10 ms·

The only photo of the Concorde flying at supersonic speed

177 points by alex_young 2y ago

hinkley 2y ago
Somewhere an SR-71 pilot is definitely rolling his eyes. Only publicity photo, surely.
- phire 2y ago
  The SR-71 might actually have a bit of a problem going slow enough. As far as I can tell, it was never certified for a mach 2 cruise, normally accelerating right through it.
  - hinkley 2y ago
    Distance and a telephoto lens can fix a lot of that. If you're kilometers away going twice as fast you have a lot more time to snap a pic, versus being 500 meters away. They used these for surveillance so I assume the motion compensation on these things was state-secret levels of good.
    - phire 2y ago
      The SR-71 can probably match speed. It's just that the performance tables in the manual (which has been released to the public) only go down to mach 2.2, so you are outside of the certified/documented regimen.
  - wiml 2y ago
    A good excuse to link this SR-71 yarn: https://www.thesr71blackbird.com/Aircraft/Stories/sr-71-blackbird-the-slowest-flyby https://www.thesr71blackbird.com/Aircraft/Stories/sr-71-blac...
- hammock 2y ago
  Most of our fighters can pull a sustained Mach 2
  - sidewndr46 2y ago
    "our" fighters? What military are you referring to?
- drpixie 2y ago
  Yup. There must have been any number of photos taken by chase planes during development.
  - themadturk 2y ago
    The question is, how many were taken at supersonic speed? What non-military aircraft could keep up with the Concorde at Mach-2? Only another Concorde.
    - drpixie 2y ago
      Concorde development was a (UK & France) national project. They would have had easy access to military aircraft. Aircraft like the Lightning might only just have been able to intercept but would easily have observed pre-arranged tests. I wasn't on the engineering team ;) but apparently they planned 4000 hours of test flights. https://web.archive.org/web/20150316210132/http://aviationweek.com/site-files/aviationweek.com/files/uploads/2015/02/1969-%20First%20Concorde%20Flight%20(2%20of%202).pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20150316210132/http://aviationwe... It's almost inconceivable that the test flights would not have been closely recorded, especially the significant ones including trans-sonic and supersonic ops. Despite the best design and air-tunnel work, you'd expect that things would go wrong and you really want to learn as much as possible from any incidents/events. Unfortunately, all this happened well before the internet age, and so records and images are not so easily found :(
zeristor 2y ago
I remember at school at lunch time we’d see a Concorde fly overhead, just sort of got used to it.
- rwmj 2y ago
  Concorde used to fly over our house (landing at Manchester airport, I think?), and it was something of an event for our household of plane geeks, but happened fairly regularly. These days I see Airbus A380s taking off and landing from Heathrow over the house almost daily and that never ceases to amaze me, mainly that humans built something so enormous that can actually fly.
  - loloquwowndueo 2y ago
    Remember the Hindenburg.
  - tetris11 2y ago
    Used to fly over ours too (Gatwick flight path?), and I always remember that sharp screaming sound. I still watch the planes when I'm in the garden, but it's not quite the same
- timthorn 2y ago
  It marked the end of playtime at our school. We were 30 miles west of Heathrow and as it went overhead, still climbing from takeoff, it would have interrupted lessons. It was usually pretty punctual, but every now and then we got an extended break.
  - Theodores 2y ago
    So there would be thirty or so in your class, another thirty in the class below and another thirty in the class above. I am sure you were a noisy bunch, particularly at playtime, much to the annoyance of other residents of the street. Now compare that annoyance level to that of the ninety or so special people on Concorde, or, more correctly, 'a' Concorde plane. You were thirty miles west of Heathrow, but I can remember being in South London and having to stop conversation for a few minutes for that stupid plane to screech overhead. Nowadays I learn that those were good times, to have that noise from miles away, making it impossible to hear the person next to me. Until Concorde was some tens of