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BAC / Aerospatiale Concorde

Concorde
Top left: Concorde's flight deck (Reeve Photography)
Bottom left: Concorde arrives at Duxford August 1977 (IWM neg MH22884)
Main picture: Duxford's Concorde (Reeve Photography)

The turbojets developed to power the TSR-2 also powered one of Duxford's most popular exhibits, the British Aircraft Corporation / Aerospatiale Concorde.

Duxford's Concorde, number 101, was the third to be built for test purposes before the world's first supersonic airliner went into production. The French and British prototypes made their maiden flights in March and April 1969 and Concorde entered commercial service in January 1976 with British Airways and Air France. It  first flew in 1971 and carried 12 tons (12,209 kg) of test equipment for a five year period of test flying.

In this time all aspects of Concorde's structure and flight performance were measured with 209 flying hours at supersonic speed and 170 of these at twice the speed of sound. In 1974 this aircraft reached Mach 2.23 while making the fastest flight of any Concorde.


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