Concorde | |
---|---|
Type | Supersonic airliner |
National Origin | France and the United Kingdom |
Unit cost | £23 million |
Variants | none |
Manufacturer | BAC and Sud Aviation |
First flight | 2 March 1969 |
Introduced | 21 January 1976 |
Status | retired |
Launch customer | British Airways and Air France |
Primary users | British Airways and Air France |
Produced | 1965–1979 |
Number built | 20 |
The Concorde was a supersonic commercial airline jet. It flew at top speeds of 1330 mph, or 1 mile every 3 seconds, or Mach 2 - twice the speed of sound. The last Concorde flight was made on November 26, 2003 from London to Bristol, UK where that particular aircraft was built. It finished commercial operations a month earlier with a final flight from New York to London on 24 October 2003.
The plane was named Concorde (French for "concord," which means agreement or harmony) because it was developed as a cooperative project between the United Kingdom and France, specifically between the British Aircraft Corporation (now BAE) and Aerospatiale (now EADS).