thousands of feet in the air, cruising sub-sonically, that stupid plane was ruining everyone's day. All for what, Tony Benn's ego, 'jobs' and being best buddies with the old enemy - the French. The need to be best buddies with the French was moot, after WW1 and WW2 it was clear that the UK and France were allies, at least in Europe. We were lucky that the USA were a bit passive-aggressive when it came to Concorde, people would have had that thing fly supersonic but it wasn't in the economic interests of Washington (DC and the state) to have that. Highlight of Concorde's career was Live Aid, bringing Phil Collins et al from the USA to Wembley so they could play both sides of the Atlantic, at the same event. I am sure that people that went on a 'jolly' on Concorde for that special anniversary had their money's worth and a time to remember, but most people on that plane were pointless wealthy people that lacked purpose. In the bigger scheme of things, not one single flight of that plane was really important, even if Joan Collins was aboard. Your playtime, somewhere near where The Office was filmed, was far more important, in the bigger scheme of things.
jstanley 2y ago
You can go and see a Concorde at Bristol Aerospace Museum[0], and walk inside it. There is an absolutely bewildering array of dials and switches exposed to the pilots[1]. And they have lots of other aviation stuff at the museum, it's not just Concorde. Other highlights include some very early planes, cut-away jet engines, and a cut-away section of a jumbo jet fuselage, so you can see the locations of pipes, tubes, cargo, etc. in relation to the seats. It is well worth a visit if you're nearby. [0] https://aerospacebristol.org/ https://aerospacebristol.org/ [1] https://i.redd.it/0vqv9qlx98m31.jpg https://i.redd.it/0vqv9qlx98m31.jpg
- pchristensen 2y ago
  There is also one at the Museum of Flight in Seattle - https://www.museumofflight.org/exhibits-and-events/aircraft/concorde https://www.museumofflight.org/exhibits-and-events/aircraft/... It looks like it would have been a very snug ride!
  - CalChris 2y ago
    Matterport tour. https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=uLQ9ZMRpPWY https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=uLQ9ZMRpPWY
  - Theodores 2y ago
    In period, it was not that snug. This was in an era when you could get a dozen people into town in a 2CV and the majority of adults smoked. People were a lot leaner then, and considerably shorter. In 1954, in the UK, the average male was 5'7" and 11 stone, 6 lbs, which equates to quite a high BMI of 25 (18.5 - 24.9 is healthy BMI). Nowadays there are very few men in the UK with that weight. Let's ignore women from this because women were second class citizens at the time. Men are on average 2 stone heavier. But average weight is just average, nowadays with 2/3 of UK adults overweight, there are far more people at the top end of the Bell Curve, at double the average weight people had on the 1950s. So half of today's population would not fit in the seats. When you look at old European or Japanese cars such as the MINI or old FIATs, bear this in mind. Those cars might not have ever been spacious, but, in period, they were not cramped. Similarly, Concorde was never spacious, but it was not a very snug ride until obesity got the better of us.
neilv 2y ago
Circa 2000, British Airways(?) did a competition for technical people/students, and the prize was... to get to fly on the Concorde. I remember thinking "big whoop", and didn't enter. Not knowing that the Concorde would soon never fly again.
walterbell 2y ago
Boom Supersonic (US) has a Mach 1 test flight in 2 days, https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/boom-supersonic-mach-one-speed-of-sound https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/boom-supersonic-mach-one-... Test flight livestream (Tue Jan 28 6:45AM PST/9:45AM EST/2:45PM GMT), https://boomsupersonic.com/flyby/xb-1-supersonic-test-flight-mission https://boomsupersonic.com/flyby/xb-1-supersonic-test-flight...
- esskay 2y ago
  It's going to be interesting to see where things go with this. I'm still struggling to see why their offering would have a different fate, if not worse. It's got a lower passenger capacity but still has the same cost issues that plagued Concorde. I guess the only difference really is they arent shy about making it clear its for business customers and not commercial airliners, and tickets will be expensive.
