Concorde Concorde The Aérospatiale/BAC Concorde () is a British-French turbojet-powered supersonic passenger airliner that was operated from 1976 until 2003. It had a maximum speed over twice the speed of sound at Mach 2.04 ( at cruise altitude), with seating for 92 to 128 passengers. First flown in 1969, Concorde entered service in 1976 and continued flying for the next 27 years. It is one of only two supersonic transports to have been operated commercially; the other is the Soviet-built Tupolev Tu-144, which operated in passenger service from 1977 to 1978. Concorde was jointly developed and manufactured by Sud Aviation (later
Concorde aircraft histories Concorde aircraft histories Twenty Concorde aircraft were built, six for development and 14 for commercial service. These were All but two of these aircraft are preserved. The two prototype aircraft were used to expand the flight envelope of the aircraft as quickly as possible and prove that the design calculations for supersonic flight were correct. Both pre-production aircraft were used to further develop the design of the aircraft. Changes to design include different wing plan form, more fuel, different engine standard, different air intake systems etc. The production aircraft were different in many ways to the original aircraft necessitating re-examining