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 5° position to avoid the possibility of damage. The US Federal Aviation Administration had objected to the restrictive visibility of the visor used on the first two prototype Concordes, which had been designed before a suitable high-temperature window glass had become available, and thus requiring alteration before the FAA would permit Concorde to serve US airports. This led to the redesigned visor used on the production and the four pre-production aircraft (101, 102, 201, and 202). The nose window and visor glass, needed to endure temperatures in excess of at supersonic flight, were developed by Triplex. "Concorde 001" was modified