  - idlewords 2y ago
    The real product Boom hopes to offer is regulatory capture, so that restrictions on supersonic business jets can be lifted. Then the bizjet itself can sell as a luxury status symbol.
  - bragr 2y ago
    It is really going to come down to how much they can reduce the sonic boom. Supposedly their aircraft will produce more of a rumble like distant thunder rather than a bang. If its at a level that's agreeable to both regulators and the public, that would open up all the overland routes the Concord could never do. If they can combine that with higher production numbers with a corresponding drop in unit, operating, and maintenance costs, they _may_ have a valid business model. Looking at how many people rent (or own) business jets with five figure+ price tags per flight, I think there's definitely a market for premium tickets, especially if you can do say LAX to Heathrow in ~5 hours instead of 10.5 hours.
    - gosub100 2y ago
      I really hope this isn't the kind of innovation where the company breaks the law and asks for forgiveness later. Like "oh the sonic boom is only slightly louder than Concord but really it's just a bunch of first nations people in Canada who are impacted and we are super rich and our time is so precious please just ignore these marginalized people and we promise we'll throw them a few bucks"
whartung 2y ago
It should be noted you can see the curvature of the earth in the photo. As I understand it, that was one of the perks of the Concorde in that in flew so high that the passengers could see this as well.
- raldi 2y ago
  I thought I remembered reading someplace respectable that the apparent curvature of the earth as seen from the surface or planes is actually just perspective, and would look indiscernible on a flat planet (or a huge one). But I don’t have a citation to share. Maybe it’s only true at sea level.
  - loloquwowndueo 2y ago
    I wonder where you read that because it sounds like a very flat earther thing to say.
    - raldi 2y ago
      “Visual daytime observations show that the minimum altitude at which curvature of the horizon can be detected is at or slightly below 35,000 ft, …Photographs purporting to show the curvature of the Earth are always suspect because virtually all camera lenses project an image that suffers from barrel distortion” https://opg.optica.org/ao/abstract.cfm?uri=ao-47-34-H39 https://opg.optica.org/ao/abstract.cfm?uri=ao-47-34-H39 Another trick you can do: take this Concorde photo and use the rules of geometry to draw the rest of the circle, and look how small an Earth you’ve drawn.
      - saagarjha 2y ago
        Concorde flies higher than 35000 feet.
        raldi 2y ago
        Nonetheless, try the exercise I suggested with extending the curve all the way around into a circle.
toephu2 2y ago
It always saddens me that in the 1960s it took 7 hours to fly from NYC -> London, and today, 60 years later, it still takes 7 hours to fly from NYC -> London... Apart from fuel efficiency improvements, there hasn't been much innovation in the commercial commercial aerospace industry, with the exception of Boom's supersonic passenger airplanes which is just now starting to become a reality.
- BlandDuck 2y ago
  Look at the bright side, at least flights today are still as fast as 60 years ago. For trains, you would be hard pressed to find a route that is not significantly slower today than 60 years ago.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - idlewords 2y ago
    They are not; the 707 flew noticeably faster than modern airliners (525 knots cruise, compare to 485 knots for the Boeing 787).
    - WalterBright 2y ago
      The cruise speed is selected for maximum fuel efficiency. The airplanes can fly faster, and do under special circumstances. Your gas car's maximally efficient speed is about 35 mph.
      - idlewords 2y ago
        If you want to go by top speeds, for the 787 (entered service 2011) it's Mach 0.9, for the A-350 (2015) it's 0.89, while for the 707-120 (1958) it's Mach 0.91. The 747 (1970) can go Mach 0.94. Modern jets are built to fly slightly slower than early jetliners, both in normal operation and at top speed. The reason is fuel economy, but the difference is real.
nunez 2y ago
