My Ultimate Flight - Flying the Supersonic Concorde

I flew on the supersonic Concorde in 2003 from New York to London in just over 3 hours at twice the speed of sound. This video shares with you the ultimate flight of my life; on-board the supersonic Concorde.

Watch with a detail explanation of the Concorde cockpit's unique features plus a ride in the Concorde simulator. Several Concorde Pilots and cabin crew members spoke about their feelings about the Concorde.

Special thanks to Brooklands Museum in Surrey England for the permission to film. They open year-round for visitors to enjoy the Concorde experience: https://www.brooklandsmuseum.com/

Concorde Drone Footage by John Carter/J2 Production Services

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In this video, we pay homage to and celebrate the extraordinary service life of the supersonic Concorde jet whose inaugural flight occurred 50 years ago on 2nd March 1969. Re-live the extraordinary and exciting 50th anniversary celebrations held at the Brooklands Museum in Surrey, England, which houses the only Concorde simulator in the world, and see for yourself why this aeroplane will always be on another level compared to all others.

The Concorde jet was a miracle of engineering in many ways – a flight from London to New York could be completed in three and a half hours, allowing wealthy businessmen to, astonishingly, fly to New York for a meeting and return home the same day. The aeroplane’s top speed of just over twice the speed of sound – Mach 2.04 or 1,354 miles per hour – meant that time travel was no longer confined to the realms of science fiction; flights could take off in darkness in London in the evening and arrive in day-light in the early afternoon in New York the same day.

Even today the aeroplane looks extremely futuristic which is a testament to how far ahead of the curve Concorde was at the time. In this video, we take a look at the internal features of this aeroplane which made it unique, including its fighter jet like cockpit with analogue controls, smaller than average windows to protect against decompression and cooling and heat protection system to deliver the plane from the effects of friction with the air, magnified many times due to the plane’s supersonic speeds. We also see the famous drooping nose and accompanying visor of the Concorde jet, giving greatly enhanced landing and take-off visibility when down and supreme aerodynamic efficiency when raised.

The Concorde jet was developed jointly by Sud Aviation, now Aerospatiele and Airbus, and the British Aircraft Corporation, now BAE systems. Sadly, the production run of Concorde was much smaller than anticipated due to massive overruns in both time and budget – the original program cost of Concorde was estimated at £70 million but ended up being £1.3 billion. With so few planes, British Airways and Air France could never recoup the cost of the aeroplanes and so this was absorbed by the British and French governments respectively but their high ticket prices – a round-trip from London to New York typically cost $8,000 – still made Concorde highly profitable for the airlines, apparently ensuring that Concorde would race along the skies for the foreseeable future.

Unfortunately, the sonic boom of Concorde, was not welcome in populated areas and so Concorde was restricted to flights over the ocean. The fatal event for Concorde, however, came in July 2000 when Air France Flight 4590 crashed after take-off, en route to New York, before even leaving France, killing everyone on board. Subsequent reductions in ticket sales meant that the decision to retire Concorde was taken in April 2003 and attempts by Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic to purchase the British Airway’s Concorde fleet were not successful.

Sadly, fate cut short the service life of Concorde but she will always be remembered as the lightning bolt of the skies; able to go higher, faster and louder than any other commercial aeroplane. Her legacy survives in the likes of the Boeing 777, which make use of the electronic fly-by-wire acceleration systems that were first introduced in Concorde.