint only) under a joint venture with BA, and some Air France and BA Concordes were operated with Braniff International crew in some US routes. Both were short-lived however
The timing of this video is so ironic. Just last week I went to a guided tour of the Concorde near the Manchester Airport. They allowed me to sit in the captain’s chair and in the passenger’s seats. The guides even demonstrated the drooping nose. The first time I laid eyes on her in the hangar my jaw literally dropped! It was an incredible experience. I would recommend this tour to any Concorde enthusiasts!
I live about 15mins from Manny Airport. Been to the concorde a lot. Remember vividly sitting on the multistory carpark with my dad in the 80s to see concorde land a few times. Sounded amazing
@@claytonbouldin9381 It's actually at the Runway Visitor Park, which is like a few miles from the airport proper. The VIP tour I went on had a several very knowledgeable tour guides. You sit down in one of the Concorde's seats whilst the guide gives a very informative and detailed history of the Concorde. You then get taken to cockpit, where another guide gives a condensed explanation of all of the analogue dials/equipment, and then the tour concludes by being served champagne whilst given a live demonstration of the droop nose in action. Totally worth it. I'm not usually into guided tours/presentations, but this was well done, the guides were super-knowledgeable, and you have the very unique experience of getting up close and personal with the Concorde.
Man, I'd love to fly on one... I remember being amazed by it as a child, and the sadness of the disaster of Flight 4590. Nothing will really capture its wonder ever again (even if a new Supersonic comes around).
There's a concord in a museum near me. Out of all the planes there, it's the one I spend the most time just staring at. I'm not even all that into vehicles
For aviation geeks/enthusiasts Pan Am & TWA considered ordering Concorde but cancelled due to cost & laws regarding Sonic travel (other factors involved).
Another factor for the failure of the Concorde was that it complicated airline logistics. The Concorde was always in the shop- but since the whole pull was being on the Concorde, they couldn’t rebook passengers if there was a maintenance issue. This meant there had to be a BACKUP Concorde to every main Concorde, just in case
Really an outstanding accomplishment that became too expensive to operate due to many of the planned routes being banned. So much went into it that is quite understandable that they tried to go forward anyway and it would catch on more. Possibly even that the routes would eventually open up. Concord actually had rubber from a tire blowing out on it's own previously penetrate and fly up through the fuel tank previously. A passenger saw this and even pointed out the jagged hole with fuel coming out. A stewardess actually said the person (pilot himself) was mistaken that was the flaps, which Concord does not even have btw. Nor would a flap look like a jagged hole with fuel coming out. The man actually had to argue until the stewardess would even inform the pilots. The first officer took one look and instantly declared an emergency landing. They redesigned the tires and added guards around them. The tires blew out somewhat often under the massive strain of it's high takeoff and landing speeds. They also recommended kevlar pads around the fuel tanks and a few other things just to prevent what happened. Here the tanks were so full instead of penetrating it caused a shock to transmit up which rebounded and blew out the bottom this time. They had expected to be burning off more fuel waiting for take off. France dismissed any culpability as inconsequential. Including a missing piece on the landing gear and uneven fuel load which caused it to do be drifting left and take off past the normal point. Had this not occurred the debris would not have even been struck. Concord was fitted with all the previous recommendations including the kevlar protection they had claimed un-necessary years earlier.
I loved Concorde. I remember travelling to Heathrow several times just to watch her take off. There was a nice vantage point on the roof of the old Terminal 2 building where people could go to view take offs (pre 9/11 obviously). Although I never had the chance to have a flight on one, I was able to visit, and board a couple where they are on static display. One at Duxford, where there's a pre-production aircraft, and then in Filton still wearing BA livery.
Great video! I remember seeing the news announcing the Concorde’s last flight. After how much exposure it used to get I didn’t realize it had still been in service. Now I know why.
Funny that you mentioned Boom... A while ago I read about how their engine deal fell through and it began to sound more and more like vaporware. Maybe in the future you'll make an episode of Cancelled for their SST?
I'm also always very wary of companies that use tacky trend-chasing brand names like 'Boom'(which also plainly advertizes their inherent flaw), especially for something so sophisticated and safety-oriented.
@@DoubleMonoLR I'm very skeptical about BOOM to be honest. Despite having large orders, I'm not sure if it would really be a success for the long term, due to economics. I think some airlines will order it for exclusivity, and only be deployed on routes that are in high demand year round, such as JFK-LHR-JFK
@@davinajodhasingh What’s really stopping the company is the fact that no engine manufacturer is willing to make engines for them on a production scale. With The Big Three (Rolls-Royce, General Electric, and Pratt & Whitney) along with smaller ones like CFM and Safran declining to make such an engine for the company. But to me the most worrying sign is that recently after a couple of years of being somewhat quiet their smaller test plane XB-1 started to gain momentum and it’s engines were being fired up with a test flight set to September of this year. That test flight has yet to happen and they’ve been really silent ever since.
@@davinajodhasingh Why so skeptical? You can't just get orders and funding for a product that doesn't really exist. Client companies and investors are smarter than that. You just have to deliver on your promises like Nikola and Thanos did. Oh, wait....
While I know Boom has take up the mantel of trying to bring SST back into the mainstream, I could be curious to see what an updated design of Boeing's 2707 or Aerospatriale/BAC's Concorde Mk 2 would look like. All of the advances in engine design & efficiency, aerodynamics, and composite materials could make for designs that make the trans-Pacific routes shorter and more profitable, as well as quieter on transcontinental routes across the US, Europe, Eurasia, Asia, and Africa. I think one of the biggest oversights of the Concorde program was the fact that refit for future technology, which is common it today's fleet of commercial airlines, was not included. Although, I believe this design principle was only added in the decades after Concorde's design and the subsequent building of the 20 aircraft. While it would be hard to imagine a modern Concorde with all glass instruments and digital gauges, the analog nature of the aircraft and its aging systems played heavily into its demise as you pointed out.
You know that last scene in The Parent Trap where Hallie’s dad uses Concorde to get to London before Elizabeth? As a kid I was always like “well if it’s so much faster, why doesn’t everyone just use Concorde?” …I can see why now.