As much as I appreciate being able to fly for relatively cheap, I think we can all agree that deregulation and fuel costs absolutely destroyed this kind of innovation for commercial air travel. I wish I was old and well-off enough to take a flight on that majestic bird.
- happyopossum 2y ago
  > deregulation No, hard disagree here - regulation is a big part of what killed supersonic flight the first time around.
idlewords 2y ago
Here is a monster pilot forum thread on Concorde that ends up pulling in senior engineers, pilots, aerodynamicists and even a former flight attendant. They lovingly go over every detail of the plane's design and operation. WARNING, serious temporal hazard. Do not click if you have work to do today or are supervising small children. https://www.pprune.org/tech-log/423988-concorde-question.html https://www.pprune.org/tech-log/423988-concorde-question.htm...
- walterbell 2y ago
  Long live old-school forums!
- Fizzadar 2y ago
  Thank you for the lost hours :) Fascinating read.
- anothertroll456 2y ago
  That was amazing! Thank you. Wait, idlewords is still around??
- bragr 2y ago
  >serious temporal hazard Wow, you're not wrong. "I'll read just a little bit," I said. 2 hours later...
- dang 2y ago
  Discussed way back when (thank you!): Epic Forum Thread on Concorde (2010) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8277343 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8277343 - Sept 2014 (49 comments) We should have another HN thead about this once the Boom boom settles down.
  - idlewords 2y ago
    There's also that thread about the Belgian couple who drove across the Congo: https://forum.expeditionportal.com/threads/democratic-republic-of-congo-lubumbashi-to-kinshasa.50799/ https://forum.expeditionportal.com/threads/democratic-republ... I call these kinds of forum threads "afternoon destroyers". It would be fun to weaponize them into a whole organized link page.
Jedd 2y ago
I was fortunate to travel in one of these, back in 1996 - London to New York. (BA was offering some sweet deals to staff at partner airlines, at about 10% of retail pricing.) At the time there was no expectation that we'd regress, though had I been more generally aware I'd have noticed the lack of next-gen SST R&D during Concorde's operational lifetime. I recall they flew one out to Sydney Australia in the mid 1980's, but I think appetite was quite low, probably from both regulators and small market size -- despite the obvious appeal (it's about 24h flight time still in conventional commercial passenger jets, to get to the antipodes).
- donavanm 2y ago
  I believe Qantas will be offering Sydney to London direct on a newer A350 variant latter this year. Should be about 20hrs direct. Travel to europe is a bit of a pain in that layovers and scheduling can easily blow it out to 30+ hours today, especially if going to a secondary market in europe. It makes the ~14 hours overnight to the US west coast seem very reasonable in comparison.
  - Jedd 2y ago
    That route's been touted for a while - and having done the SYD-LHR trip quite a few times, I'm not 100% confident it'd be a significant QoL improvement (except for business travellers). Pricing will be interesting to watch, in any case. As you note, a lot of the time cost is incurred for the 'last mile' part of that trip, so apart from the (tourist / comfort) benefits of splitting flights of that length, I could see it being much less appealing for travellers bouncing through London to get elsewhere into the continent.
guenthert 2y ago
"Meanwhile, the Concorde continued its effortless cruise toward New York’s JFK Airport." i.e. it used only 4,800 US gallons per hour of fuel (a 747 burns around 3600 gallons/h). Not what I would label "effortless", but not nearly as bad as I expected.
Almondsetat 2y ago
Seems strange that's the only photo. They never made test flights in pairs to monitor each other? And during these tests they didn't take any photos?
- themadturk 2y ago
  Well, the only photo released to the public at least.
barrettondricka 2y ago
There is a story about Concorde chasing a solar eclipse for an hour. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Concorde_eclipse_flight https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Concorde_eclipse_flight
blks 2y ago
It says that it was fastest airliner with 2.05 Mach, but Tu-144 was faster with 2.15 Mach

