Today marks the 13th anniversary since the last passenger flight from New York arrived in the UK. Every seat was filled, a feat that had become increasingly rare for a plane that was a technological marvel but a commercial flop….
- Only 20 aircraft were ever built despite 100 orders, most of them cancelled in the early 1970s.
- Taxiing to the runway consumed 2 tons of fuel.
- The white colour scheme was specified to reduce the outer temperature by about 10°C.
- In a promotional deal with Pepsi, F-BTSD was temporarily painted blue. Due to the change of colour, Air France were advised to remain at Mach 2 for no more than 20 minutes at a time.
- At supersonic speed the fuselage would heat up and expand by as much as 30cm. The most obvious manifestation of this was a gap that opened up on the flight deck between the flight engineer's console and the bulkhead. On some aircraft conducting a retiring supersonic flight, the flight engineers placed their caps in this expanded gap, permanently wedging the cap as it shrank again.
- At Concorde's altitude a breach of cabin integrity would result in a loss of pressure so severe that passengers would quickly suffer from hypoxia despite application of emergency oxygen. Concorde was thus built with smaller windows to reduce the rate of loss in such a breach.
- The high cruising altitude meant passengers received almost twice the amount of radiation as a conventional long-haul flight. To prevent excessive exposure, the flight deck comprised of a radiometer; if the radiation level became too high, pilots would descend below 45,000 feet.
- BA's service had a greater number of passengers who booked a flight and then failed to appear than any other aircraft in their fleet.
- Market research later in Concorde's life revealed that customers thought Concorde was more expensive than it actually was. Ticket prices were progressively raised to match these perceptions.
- The fastest transatlantic airliner flight was from New York JFK to London Heathrow on 7 February 1996 by British Airways' G-BOAD in 2 hours, 52 minutes, 59 seconds from takeoff to touchdown. It was aided by a 175 mph tailwind.
See also: A Rocket to Nowhere. Oil painting by Charles E. McHugh.