It was a popular 90’s romance movie gimmick. This was also used in the movie Sabrina when Harrison fords character beat his lover from New York to Paris. Oh the 90’s….
When I was about 7 my parents took me to the airport because a Concorde was flying in. I didn't really understand the big deal about seeing an airplane, probably because I was 7 and we lived by the airport, but we did get to go up to the Concorde on the runway.
Had an opportunity to see and line-up for an onboard tour when it visited my local airport circa 1992ish... I was both in awe of it and in shock at how small and cramped it was inside!
Hearing stories told by my mom of the Concorde and its sonic booms over London always made me wish i had been born earlier enough to have been able to witness the same, and every time i go over the Concorde story the feeling intensifies. But knowing the shortfalls of the plane and where the world was soon heading in a way makes me glad the Concorde was the last supersonic airliner to grace our skies.
That would have been very cool to experience. Many airports have regulations where the planes actually take off at a lower throttle than ideal purely for noise reasons. They must be a certain height and distance before throttling up. While "safe" it also gives less of a safety margin were an emergency, turbulence etc.. to occur. While you can feel for people who chose to live near airports it is rather an oddity that a few decibel takes priority over increased safety.
There are so many other videos on youtube about the Concorde but your way of telling the story is always so unique and fun to listen to! I think the Concorde was ahead of its time, many destinations now exist that could support a supersonic airliner that did not exist even when Concorde ended service but that's just how history plays out.
In 1985 Willy Theisen owner of Godfathers pizza chain in Omaha Ne chartered one for his birthday. He invited several guests to fly with him to Paris to celebrate with him. At the time my family lived about a mile away (as the crows fly) from the airport. The sound it made when it took off was incredible. There is a newspaper article about it.
Oh no freakin way. I just got a job at an aerospace company and now Jake makes a video about aerospace. LET'S GO! I spend so long reading this article on Wikipedia.
As a small kid we took the concord from dc to london. Sadly i was too young to remember. This would have been the early 80s and only stories and a few pictures existed. I remember my dad showing me a signed picture of telly savalas because we sat behind him. No idea how we were able to afford it :)
Loved watching this video. I saw one of the British Airways Concordes on display in New York. We didn't go inside but I have pictures of me and my family by the wheels.
Based on data presented in this video, I calculated that the Concorde burned approximately 20,000 more liters of jet fuel than the Boeing 767 flying the same distance between New York City and London. That’s an astonishing difference in fuel consumption.
16:42 "...and will likely need hundreds if not billions of dollars..." Yep, that's probably right. :) Joking aside, great video as always! This channel never fails to deliver quality content. Thanks!
I'm pretty sure I saw one at the end of the 1970s, but can't remember exactly where because I am an old fart and my memory is crap. It was elegant and beautiful and it was a thrill to see it. Curious postscript to the tu144 story is that one of them was re-engined in the 1990s and was flown by NASA pilots as a flying laboratory.
My primary school in the mid 90s to 2003 was right under the flight path of concorde taking off from Heathrow. 11am, every morning, it roared overhead. A beautiful aircraft.
As a school kid growing up, you would hear the roar of Concorde as it took off from London. I never got to fly on it, but I have memories of going to see it at the airport. My dad once got my a leftover folder from the aircraft that they gave passengers which had the menu, header paper and information sheet.
Great video, Jake. I saw Concorde for real in a flight museum recently - it is still such a *beautiful* plane. Only wish I got the chance to fly on it…
Had a chat with the guy who flew the first flight after the grounding, every new radio frequency they checked into was full of excitement, with people realising Concorde was back flying
Barbados-being a British Island-, had regular Concorde flights from England in the winter months. Her first flight to Barbados was in November of 1977, to return Queen Elizabeth to Great Britain after her tour of the Caribbean. Her final flight to Barbados was on November 17th 2003, into Grantley Adams International Airport, where she remains today. The Barbados Concorde Experience is a wonderful interactive , up close, glimpse into this beautiful plane. You can actually board her, sit in the seats, see the china they used to serve the passengers and check out the cockpit. I am not sure if it has reopened after Covid. Thought you'd be interested in this fun fact Jake. Wheels up from London, Ontario.
I used to be able to see the Concorde from my living room window coming in for landings. Really a beautiful plane to see it in the sky. Now I live even closer to the airport & grateful I don't have to hear sonic booms
Absolutely fantastic documentary! (Did I expect any less from Bright Sun and Jake?). I have been a fan, devotee and all around crazy about the SST since it started when I was a kid. Keep up the great work Jake! 😁
It was a technological and design masterpiece - one of the most beautiful moving objects ever created. It's still crazy to think our grandparents crossed the Atlantic faster than we can do today...! (Would have loved to see the Russian 'Concordski' at Heathrow)
I never had the privilege of flying on Concorde, but I used to live in London and I saw them take off and land. They were noisy af! Now once in a while you look up and gawk and it's amazingly cool, but Heathrow is exceedingly busy, a plane every minute or so. I wouldn't want concorde all day, every day! I can see why residents of cities like London and New York would be reticent! They could probably have ironed that out with later iterations I guess... But I imagine 7 hours across the Atlantic was bloody amazing in the 60s considering it took days on a liner just 20 years earlier.
3:20 in fact Tu-144 had more sophisticated story than most of us know. At first, initial 1968 Tu-144 (68001) had to be completely redesigned to become a Tu-144S. In fact it was an all new design with different wing shape, retractable canards, revised engine nacelles and even new landing gear. It actually had an excellent aerodynamic performance (even better than Concorde), but its engines were terrible. It can sound strange, but turbojets are better choice than turbofans for supercruise. So the 3rd iteration was launched (Tu-144D) with all-new turbojets. But there were some development problems and even prototype fatal crash. So this project was finally cancelled in 1980s. But one of them (77115) made some research flights in 1990s as part of a joint research program with NASA. So this story really deserves its own video.
I recently went through Heathrow and could see it from the window. Pretty much the only enjoyable thing I saw there (it was a layover and my family and I STILL had to go through security, which was worse than usual).