177 points by alex_young 2y ago

hinkley 2y ago

Somewhere an SR-71 pilot is definitely rolling his eyes. Only publicity photo, surely.

phire 2y ago
The SR-71 might actually have a bit of a problem going slow enough. As far as I can tell, it was never certified for a mach 2 cruise, normally accelerating right through it.
- hinkley 2y ago
  Distance and a telephoto lens can fix a lot of that. If you're kilometers away going twice as fast you have a lot more time to snap a pic, versus being 500 meters away. They used these for surveillance so I assume the motion compensation on these things was state-secret levels of good.
  - phire 2y ago
    The SR-71 can probably match speed. It's just that the performance tables in the manual (which has been released to the public) only go down to mach 2.2, so you are outside of the certified/documented regimen.
- wiml 2y ago
  A good excuse to link this SR-71 yarn: https://www.thesr71blackbird.com/Aircraft/Stories/sr-71-blackbird-the-slowest-flyby https://www.thesr71blackbird.com/Aircraft/Stories/sr-71-blac...
hammock 2y ago
Most of our fighters can pull a sustained Mach 2
- sidewndr46 2y ago
  "our" fighters? What military are you referring to?
drpixie 2y ago
Yup. There must have been any number of photos taken by chase planes during development.
- themadturk 2y ago
  The question is, how many were taken at supersonic speed? What non-military aircraft could keep up with the Concorde at Mach-2? Only another Concorde.
  - drpixie 2y ago
    Concorde development was a (UK & France) national project. They would have had easy access to military aircraft. Aircraft like the Lightning might only just have been able to intercept but would easily have observed pre-arranged tests. I wasn't on the engineering team ;) but apparently they planned 4000 hours of test flights. https://web.archive.org/web/20150316210132/http://aviationweek.com/site-files/aviationweek.com/files/uploads/2015/02/1969-%20First%20Concorde%20Flight%20(2%20of%202).pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20150316210132/http://aviationwe... It's almost inconceivable that the test flights would not have been closely recorded, especially the significant ones including trans-sonic and supersonic ops. Despite the best design and air-tunnel work, you'd expect that things would go wrong and you really want to learn as much as possible from any incidents/events. Unfortunately, all this happened well before the internet age, and so records and images are not so easily found :(

zeristor 2y ago

I remember at school at lunch time we’d see a Concorde fly overhead, just sort of got used to it.

rwmj 2y ago
Concorde used to fly over our house (landing at Manchester airport, I think?), and it was something of an event for our household of plane geeks, but happened fairly regularly. These days I see Airbus A380s taking off and landing from Heathrow over the house almost daily and that never ceases to amaze me, mainly that humans built something so enormous that can actually fly.
- loloquwowndueo 2y ago
  Remember the Hindenburg.
- tetris11 2y ago
  Used to fly over ours too (Gatwick flight path?), and I always remember that sharp screaming sound. I still watch the planes when I'm in the garden, but it's not quite the same
timthorn 2y ago
It marked the end of playtime at our school. We were 30 miles west of Heathrow and as it went overhead, still climbing from takeoff, it would have interrupted lessons. It was usually pretty punctual, but every now and then we got an extended break.
- Theodores 2y ago
  So there would be thirty or so in your class, another thirty in the class below and another thirty in the class above. I am sure you were a noisy bunch, particularly at playtime, much to the annoyance of other residents of the street. Now compare that annoyance level to that of the ninety or so special people on Concorde, or, more correctly, 'a' Concorde plane. You were thirty miles west of Heathrow, but I can remember being in South London and having to stop conversation for a few minutes for that stupid plane to screech overhead. Nowadays I learn that those were good times, to have that noise from miles away, making it impossible to hear the person next to me. Until Concorde was some tens of thousands of feet in the air, cruising sub-sonically, that stupid plane was ruining everyone's day. All for what, Tony Benn's ego, 'jobs' and being best buddies with the old enemy - the French. The need to be best buddies with the French was moot, after WW1 and WW2 it was clear that the UK and France were allies, at least in Europe. We were lucky that the USA were a bit passive-aggressive when it came to Concorde, people would have had that thing fly supersonic but it wasn't in the economic interests of Washington (DC and the state) to have that. Highlight of Concorde's career was Live Aid, bringing Phil Collins et al from the USA to Wembley so they could play both sides of the Atlantic, at the same event. I am sure that people that went on a 'jolly' on Concorde for that special anniversary had their money's worth and a time to remember, but most people on that plane were pointless wealthy people that lacked purpose. In the bigger scheme of things, not one single flight of that plane was really important, even if Joan Collins was aboard. Your playtime, somewhere near where The Office was filmed, was far more important, in the bigger scheme of things.

