The STAC embraced not only government technologists, top men from engine and airframe companies and numerous officials, but also nominees from civil airlines. Nobody then could possibly foresee that opposition to such a project would assume the proportions of a national crusade, or that for political reasons the USA and many other countries would delay for years admitting such an aircraft to its airports or even permit it to fly overhead, and certainly the price of fuel was not expected to be multiplied tenfold. AD that could be seen clearly was that the technical problems were of an order of magnitude greater than those of other aircraft. Just one immutable problem was that, for any given amount of wing lift, the drag is more than doubled as the vehicle accelerates from Mach 0.9 to beyond Mach 1.

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It was obvious that a supersonic airliner would need a novel configuration, with a wing of very low aspect ratio and extremely long body of minimal cross section. The STAC studied three main answers. One was an area-ruled aircraft with a curious M-wing, initially swept forward and then back to the tips, cruising at Mach 1. 2 (1285 km/h/800 mph) for 2414km (1,500 miles). Second was a slender delta, very much like the eventual Concorde, but cruising at Mach 1.8 (1930 km1M.200 mph) for 5635km (3,500 miles). Third was a steel titanium monster cruising at Mach 3 (3220 km/h/2,000 mph) for 563Skm (3,500 miles). The third idea was deemed technically too difficult and costly, though for a further 14 years it consumed over $2,000 million in the USA. In March 1959 the STAC recommended Mach 1.2 short-range or Mach 1.8 transatlantic, and the Ministry of Aviation awarded contracts for detailed studies of the latter aircraft. By late 1960 it was clear not only that the slender delta, with an ogival (curved) leading edge, was the best shape but also that its aerodynamic efficiency improved up to about Mach 2.2. This not only reduced journey time but improved propulsion efficiency, because the latter depends on the ram pressure generated in the engine inlet and this rises rapidly with increasing Mach number.

By 1960 Bristol Aircraft, then in the process of merging into the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC), had schemed the Type 198, a 130-passenger transatlantic SST looking much like today's Concorde but powered by six Bristol Siddeley Olympus engines. In the summer of 1961 the Ministry decided a 172368-kg (380,000-1b) six engine aircraft was too ambitious, and asked for a 100-seater weighing 113400kg (250,0001b) with four engines. By this time SudAviation in France, likewise in the throes of becoming part of a giant group (SNIAS or A6rospatiale), had studied Mach 2 SSTs and decided on a very similar configuration but aimed at short ranges as a 70180-seat successor to the company's Caravelle. At the Paris Air Show in June 1961 Sud displayed a model of its idea, named Super Caravelle. Some months previously BAC had, on government insistence, put out feelers to possible foreign partners, and SudAviation was the only positive response. The first formal meetings were held during the Paris Air Show, and a month later at Weybridge.

The similarity between the British and French proposals was amazing; almost the only difference apart from size, weight and range was that Sud thought it could get away without using a hinged 'droop snoot' nose, while BAC considered such a feature essential for adequate forward view during the nose-high landing. After many further talks, an intergovernment agreement of 29 November 1962 formally launched the project, with government funding on a 50/50 basis and the main effort shared between BAC and Aérospatiale on the airframe and Bristol Siddeley (from 1966 Rolls-Royce) and SNECMA on propulsion, using as a basis an enlarged Olympus called the Olympus 593. The British partner was charged with developing a transatlantic version, while the French adhered to a short-haul model with a ventral stairway instead of fuel in the rear fuselage. A Committee of Directors was appointed to run the airframe, and another to manage the engine, and there were separate British and French government contracts to each national industrial group.

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Suffice it to say that such an arrangement will never be repeated, but it was made to work by the goodwill and towering stature of the main engineers involved. Sir George Edwards, who, when head of Vickers-Armstrongs (Aircraft) in 1958 had predicted the entire future course of events with extreme accuracy, was the architect of the whole project. Top designers at Bristol were Sir Archibald Russell and Dr Bill Strang, while leaders at A6rospatiale were Pierre Satre and Lucien Servanty. Collaboration extended down through the main airframe and engine teams to the hundreds of major suppliers of systems and equipment, much of which had to be specially designed to meet new requirements.

