The Concorde Story

The book I read to research this post was Concorde: The Inside Story by Brian Trubshaw which is an excellent book which I borrowed from the library. Brian was Chief Test Pilot when they were developing Concorde. Many people looking back on the development of Concorde think of it as a massive British and French achievement. At the time it was being developed most people saw it as an expensive dinosaur. Concorde was a joint development between BAC & the french company Aerospatiale which also included money from there governments. At an important time in its development Harold Wilson won a close run election & had to look for ways to save money & both he & the Aviation Minister Lord Jenkins wanted to drop the project but there was no get out clause so they had to continue with it. One of the most expensive parts of the project was the nose cone which straightens when flying to make it streamline & drops down when on the ground so the pilot can see the ground. The French just wanted a larger perspex window but BAC thought the view was not good enough.  Lord King of British Airways was a key player in getting Concorde built he agreed to provide service contracts to the Concordes that were supplied to his company which were very expensive & also helped talk Air France into doing the same. Only 16 production Concordes were ever built & actually the ones run by Air France & British Airways have surprisingly made a profit. The Russians built a plane similiar to Concorde, the TU144 which terrified onlookers at one air show when there were sparks due to the exhaust touching the ground at take off. Soon afterwards 2 of them crashed & the second crash was never totally explained although one theory is a camera dropped into the nose cone jamming the controls. Anyway sadly they stopped production of it.