A Brief History
On May 31, 2003, Air France retired their Concorde supersonic jet airliners after a career that started in 1976. Air France had a fleet of seven of the fast jets, while British Airways also fielded a fleet of seven. An additional six of the so called SSTs were made for non-commercial users.
Digging Deeper
The first supersonic airliner, the Concorde was costly to operate and to fly on. The only competition ever created was the Russian Tu-144, jokingly called the “Concordski.” The Russian version of supersonic airliner lasted from 1975 to 1978, although cargo versions remained in service longer. Only 16 Tu-144s were built.
Other epic efforts to create the ultimate airliner include:
The giant Zeppelins, gas filled airships such as the infamous Hindenburg, that were slow but fell out of favor with highly publicized disasters.
The first effort to establish jet airliners was the De Havilland Comet, flying from 1949 to 1964, but only 114 were built and crashes ruined their reputation.
Question for students (and subscribers): Did you ever fly on a Concorde? Please let us know in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Bannister, Mike. Concorde: The thrilling account of history’s most extraordinary airliner. Penguin, 2022.
Hadaway, Nina. The Golden Age of Air Travel. Shire Publications, 2013.
The featured image in this article, a photograph by Alexander Jonsson, is licensed under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 only as published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.
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