The concorde that had the fatal crash actually was the second of two Concordes chartered by a German cruise-company to get passengers to NYC to board a cruise ship. When the second plane didn't arrive the passengers of No 1 were taken on a makeshift sightseeing-tour, largely suspected as means to keep them occupied and away from TVs. They didn't find out what had happened until much later in the day. There are interviews with some people who traded places back and forth between the planes and it's kinda gutwrenching seeing them still struggling to grasp how close they came to dying.
I lived in NY and I remember people were complaining about the noise Concorde made. I loved watching it fly over. At the frontiers of flight museum in Dallas they have some Concorde items on display due to their connections with Braniff airlines
16:30 Ah yep, I was waiting for this to come up. As much as I admire Boom's optimism, I seriously doubt their plane will ever get past the prototype stage, assuming it ever even leaves the drawing board. There is virtually zero chance that they'll be able to get past the FAA's sonic boom regulation, not just because of bureaucratic hurdles but simply because there's only so much that can be done to mitigate the noise, and I doubt that the prestige of an SST is going to be enough to overcome public backlash on that basis alone. Plus this isn't even getting in to the reality that to this point they've been funded entirely by venture capital and a handful of government grants, and have no path to sustaining themselves without a production model to sell to the airlines, who are also not always known for keeping even firm orders if operating costs increase or delivery timelines slip. I'm very skeptical that they'll be able to secure funding to build a full-scale prototype at this point, and even if they do, 2029 doesn't seem like a realistic timeline if they manage to defy gravity long enough to actually build it. Right now a handful of airlines are happy to use it for marketing, but as soon as they start getting the bills and are still possibly years away from delivery (from a company that has never built production aircraft, using a lot of new tech that is as yet unproven and has not demonstrated financial viability), I think it's gonna be a much harder sell to make.
Will first off, United Airlines is already backing BOOM. Second, BOOM is testing configurations that have little to no sonic boom at all while flying above the speed of sound. This technology is also being successfully tested by our own military. Many of the things we enjoy today like GPS, and the internet was all given to us by you guessed it, the military. So if they are already moving forward with quiet super sonic travel, then we can expect to see it in civilian fashion soon. Which BOOM is taking full advantage of.
If you told me this a couple of years ago I would agree but they have everything ready to go for their prototype XB-1 and all they have to do is give it a test flight to give it the momentum it needs for the Overture. As for the Overture the biggest and most crucial worrying sign is that despite everything else seems to be fine and framework is already signed off, there is no engine manufacturer willing to produce such engines for them.
My uncle used to work for BA at Heathrow as a test/repair engineer and did a lot of work on Concorde. I had the wonderful oppertunity to sit in the pilot seat of Concorde as a child in the 80's.
Supersonic aircraft don't really have any uses outside military. Terrible fuel consumption, expensive parts, maintenance and other cons make them bad idea from the start.
I watched Seconds From Disaster on the History Channel RELIGIOUSLY and I know for a fact that the Concorde accident was caused by a piece of metal that a previous plane had left on the path of that take off 👏🏼
The Concord was also one of the only aircraft that could displace a line up of aircraft waiting in the pattern to land. It was priority #1 for landing. Though in an emergancy it could go several hundred miles to another airport to land. However, this was rarely done becuase of cost.
Love aircraft and love seeing these aviation videos. The have a few in Scotland and England that I have stood in, an amazing aircraft and one I wish I had the chance to fly in.
Fortunate enough to have stepped foot on Concorde both an ex service airframe and also the mule which is at the RNAS Yeovilton Fleet Air Arm Museum. Only my Great Aunt in my family actually flew on it. Amazing feat of engineering.
The thing people don’t seem to appreciate, is that Concorde was literally a time travelling machine. If you flew from London to New York, you would arrive before you left. You could leave London after an early lunch, and arrive in New York for a late breakfast…
Holy hell your right
for the price of its ticket, it better travel time indeed...
Unfortunately, as time-travel machines go, this one sucked at cheating at the lottery. 😹
@@Kiyoone don't act like regular tickets to the uk aren't as expensive lol
If I remember correctly there were people that used Concorde to celebrate the new millennium twice, which must have been nice if you could afford it!
The most impressive thing, to me, is how relatively soon after humans first took to the air we were flying people around at supersonic speeds.
Reminds me of the moon missions. We took someone into space for the first time & just a few years later humans were on the moon. Humans are crazy.
@@RRIA_America indeed. Great example.
The Wright Brothers to Concorde is only 66 years, counting from 1903 to 1969. Concorde until today is 53 years. That should put things in perspective....
@@ingvarhallstrom2306 word.
@@RRIA_America The Cold War era really was THE time when governments threw insane amounts of money at ambitious projects that actually ended up working.
I remember my dad taking me to the airport nearby our house to watch it take off, most unreal experience of my life to this day... the sound it made to takeoff was breathtaking...
I know there are videos of it, but what was the sound like to you?
That's such a cool memory. Your dad rules.
@@ZeranZeran Imagine it being soo loud It made me shut my eyes, picture a normal 747 taking off but X10
I saw it land at Ringway a few times in the 80s
@@15wwe15 that is so damn cool!!! What a wonderful experience and memory to share with your awesome dad
Ugh, the Concorde was like the epitomie of elegance for me as a little girl. I always wanted to ride it when I was little. Alas, that will never happen. I also remember it being a movie plot device in 90’s movies lol
My mom actually flew on the concord in the late 90s from new york to Paris , rod steward on the plane - she said it was absolutely amazing experience when they got to altitude they took the passengers to the cockpit so that you could see the curvature of the horizon , the pictures that she has are amazing
Tell that to flat earth theorists
⁷ya 767g7e
remember 80s e666ỳ
Wow!!! Yeah take that flat earthers
Would love to see those photos! It has to be beautiful!
The fact that they placed a 2707 prototype inside of a church is possibly one of the most strangest locations for a prototype aircraft.
It’s also probably the most Florida thing you could do to it
@@BrightSunFilms Is it known why the Church bought the plane?
@@mapesdhs597 Butts in pews?