Gradually the French accepted the idea of a transatlantic SST, especially after a large meeting of possible airline customers had shown in 1963 that the feeling of the market was that the proposal was not bold enough. A powerful body of opinion held that the AngloFrench SST would be outmoded by the promised later American SST to carry some 250 passengers at Mach 3. It needed steady nerves to stick to the belief that 100 passengers at about Mach 2 was right. Named Concorde in 1963, the Anglo-French machine grew from 118843kg to 129730kg (262,0001b to 286,0001b), increasing the seating for full range from 90 to 100, but the engine team then redesigned the Olympus, as the Mk 593B, to give much greater power, and this allowed the Concorde to follow the pressures of the market and grow to 14874 kg (326,000 lb) with 118 seats. In early 1965 design was frozen, and construction of prototypes 001 and 002 began. In parallel a colossal research programme was funded, including a complete airframe thermal rig at Farnborough and the Handley Page H. P. 115 and BAC.221 research aircraft.

Though part of the agreement was that there should be an assembly line in both countries, producing odd-numbered aircraft at Toulouse St Martin and even-numbered at Filton (Bristol), there was no duplication in actual manufacture. Thus BAC was assigned the nose, tail and engine installations, and A6rospatiale the wings, centre fuselage and landing gears. France actually had about 60 per cent of the airframe because the UK had most of the engine, while systems were shared more or less evenly and included a number of items from the USA.

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Aerodynamically the design is that of a tailless ogival delta. The wing has continuous subtle curvatures, with strong conical camber giving pronounced leading-edge droop outboard, but the basic thickness is extremely low, only 3 per cent inboard and 2.15 per cent outboard of the engines. Wing sections were made at Bouguenais, Toulouse, St Nazaire and Marignane, and the section outboard of the engines was made by Dassault at Bourges. Flight control is by six elevons, two of them inboard of the engines, each driven by a Dowty Boulton Paul tandem jack in the 281.2-kg/cm 2 (4,000-1b/sqin) hydraulic system. One of the drawbacks is that at take-off and landing these surfaces cannot be used to increase wing camber and thus lift and drag, but the problem of trimming out the change in centre of pressure (the point through which the resultant lift force acts) was solved very neatly without causing any drag. Most of the 119695 litres (26,330 Imp gal) of fuel is housed in integral tanks in the thin wing and under the passenger floor, but by using extra tanks at the extreme front of the wing and in the tail of the fuselage, it was found possible to shift the centre of gravity of the aircraft to match the shift in the centre of pressure. During transonic acceleration the contents of the forward tanks are pumped into the rear trim tank and main tankage. At the end of supersonic cruise the contents of the rear trim tank are pumped forward into the front trim and main tanks.

Ruling structural material is an aluminium alloy developed in the UK as RR.58 and produced in France under the designation AU2GN. The engines, however, are almost entirely of ferrous alloys, titanium alloys, Waspalloy or high-nickel alloys, and they are fed by extremely large ducts leading from fully variable sharp-edged inlets with electric anti-icing, and with front and rear variable upper wall ramps and controllable doors in the underside through which air can be admitted or expelled. In the course of development the engine was further increased in power, given a new jetpipe combining afterburner, variable nozzle and reverser, and also vaporising combustors which eliminated visible smoke. The four-wheel main gears fold inward and have Dunlop carbon/carbon brakes, the first service application of such brakes in the world and indicative of the unprecedented severity of the rejected take-off of the fully loaded aircraft. There is no braking parachute or airbrake, and leading edges are fixed. Systems, however, are advanced and complex, though the high hydraulic pressure had been used on the Bristol Britannia. The system marking the biggest jump in complexity was undoubtedly the engine inlets, followed by environmental control, with the high cabin pressure-differential of 0. 75kg/CM2 (10.7]b/sqin) and the fuel used as a heat-sink.

