Footage of first British Airways Concorde take-off and landing is truly mind-blowing
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Since its first flight in 1969, Concorde has captured public imagination.
It's difficult not to be impressed by the sheer power of the aircraft as it takes off, and the odd moment that the nose raises up from its drooped position to form the sleek line that cuts through the air.
It's a hugely impressive feat of engineering.
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An extraordinary video shows a test flight for a British Airways Concorde.
One camera positioned behind the taxiing plane shows the moment that the enormous Rolls-Royce engines roar into life, with a hot glow appearing in the guts of the engines as the plane begins to take off.
On the ground, Concorde sometimes looked rather odd, as its nose was designed to be lowered. This was to allow greater visibility for pilots as they took off, landed, and taxied the aircraft. It could then be raised up in flight to create a more streamlined shape.
The aircraft had a cruising speed of around 1350mph, meaning that it could fly from London to New York in around three and a half hours. On a subsonic flight, the same journey would take around eight hours, meaning Concorde could make the journey in less than half the time.
Pretty impressive, right?
Although it's the most well known supersonic passenger aircraft, Concorde is not the only one. With 1969 being the height of the Cold War, anything the West did the USSR also had to do and vice versa. So they designed and built the Tupolev Tu-144, however, the aircraft was ultimately withdrawn from service due to safety concerns.
As for Concorde, the high fuel usage made it an extremely inefficient and expensive aircraft for an airline to run. The aircraft used a similar amount of fuel as the Boeing 747, the Jumbo Jet.
However, Concorde only carried 100 passengers, while a 747 can carry 416 passengers. In business terms, this meant that tickets on Concorde had to be priced much higher to compensate for the excessive fuel costs per passenger, making it difficult to run Concorde at a profit.
Concorde's fate was sealed on 25 July 2000, on the now infamous Air France Flight 4590. The plane got into difficulty after one of the tires exploded on the runway, sending debris into the landing gear and rupturing a fuel tank.
Leaking fuel in the engine ignited, and the landing gear could not be withdrawn. The aircraft became impossible to control, and crashed into a hotel around two minutes after take off, killing all 109 people on board and four people on the ground.
It was the only fatal crash in the aircraft's operational history, and despite modifications, Concorde was withdrawn in 2003.
It's now been twenty years since the aircraft was withdrawn from service, but it seems that new supersonic airliners are now once again in development.
TimeOut reported that a new design called the 'Overture' could be in service as soon as 2029.