@@AaronOfMpls Heh, good point, hadn't thought of that simple angle, the basic wow factor. :D
@@BrightSunFilms I always thought California was known for those kinda things with the Spruce Goose.
Worst part was that the aircraft really weren't at fault. They worked fine. That crash was caused by debris from another aircraft which could've happened to anyone. But time marched on and it never got improved.
Sort of. Although it’s impractical to make a plane immune to every piece of runway debris, there was a known design flaw in the tanks; they were susceptible to rupture from rubber fragments when tires failed. They made some changes to try to improve it, but maybe not enough.
@@Sashazur Exactly, it crashed on the 8th time a fuel tank was punctured.
@@DoubleMonoLR Not to mention that was a tiny flaw on top of a number of others. The biggest being that BA and France were barely breaking even even with those prices. They were talking about scraping them in the 90's WAY before the accident.
And that debris was a metal strip that fell from an engine cowling of a McDonnell Douglas DC-10 during its takeoff 5 minutes before the Concorde did. And no one picked it up. It was just left there, waiting to puncture one of the tires of an aircraft's landing gear on landing or takeoff and Concorde was the victim of it! The pilots of Concorde Air France Flight 4590 didn't see the strip and they ran the plane over it, popping a tire and bursting one of its fuel tanks and starting a fire. It stayed in the air for many seconds until falling on an airport hotel killing all 109 people aboard and 4 in the hotel, the death toll hitting 113 in total
@@x808drifter British Airways actually made profit with their Concorde flights contrary to popular belief (eventually it did). That was until the crash. Air France did not operate it at a profit unfortunately.
Seeing Bright Sun Films covering the Concorde is an instant click from me.
Hey Jago!
Didn't know you were into planes!
The fact that the Concorde can hit over mach 2 makes it faster than most aircraft ever produced. Still wish they could update, digitize its controls, and update the engines. It's still a fantastic airframe. It will forever be my personal favorite aircraft.
A friend of mine worked at Charles de Gaulle airport when the Concorde was in service. He said the windows would vibrate and items on his desk would move around whenever one of them was taking off. When it came to landings, they'd typically be very low on fuel by the end of their journey, and would be given high priority.
I was 18 when the final flight of the Concord took place. I wish it was still around today. I would pay extra to fly supersonic in a heartbeat. Anyone who experienced this, is an extremely lucky person.
70% off so clearly they mark up 200% on a profit!
I did. 1979. My heart still beats faster when I see footage of the plane flying. The experience was unreal. I was so lucky.
I was 3😢
@@MM-uv6kbCan you explain what that was like?
Thanks for your take on the Concorde! Excellent as ever! ❤
As others have pointed out, one thing about the Concorde's speed was that it could literally fly faster than the Earth rotates. And a bunch of astronomers once took advantage of that.
In 1973, they chartered a Concorde prototype (no. 001), and flew across the Sahara to chase a solar eclipse. By flying along the eclipse track at _juuuust_ the right speed, they stretched the 7 minutes of totality out to _74_ minutes, giving them a _ton_ more time to observe the Sun's atmosphere than they usually would. To this day, it's the longest anyone has made a total eclipse last on Earth. They even got permission to add observing ports in the roof, since that prototype was at the end of its flight testing.
These days, there's no scientific need for such a flight. Specialized spacecraft (like SOHO) can observe the Sun's atmosphere at any time by "eclipsing" the sun with a round piece of metal in front of their camera/telescope (a _coronagraph_ ). In the vacuum of space -- with no air or ground to scatter sunlight -- it works just as well as the Moon does.
...Though in 1999, a few Concorde tourist flights _did_ briefly follow an eclipse near Europe.
(For more details, search for "concorde eclipse". There are a bunch of articles online about the flight and what the astronomers were observing.)
The Concorde fleet logged more hours of supersonic flight time than all of the world’s militaries combined.
I believe it!
Thats because if it wasn't in the air they were losing a lot of money so they kept it up there as much as possible
@Phillip Banes military jets almost NEVER go supersonic. Concorde went MACH 2 for the entire width of the Atlantic Ocean. All year round, for decades
@Phillip Banes same. yeh they do but for short stints, usually in action. Concorde existed to go supersonic all day long
Q10
I think it's absolutely insane that a little piece of debris led to such a large tragedy.
Also that cutaway from the sponsor segment was pretty funny.
You only need 1 nail to make a tire flat.
You only need a tiny bit less insulation to allow a spark to form inside an oxygen-rich capsule, hot enough to prevent it from opening.
You only need a tiny O-ring that has been exposed to cold too long to prevent it from expanding properly and allow superheated gas to blow through and burn the Challenger.
You only need a few coins, placed on a train track to keep a train from braking.
It's not really that insane, one can only imagine so many things to go wrong. 👍
Counterfeit parts.
The taink that ruptured was over filled due to bad weight and balance numbers
It's the Americans again it was their crappy plane that the bit fell of. Also they were pathetic enough to ban SST's because we beat them to it. Funny how while developing their SST there was no noise concerns
@Ashley Ward It wasn’t the fault of “the Americans”, rather the fault of the airport that failed to clean it up. Accidents happens and this was preventable. Take your prejudice elsewhere.
I have both a Concorde and a Tu144 relatively closeby at a museum. They are propped up on the roof in takeof/landing position and configuration, and you can actually go inside. I was absolutely fascinated by them as a kid and I am still to this day, I built models of both and tons of photos :D
Edit: The Tu144 showm from behind in the 'on display' section is the one I mean!
Technik Museum Sinsheim? I want to go there SO bad. Too bad I live in California lol
(I would also make a pitstop at Europa Park and Phantasialand!)
@@triple7marc that's the one :D I'd love to visit the Smithsonian National Air and Space museum at some point :D but Sinsheim and Speyer are pretty cool as well
As always. Interesting and informative. Thanks for sharing. Great channel
@@triple7marc I've been there. It's just as good as you think it is!
@@IbakonFerba I'm fortunate enough to have a girlfriend who lives very close to both towns. So I definitely want to go back to Sinsheim and to Speyer for the first time.
