The Concorde Story: Supersonic Passenger Airplane Now Buried in a Museum

When Major Charles E. Yeager of the U.S. Air Force landed safely after completing the world's first-ever successful supersonic flight, he created a butterfly effect that would change the face of aerospace engineering forever.

Soon afterward, there was a war among aerospace giants. All of them were trying to achieve one goal only: to make a supersonic jet that could carry passengers while traveling at the speed of sound.

But eventually, the only fruitful result came from the collaboration between Aérospatiale, British Aircraft Corporation, and Sud Aviation as they developed a mean machine called Concorde.

Now, those who know what a 'Concorde Passenger Airliner' was, they'll justify the statement that 'It was a machine way ahead of time and an engineering miracle for 1969.

Additionally, Concorde could fly at an altitude of 60,000 feet and touch unbelievable Mach 2, which is twice the speed of sound. In comparison, an Airbus A380 Can go up to a maximum altitude of 43,097 ft. while Boeing 747 touches a maximum of 35,105 ft only.

But wait! Why aren't we seeing any Concordes flying today? Well! Concorde stopped its operations and retired back in 2003, after 27 years of its continued service.

There was not one but not many significant reasons why such a calamity happened. But the major share of responsibility is shouldered by the crash of Air France 4950, after which things changed for Concorde.

Let's look at why Concorde stopped its operations and the real reason behind it.

Soaring Fuel Costs Became The Ultimate Bottleneck

A Concorde carries 26,286 gallons of Jet A-1 fuel, out of which about 2,000 Gallons were just being used as Taxi fuel. While in comparison, the average taxi fuel consumption recorded in passenger aircrafts such as Boeing 747 is around 1000 Gallons and lower. For those unaware, the taxi fuel is used by an aircraft to get airborne before taking off.

All this does not make a big difference until we include the passenger capacity of both airliners in the equation. While Boeing 747 can have a passenger capacity of anywhere between 416-524 passengers, the Concorde could only carry 109 passengers at its maximum capacity.

This tells us about two critical red flags in the operational strategy of Concorde. The first is that they have a high fuel usage, and the average fuel cost per passenger will be 05 times higher than a commercial passenger airliner. Ultimately, making Concorde a fuel hogging machine that can only generate profits or even marginal costs of operation with a ticket price that is only affordable by those who never check their bills.

Moreover, fuel prices fit in the equation as a variable factor due to price fluctuations. This is a cause of worry for the operational team. They were already overcharging compared to the market price, and there's very little room left for making any modifications to the ticket prices.

Concorde Was Not Made For The Ordinary

The people who would fly into a Concorde would have to pay around $9000-$12,000 for one single flight, which is a little over the top for a route that can be covered in about $800-$900 even in the current year, 2022.

The soaring fuel cost, maintenance fees, remuneration for highly skilled staff and more added to the high ticket price. It was fair pricing when we looked at the investment involved, but it was unsuitable for ordinary citizens.

Moreover, it only cut a seven-hour journey in half, and the ticket prices were ten times higher, which made it impossible for an average tax-paying citizen to even think about going on a Concorde.

The only plus side was that you get to boast around saying, 'Hey! Have you ever traveled at the speed of sound? Well! I did, and it was amazing.

Categorizing it as more of a novelty experience than something that could bring a paradigm shift in aviation space.

Flying at Mach 2 Involved Heavy Maintenance Cost

One could easily say that Concorde is a heavy maintenance machine, Which is something already presumable, right?

But the real problem began after several years of Concorde being operational. Generally, an airline changes their aircraft after several years of usage or at least gets them upgraded.

But on the contrary, Concorde was using such high technology standards that making an upgrade was almost next to impossible due to the cost involved. Ultimately throwing the question of replacing old Concordes with a new one out of bounds for good.

This is the reason behind using analogue panels inside the cockpits even during the 2000s when every other airline was using digital panels. Additionally, in the tenure of 27 years of supersonic aviation made possible, only 20 Concordes were produced, out of which 14 were operational.

Problems That Manufactures Didn't Even Account For

The Concorde can fly higher than an average passenger airliner and attain a maximum of 60,000 feet of altitude. This meant that it flew pretty closer to the ozone layer than any passenger plane. Moreover, due to having more power, it generated more waste and harmful gasses. Ultimately, the scientist called upon it, saying that their chances are highly likely that Concorde catastrophically destroys the earth's ozone layer.

When it crosses a habituated area such as a city or a town, you can easily hear it coming from 50 miles apart. This is due to the Sonic Boom produced by Concorde when flying at speeds such as Mach 1 and Mach 2.

While the inflight passengers would not hear more than just a swooshing sound, the inhabitants of the area over which the Concorde flew observed objects trembling, irritating sounds and more. It is rumored that the noise was so high that people complained of their ceramic utensils and glasses being broken by that.

It might be an engineering marvel in the aviation space, but it was causing environmental damages and creating problems for humankind in some way or the other.

Crash Of Air France Flight 4590

In Concorde's 27 years of operation, there was not a single fatal incident recorded for the ultimate flying machine except for the crash of Air France Flight 4590 on July 25, 2000. Which was the tipping point for Concorde's legacy and led to its demise.

One of the reasons why Flight 4590 lost control on the runway was a missing component called 'Spacer' that holds the wheel from wobbling during takeoff.

When Flight 4590 was making a run for the takeoff, one of the tires got burst by coming in contact with a metal piece that fell off from a passenger aircraft passing the runway a couple of minutes before Flight 4590. Due to the short time gap, there was no time for the staff to clear the tracks.

Coming in contact with the metal piece, the tyre got scrapped and hit one of the wing tanks of Concorde. Which ultimately caught fire and, in 120 minutes, the supersonic aircraft lost all balance and crashed into one of the nearby airport hotels.

This tragedy resulted in the demise of 113 people, including 109 passengers and four individuals from the vicinity of the hotel building.

After this incident, the operations for all the Concorde flights were paused till November 2001. Air France and British Airways did this to make necessary security modifications to all the Concordes. But even after making a comeback after almost 1.5 years, the supersonic airliner could not perceive the public to trust them enough with the flight.

Additionally, it went back into the market 01 months after the 09/11 attacks, which also accumulated to Concordes demise. During that time, the aviation industry was in a paradigm shift due to negative sentiments generated towards flying.

The Real Reason Behind The Failure of Concorde

Currently, you can find a Concorde sitting in one of British Airways and Air France museums. A machine capable of flying at Mach 2 is now being used as a medium of amusement and revival of history.

In a manner, the failure of Concorde pushed us back into an era that is likely less technically smarter than what we could have been.

Did you figure out where the real problem was?

Well! From the very start, Concorde had red flags waving all over it. The high ticket price, the difficulties in maintenance, and the soaring high fuel cost were all part of the problem.

But one thing which affected the Concorde Project the most was the lack of vision from an operational perspective.

The engineers thought of every detail when enhancing the design, soaking in external heat due to Mach 2 speeds, designing a tilting cockpit with a high angle of attack, and whatnot. But they forgot to take into account the feasibility of their targeted customers.

They were making a product for the ordinary folk, and there was nothing typical about Concorde. A passenger plane that neither the manufacturer could support nor the passenger could afford is a disaster from the very beginning.

Projects related to Super Sonic Travel were also deserted with the doom of Concorde.

Almost two decades of nearly nothing exciting in the aviation space followed, and now we're in 2022 with no signs of SuperSonic Travel coming back again.

Well! With that, let's move on to the most crucial question that we could ask ourselves.

What did we learn from the mistakes of Concorde? Or what values are we taking back from this case study which we could also apply to real-life scenarios? Tell us in the comments down below.