By 1966 major pieces of structure were on thermal/fatigue test, the engine was running with its variable exhaust system and the main flight simulator was in use. Prototype 001 was rolled out at Toulouse on 11 December 1967, but it was the following August before it taxied and the first flight was delayed until 2 March 1969, the pilot being André Turcat. No. 002 flew in command of Brian Trubshaw from Filton a month later. Airline pilots first flew the prototypes in November 1969, and from the first there were no major problems connected with the aircraft. The problems stemmed from protesters, who considered any SST a menace to the environment (apparently on grounds mainly of noise), and from soaring increase in development cost, half of which was the result of the childishly low initial estimate, which made no allowance for the progressive increases in size and capability of the aircraft, and half the result of inflation, for which no allowance at all had been made.

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By 1971 the prototypes were making long overseas trips, and in December that year the first pre-production aircraft, with visibly different visor, longer forward fuselage and extended tail, made its first flight from Filton to the UK test base at Fairford. On 28 July 1972 British Airways signed with BAC for five aircraft and Air France signed with A6rospatiale for four. There had previously been options by Pan Am and purchase agreements by China, but these were never taken up. Prototype 001 was retired to a museum at Le Bourget in October 1973, two months before the first flight by the first production aircraft. By 1975 there was hardly a major city that had not been visited by at least one Concorde, and very intensive route proving was showing a remarkable reliability even at this early date. Scheduled services began on 21 January 1976, British Airways flying London-Bahrain with aircraft 206 and Air France flying Paris-Dakar Rio with 205. Services to Washington were begun by both airlines on 24 May 1976. Prototype 002 was retired to Yeovilton on 4 March 1976 and 01 to Duxford on 20 August 1977. Category III autoland was cleared in passenger operation on 1 September 1978.

Though passenger operations could not have been more successful, both in terms of passenger appeal and reliability (to the extent that in 1981 Concorde was the most punctual type in British Airways service according to the monthly report to the airline board, averaging 94 per cent), political troubles and rising fuel costs crippled global plans for using the aircraft properly and had by late 1982 reduced utilisation to an extremely low figure. A joint British Airways/Braniff service from Washington on to Dallas was suspended in June 1980, and the British Airways service to Singapore followed five months later. In April 1982 Air France discontinued services to Caracas and Rio, and by summer 1982 the only scheduled services were (British Airways) twice daily to New York and three times weekly to Washington, and (Air France) 11 times a week to New York, of which two continue to Washington and two to Mexico City. A small amount of additional flying is made up by charters to business companies and enthusiast groups.

Certainly the main traffic routes are transatlantic, and so far they have brought British Airways some 1,300,000 passengers and Air France about 795, 000, totalling just over two million. The aircraft has sustained reliability in excess of 93 per cent on sectors up to 644Okm (4,000 miles) in length, total service flight time being over 136,000 hours on more than 40,000 scheduled departures. Small changes, for example to the inlet lips and rudder trailing edge, have had a significant good effect on operating economics, but profitability remains marginal. Both airlines have announced they believe they are entering an era of Concorde profitability. Indeed British Airways has been looking at ways to increase Concorde operations, including running a cargo service in partnership with Federal Express, opening passenger service to Miami and a nonstop route to Lagos, Nigeria.

At the government level much has been done to reduce costs by trimming out the vast research and support effort, which would be needed only if there were to be a successor. British Minister for Industry Norman Lamont held formal discussions with French Transport Minister Charles Fiterman in May 1982 at which the entire project was reviewed, the decision having been taken earlier that to cancel the project would cost far more than it would save. Ways were studied to share the remaining burden more evenly, but though both British Aerospace and A6rospatiale have studied second-generation aircraft, with proven lift/drag ratio of 10 compared with seven for Concorde, and with much better engines - and the French partner has even exhibited an impressive model - there is little chance of any go-ahead. But this reflects only the current mood. In the longer term vehicles which effectively shrink the planet are surely bound to come.

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