That museum was amazing!
I remember when a Concorde landed at my local airport for a celebration. Tens of thousands of people showed up!
The one thing I remember most, was the incredible noise the Concorde made.
Wonderful video! Concorde was finished off by economics, lack of engine efficiency, fuel costs, skyrocketing maintenance costs, lack of trained pilots, etc. as you pointed out.
She was from a unique, heady era in aviation - and she was absolutely the most beautiful bird EVER!
I live under what used to be the flight path of BA Concorde. I still remember the sonic boom of it breaking the sound barrier as it left British airspace. Very sad day for the country when it stopped flying.
Such a graceful bird it was. Thanks for the reminiscence!
Bro how
@@shelty3178 they use his patreon
@@chickenman6 ah ok
How the fuck did you comment a day ago when the video came out a minute ago?
@@chickenman6 And thank goodness for that, it really stops the three people who always comment "First" on ever video in their tracks.
18:10 During the 90s I remember this happening, a Concorde was chartered to follow a major solar eclipse, can't recall the exact year but was on the news how it flew through the eclipse totality path.
Price per ticket was insane, and I think the plane was full.
Great video Jake! Love learning about the Concorde, it was such a cool engineering marvel that we won’t be able to experience. Amazing content as always, thanks for posting!
Thanks for watching!
@@BrightSunFilms Legitimate safety concerns still continue. Perhaps awe & excitement overtook that in the video? Like how tech scams dupe people with the promise of flawed/fraudulent ideas.
This one has touched my heart personally, i used to listen to them test the Concorde engines daily at 4 in the afternoon ! there is one final Concorde sat in Bristol UK that is now a museum piece my grandfather took the final flight i remember the day well.
she was graceful yet so wonderfully loud and so very unique.
thankyou for sharing x
Amazing as always, Jake. The Concorde was a true icon that the world was simply not ready for at the time.
If anything, it came late? Wich is not possible because technology...
The world will never be "ready" for the effects of sonic boom, concorde lost its value because of regulations, and its not really bad (altho sad) it went when it did.
Nowadays its not even allowed to fly supersonic above deserts outside of ranges and combat situations, and that is why outside a very limited, over water use, we will never see another supersonic transport.
And that is quite sad if you ask me...
@@Juanxlink Exactly, I'd say the 70s & 80s were precisely when the Concorde should've been popular, in an era of excess (though that's had a 'revival', unfortunately, in a different form)
They were always going to be a problem, for humans and nature.
It’s just “Concorde.” You don’t need “The.”
I know someone who is an avid plane spotter and has worked in this industry for a number of decades.. His single flight on this plane was of course an incredible experience. He explained to me that after the fuel tank puncture incident, their solution was to line each individual fuel tank inside both wings with kevlar sheets. According to howstuffworks, there are 17, though I was quoted a higher amount. Anyway, it was not deemed viable for technical reasons to take the tanks out of the wings to do this upgrade work, so they rolled the sheets up and threaded them individually through the fuel lines closest to the tanks and positioned them in such a way they would open and line the tanks as they unravelled in their designated place - it was not explained to me how they stayed put once inside. After completing this upgrade work on the first concorde, they soon realised that because every single concorde was built by hand, and as a result, the majority of the parts on the plane were not interchangeable, this included the fuel tanks. This meant they had to draw up unique kevlar sheets made to fit all 17 fuel tanks that were of different size and shape, and there were 14 commercial concorde planes in total. This took a great deal of time and money. Another fact I was told that I personally found interesting was the variable air intake system designed only for concorde and its engines, which to this day remains a top secret. The british government would seize each individual plane upon arrival and unloading of its passengers, direct the plane to a hanger, and a team of concorde engineers would dismantle the proprietary variable air intake, store it securely and cover the entire plane up in a large sheet. This would all be reversed and put right again when the plane was then needed for its next flight.
I was lucky enough to fly on it when they had a special offer after the reintroduction to service following the Air France crash. The speed at takeoff and the curve of the earth at 60,000 feet are the two things I’ll never forget. A huge waste of money, but I’m so glad I did it……interesting that the move to bigger aircraft hasn’t worked out so well for the A380.
The A380's issue is that it was too big. Most airports cannot handle a plane as large as it, hence why it is almost retiring now.
This aircraft was a bucket list item for me when I was young...I was born when this thing was next level and flying regularly...ironically the museum I saw it at has it "next level" to the soviet equivalent. Great content mate! Cheers from Canada!
He’s Canadian too!
Damn, never expected you to do Concorde man, but here we are. Such an incredible plane to grace our skies, thanks for doing a video on her!
I remember hearing and seeing a concord plane at JFK in the 90's my dad worked near the airport, its sound was amazing, I'll never forget it
9:04 despite being the sole operators, Singapore Airlines flew one Concorde (with its left side paint only) under a joint venture with BA, and some Air France and BA Concordes were operated with Braniff International crew in some US routes. Both were short-lived however
The timing of this video is so ironic. Just last week I went to a guided tour of the Concorde near the Manchester Airport. They allowed me to sit in the captain’s chair and in the passenger’s seats. The guides even demonstrated the drooping nose. The first time I laid eyes on her in the hangar my jaw literally dropped! It was an incredible experience. I would recommend this tour to any Concorde enthusiasts!
When I go to the UK I will.
I live about 15mins from Manny Airport. Been to the concorde a lot. Remember vividly sitting on the multistory carpark with my dad in the 80s to see concorde land a few times. Sounded amazing
They have a Concorde at Manchester Airport? I'm seeing that for sure when I visit Manchester next Summer. Thanks for the heads up!
@@claytonbouldin9381 It's actually at the Runway Visitor Park, which is like a few miles from the airport proper. The VIP tour I went on had a several very knowledgeable tour guides. You sit down in one of the Concorde's seats whilst the guide gives a very informative and detailed history of the Concorde. You then get taken to cockpit, where another guide gives a condensed explanation of all of the analogue dials/equipment, and then the tour concludes by being served champagne whilst given a live demonstration of the droop nose in action. Totally worth it. I'm not usually into guided tours/presentations, but this was well done, the guides were super-knowledgeable, and you have the very unique experience of getting up close and personal with the Concorde.
That's not ironic(even with the way it's currently misused, including by me), it's coincidental.
Man, I'd love to fly on one... I remember being amazed by it as a child, and the sadness of the disaster of Flight 4590. Nothing will really capture its wonder ever again (even if a new Supersonic comes around).
There's a concord in a museum near me. Out of all the planes there, it's the one I spend the most time just staring at. I'm not even all that into vehicles
For aviation geeks/enthusiasts Pan Am & TWA considered ordering Concorde but cancelled due to cost & laws regarding Sonic travel (other factors involved).
Another factor for the failure of the Concorde was that it complicated airline logistics. The Concorde was always in the shop- but since the whole pull was being on the Concorde, they couldn’t rebook passengers if there was a maintenance issue. This meant there had to be a BACKUP Concorde to every main Concorde, just in case
Really an outstanding accomplishment that became too expensive to operate due to many of the planned routes being banned. So much went into it that is quite understandable that they tried to go forward anyway and it would catch on more. Possibly even that the routes would eventually open up. Concord actually had rubber from a tire blowing out on it's own previously penetrate and fly up through the fuel tank previously. A passenger saw this and even pointed out the jagged hole with fuel coming out. A stewardess actually said the person (pilot himself) was mistaken that was the flaps, which Concord does not even have btw. Nor would a flap look like a jagged hole with fuel coming out. The man actually had to argue until the stewardess would even inform the pilots. The first officer took one look and instantly declared an emergency landing. They redesigned the tires and added guards around them. The tires blew out somewhat often under the massive strain of it's high takeoff and landing speeds. They also recommended kevlar pads around the fuel tanks and a few other things just to prevent what happened. Here the tanks were so full instead of penetrating it caused a shock to transmit up which rebounded and blew out the bottom this time. They had expected to be burning off more fuel waiting for take off. France dismissed any culpability as inconsequential. Including a missing piece on the landing gear and uneven fuel load which caused it to do be drifting left and take off past the normal point. Had this not occurred the debris would not have even been struck. Concord was fitted with all the previous recommendations including the kevlar protection they had claimed un-necessary years earlier.
I loved Concorde. I remember travelling to Heathrow several times just to watch her take off. There was a nice vantage point on the roof of the old Terminal 2 building where people could go to view take offs (pre 9/11 obviously). Although I never had the chance to have a flight on one, I was able to visit, and board a couple where they are on static display. One at Duxford, where there's a pre-production aircraft, and then in Filton still wearing BA livery.
In the 70's 80', 90's... I still remember the noise of that bugger flying over my home in London
8:23 I love the comic book style illustrations of ‘Boom’ in their impact study.
Great video! I remember seeing the news announcing the Concorde’s last flight. After how much exposure it used to get I didn’t realize it had still been in service. Now I know why.
Funny that you mentioned Boom... A while ago I read about how their engine deal fell through and it began to sound more and more like vaporware. Maybe in the future you'll make an episode of Cancelled for their SST?
I'm also always very wary of companies that use tacky trend-chasing brand names like 'Boom'(which also plainly advertizes their inherent flaw), especially for something so sophisticated and safety-oriented.
@@DoubleMonoLR I'm very skeptical about BOOM to be honest. Despite having large orders, I'm not sure if it would really be a success for the long term, due to economics. I think some airlines will order it for exclusivity, and only be deployed on routes that are in high demand year round, such as JFK-LHR-JFK
@@davinajodhasingh What’s really stopping the company is the fact that no engine manufacturer is willing to make engines for them on a production scale. With The Big Three (Rolls-Royce, General Electric, and Pratt & Whitney) along with smaller ones like CFM and Safran declining to make such an engine for the company. But to me the most worrying sign is that recently after a couple of years of being somewhat quiet their smaller test plane XB-1 started to gain momentum and it’s engines were being fired up with a test flight set to September of this year. That test flight has yet to happen and they’ve been really silent ever since.
@@davinajodhasingh Why so skeptical? You can't just get orders and funding for a product that doesn't really exist. Client companies and investors are smarter than that. You just have to deliver on your promises like Nikola and Thanos did. Oh, wait....
While I know Boom has take up the mantel of trying to bring SST back into the mainstream, I could be curious to see what an updated design of Boeing's 2707 or Aerospatriale/BAC's Concorde Mk 2 would look like. All of the advances in engine design & efficiency, aerodynamics, and composite materials could make for designs that make the trans-Pacific routes shorter and more profitable, as well as quieter on transcontinental routes across the US, Europe, Eurasia, Asia, and Africa.
I think one of the biggest oversights of the Concorde program was the fact that refit for future technology, which is common it today's fleet of commercial airlines, was not included. Although, I believe this design principle was only added in the decades after Concorde's design and the subsequent building of the 20 aircraft. While it would be hard to imagine a modern Concorde with all glass instruments and digital gauges, the analog nature of the aircraft and its aging systems played heavily into its demise as you pointed out.
You know that last scene in The Parent Trap where Hallie’s dad uses Concorde to get to London before Elizabeth? As a kid I was always like “well if it’s so much faster, why doesn’t everyone just use Concorde?”
…I can see why now.
It was a popular 90’s romance movie gimmick. This was also used in the movie Sabrina when Harrison fords character beat his lover from New York to Paris. Oh the 90’s….
When I was about 7 my parents took me to the airport because a Concorde was flying in. I didn't really understand the big deal about seeing an airplane, probably because I was 7 and we lived by the airport, but we did get to go up to the Concorde on the runway.
My dad tells me stories sometimes about going on the concorde with his dad. They could go to Europe so easily and it seemed so cool.
Had an opportunity to see and line-up for an onboard tour when it visited my local airport circa 1992ish... I was both in awe of it and in shock at how small and cramped it was inside!
Hearing stories told by my mom of the Concorde and its sonic booms over London always made me wish i had been born earlier enough to have been able to witness the same, and every time i go over the Concorde story the feeling intensifies. But knowing the shortfalls of the plane and where the world was soon heading in a way makes me glad the Concorde was the last supersonic airliner to grace our skies.
The sonic boom did not happen over London or any populated areas. It only happened when the aircraft went supersonic over the sea.
That would have been very cool to experience. Many airports have regulations where the planes actually take off at a lower throttle than ideal purely for noise reasons. They must be a certain height and distance before throttling up. While "safe" it also gives less of a safety margin were an emergency, turbulence etc.. to occur. While you can feel for people who chose to live near airports it is rather an oddity that a few decibel takes priority over increased safety.
What a legendary aircraft. The snoot will always droop in the hearts of its creators.
She arrived with a bang and left a boom in my heart.
There are so many other videos on youtube about the Concorde but your way of telling the story is always so unique and fun to listen to! I think the Concorde was ahead of its time, many destinations now exist that could support a supersonic airliner that did not exist even when Concorde ended service but that's just how history plays out.
In 1985 Willy Theisen owner of Godfathers pizza chain in Omaha Ne chartered one for his birthday. He invited several guests to fly with him to Paris to celebrate with him. At the time my family lived about a mile away (as the crows fly) from the airport. The sound it made when it took off was incredible. There is a newspaper article about it.
Oh no freakin way. I just got a job at an aerospace company and now Jake makes a video about aerospace. LET'S GO! I spend so long reading this article on Wikipedia.
As a small kid we took the concord from dc to london. Sadly i was too young to remember. This would have been the early 80s and only stories and a few pictures existed. I remember my dad showing me a signed picture of telly savalas because we sat behind him. No idea how we were able to afford it :)
Loved watching this video. I saw one of the British Airways Concordes on display in New York. We didn't go inside but I have pictures of me and my family by the wheels.
The day of the Live Aid concerts Phil Collins played in London, took a Concorde across the Atlantic and performed in Philadelphia as well
As a child, i was obsessed with this plane. Everything about it, from the swooping down nose to how fast it was. Thank you for this video:)
Based on data presented in this video, I calculated that the Concorde burned approximately 20,000 more liters of jet fuel than the Boeing 767 flying the same distance between New York City and London. That’s an astonishing difference in fuel consumption.
16:42 "...and will likely need hundreds if not billions of dollars..." Yep, that's probably right. :)
Joking aside, great video as always! This channel never fails to deliver quality content. Thanks!
I'm pretty sure I saw one at the end of the 1970s, but can't remember exactly where because I am an old fart and my memory is crap. It was elegant and beautiful and it was a thrill to see it.
Curious postscript to the tu144 story is that one of them was re-engined in the 1990s and was flown by NASA pilots as a flying laboratory.
My primary school in the mid 90s to 2003 was right under the flight path of concorde taking off from Heathrow. 11am, every morning, it roared overhead. A beautiful aircraft.
Such a cool aircraft, I hope an SST can be built again for the consumer market, would be awesome to fly on one.
As a school kid growing up, you would hear the roar of Concorde as it took off from London. I never got to fly on it, but I have memories of going to see it at the airport. My dad once got my a leftover folder from the aircraft that they gave passengers which had the menu, header paper and information sheet.
Great video, Jake. I saw Concorde for real in a flight museum recently - it is still such a *beautiful* plane. Only wish I got the chance to fly on it…
I’m so jealous, I want to see one in real life now!
At the Boeing museum? I saw it there, it was very claustrophobic.
Had a chat with the guy who flew the first flight after the grounding, every new radio frequency they checked into was full of excitement, with people realising Concorde was back flying
Certain channels get a like just for posting a video. Bright Sun Films is at the top of that list.
Thank you so much!
Me: A Concorde fan (and English aviation history fan in general).
Bright Sun Films: Drops a Concorde mixtape.
_"Oh Hell yes."_
Barbados-being a British Island-, had regular Concorde flights from England in the winter months. Her first flight to Barbados was in November of 1977, to return Queen Elizabeth to Great Britain after her tour of the Caribbean. Her final flight to Barbados was on November 17th 2003, into Grantley Adams International Airport, where she remains today. The Barbados Concorde Experience is a wonderful interactive , up close, glimpse into this beautiful plane. You can actually board her, sit in the seats, see the china they used to serve the passengers and check out the cockpit. I am not sure if it has reopened after Covid. Thought you'd be interested in this fun fact Jake. Wheels up from London, Ontario.
Almost certainly also because the whole flight was over the sea.
One of my favorite channels doing aviation content? HELL YES!!!!!!
I used to be able to see the Concorde from my living room window coming in for landings. Really a beautiful plane to see it in the sky. Now I live even closer to the airport & grateful I don't have to hear sonic booms
One of the few creations of man I truly call perfect. And sadly could never live long for man to truly appreciate her fully.
I’ve been obsessed with this jet since I was like 2 years old (I’m now 17). Amazing piece of work guys. Thank you
Thank you!
And it was all designed with calculators and slide rules. Those guys are legends.
Nice Job Jake, as always!!!! Thanks for sharing!!
Thanks for watching!
Absolutely fantastic documentary! (Did I expect any less from Bright Sun and Jake?). I have been a fan, devotee and all around crazy about the SST since it started when I was a kid. Keep up the great work Jake! 😁
Thanks!!!
I flew on the last Concorde from New York to London - fantastic flight (if somewhat noisy) I still have the safety cards lol
Thanks to you &You tube, this plane will be remembered forever!
It was a technological and design masterpiece - one of the most beautiful moving objects ever created. It's still crazy to think our grandparents crossed the Atlantic faster than we can do today...!
(Would have loved to see the Russian 'Concordski' at Heathrow)
I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS VIDEO
I’d do this in a heartbeat once deemed safe and reasonably priced. I hate long flights!
I never had the privilege of flying on Concorde, but I used to live in London and I saw them take off and land. They were noisy af! Now once in a while you look up and gawk and it's amazingly cool, but Heathrow is exceedingly busy, a plane every minute or so. I wouldn't want concorde all day, every day! I can see why residents of cities like London and New York would be reticent! They could probably have ironed that out with later iterations I guess... But I imagine 7 hours across the Atlantic was bloody amazing in the 60s considering it took days on a liner just 20 years earlier.
3:20 in fact Tu-144 had more sophisticated story than most of us know. At first, initial 1968 Tu-144 (68001) had to be completely redesigned to become a Tu-144S. In fact it was an all new design with different wing shape, retractable canards, revised engine nacelles and even new landing gear. It actually had an excellent aerodynamic performance (even better than Concorde), but its engines were terrible. It can sound strange, but turbojets are better choice than turbofans for supercruise. So the 3rd iteration was launched (Tu-144D) with all-new turbojets. But there were some development problems and even prototype fatal crash. So this project was finally cancelled in 1980s. But one of them (77115) made some research flights in 1990s as part of a joint research program with NASA. So this story really deserves its own video.
Man Concord is so cool. They have one in Duxford IWM that you can go inside. Its one they build for testing
2:17 that looks like a flying lobster😂
Thanks for calling it the triple-7 like we do in the industry. 👍🏻
Something important to note with Boom IS Rolls Royce, their engine supplier, pulled out earlier this year. Leaving them in uncertain waters
Video: In ancient times, Krakatoa erupted and wiped out civilisations
Jake: And that is why the sponsor of this video...
There’s a Concorde on display next to one of the runways at Heathrow Airport. Everytime I land in London I see it.
I recently went through Heathrow and could see it from the window. Pretty much the only enjoyable thing I saw there (it was a layover and my family and I STILL had to go through security, which was worse than usual).
Great documentary! Enjoyed learning something new
Glad you enjoyed it!
The concorde that had the fatal crash actually was the second of two Concordes chartered by a German cruise-company to get passengers to NYC to board a cruise ship. When the second plane didn't arrive the passengers of No 1 were taken on a makeshift sightseeing-tour, largely suspected as means to keep them occupied and away from TVs. They didn't find out what had happened until much later in the day. There are interviews with some people who traded places back and forth between the planes and it's kinda gutwrenching seeing them still struggling to grasp how close they came to dying.
A friend of my German in-laws died on the Concorde, and neither of them have flown since.
I lived in NY and I remember people were complaining about the noise Concorde made. I loved watching it fly over. At the frontiers of flight museum in Dallas they have some Concorde items on display due to their connections with Braniff airlines
I saw one when it went to NZ, and visited another at Brooklands. So many interesting facts and stories about Concorde.
Yeah, one lost part of it's rudder on the way to here in NZ...
Best youtube channel
16:30 Ah yep, I was waiting for this to come up. As much as I admire Boom's optimism, I seriously doubt their plane will ever get past the prototype stage, assuming it ever even leaves the drawing board. There is virtually zero chance that they'll be able to get past the FAA's sonic boom regulation, not just because of bureaucratic hurdles but simply because there's only so much that can be done to mitigate the noise, and I doubt that the prestige of an SST is going to be enough to overcome public backlash on that basis alone. Plus this isn't even getting in to the reality that to this point they've been funded entirely by venture capital and a handful of government grants, and have no path to sustaining themselves without a production model to sell to the airlines, who are also not always known for keeping even firm orders if operating costs increase or delivery timelines slip. I'm very skeptical that they'll be able to secure funding to build a full-scale prototype at this point, and even if they do, 2029 doesn't seem like a realistic timeline if they manage to defy gravity long enough to actually build it. Right now a handful of airlines are happy to use it for marketing, but as soon as they start getting the bills and are still possibly years away from delivery (from a company that has never built production aircraft, using a lot of new tech that is as yet unproven and has not demonstrated financial viability), I think it's gonna be a much harder sell to make.
Will first off, United Airlines is already backing BOOM. Second, BOOM is testing configurations that have little to no sonic boom at all while flying above the speed of sound. This technology is also being successfully tested by our own military. Many of the things we enjoy today like GPS, and the internet was all given to us by you guessed it, the military. So if they are already moving forward with quiet super sonic travel, then we can expect to see it in civilian fashion soon. Which BOOM is taking full advantage of.
If you told me this a couple of years ago I would agree but they have everything ready to go for their prototype XB-1 and all they have to do is give it a test flight to give it the momentum it needs for the Overture. As for the Overture the biggest and most crucial worrying sign is that despite everything else seems to be fine and framework is already signed off, there is no engine manufacturer willing to produce such engines for them.
@@mikehunter1483 Remember: GM backed Nikola and CVS backed Thanos, too...
My uncle used to work for BA at Heathrow as a test/repair engineer and did a lot of work on Concorde. I had the wonderful oppertunity to sit in the pilot seat of Concorde as a child in the 80's.
Supersonic aircraft don't really have any uses outside military. Terrible fuel consumption, expensive parts, maintenance and other cons make them bad idea from the start.
this is a wondrous video essay.., I had always heard of the Concorde but to see the actual brief history is cool
I watched Seconds From Disaster on the History Channel RELIGIOUSLY and I know for a fact that the Concorde accident was caused by a piece of metal that a previous plane had left on the path of that take off 👏🏼
The Concord was also one of the only aircraft that could displace a line up of aircraft waiting in the pattern to land.
It was priority #1 for landing. Though in an emergancy it could go several hundred miles to another airport to land. However, this was rarely done becuase of cost.
The British have always been incredibly good at engineering.
This was a collaboration project between Britain and France
@@fernandorodriguez876 his point still stands
@@Constabruity meh
Love aircraft and love seeing these aviation videos. The have a few in Scotland and England that I have stood in, an amazing aircraft and one I wish I had the chance to fly in.
One thing that a air carrier learns. No debris on the runway.
Fortunate enough to have stepped foot on Concorde both an ex service airframe and also the mule which is at the RNAS Yeovilton Fleet Air Arm Museum. Only my Great Aunt in my family actually flew on it.
Amazing feat of engineering.
Its a real shame that we live in the 21st century and don’t get to fly around in these anymore. I am jealous!
It isn't like average people could ever afford to fly on the Concorde. Tickets were incredibly expensive.
Haven't heard from you for ages Jake. Missed your eloquent voice, great to hear you again.