jstanley 2y ago

You can go and see a Concorde at Bristol Aerospace Museum[0], and walk inside it. There is an absolutely bewildering array of dials and switches exposed to the pilots[1]. And they have lots of other aviation stuff at the museum, it's not just Concorde. Other highlights include some very early planes, cut-away jet engines, and a cut-away section of a jumbo jet fuselage, so you can see the locations of pipes, tubes, cargo, etc. in relation to the seats. It is well worth a visit if you're nearby. [0] https://aerospacebristol.org/ https://aerospacebristol.org/ [1] https://i.redd.it/0vqv9qlx98m31.jpg https://i.redd.it/0vqv9qlx98m31.jpg

pchristensen 2y ago
There is also one at the Museum of Flight in Seattle - https://www.museumofflight.org/exhibits-and-events/aircraft/concorde https://www.museumofflight.org/exhibits-and-events/aircraft/... It looks like it would have been a very snug ride!
- CalChris 2y ago
  Matterport tour. https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=uLQ9ZMRpPWY https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=uLQ9ZMRpPWY
- Theodores 2y ago
  In period, it was not that snug. This was in an era when you could get a dozen people into town in a 2CV and the majority of adults smoked. People were a lot leaner then, and considerably shorter. In 1954, in the UK, the average male was 5'7" and 11 stone, 6 lbs, which equates to quite a high BMI of 25 (18.5 - 24.9 is healthy BMI). Nowadays there are very few men in the UK with that weight. Let's ignore women from this because women were second class citizens at the time. Men are on average 2 stone heavier. But average weight is just average, nowadays with 2/3 of UK adults overweight, there are far more people at the top end of the Bell Curve, at double the average weight people had on the 1950s. So half of today's population would not fit in the seats. When you look at old European or Japanese cars such as the MINI or old FIATs, bear this in mind. Those cars might not have ever been spacious, but, in period, they were not cramped. Similarly, Concorde was never spacious, but it was not a very snug ride until obesity got the better of us.

neilv 2y ago

Circa 2000, British Airways(?) did a competition for technical people/students, and the prize was... to get to fly on the Concorde. I remember thinking "big whoop", and didn't enter. Not knowing that the Concorde would soon never fly again.

walterbell 2y ago

Boom Supersonic (US) has a Mach 1 test flight in 2 days, https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/boom-supersonic-mach-one-speed-of-sound https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/boom-supersonic-mach-one-... Test flight livestream (Tue Jan 28 6:45AM PST/9:45AM EST/2:45PM GMT), https://boomsupersonic.com/flyby/xb-1-supersonic-test-flight-mission https://boomsupersonic.com/flyby/xb-1-supersonic-test-flight...

esskay 2y ago
It's going to be interesting to see where things go with this. I'm still struggling to see why their offering would have a different fate, if not worse. It's got a lower passenger capacity but still has the same cost issues that plagued Concorde. I guess the only difference really is they arent shy about making it clear its for business customers and not commercial airliners, and tickets will be expensive.
- idlewords 2y ago
  The real product Boom hopes to offer is regulatory capture, so that restrictions on supersonic business jets can be lifted. Then the bizjet itself can sell as a luxury status symbol.
- bragr 2y ago
  It is really going to come down to how much they can reduce the sonic boom. Supposedly their aircraft will produce more of a rumble like distant thunder rather than a bang. If its at a level that's agreeable to both regulators and the public, that would open up all the overland routes the Concord could never do. If they can combine that with higher production numbers with a corresponding drop in unit, operating, and maintenance costs, they _may_ have a valid business model. Looking at how many people rent (or own) business jets with five figure+ price tags per flight, I think there's definitely a market for premium tickets, especially if you can do say LAX to Heathrow in ~5 hours instead of 10.5 hours.
  - gosub100 2y ago
    I really hope this isn't the kind of innovation where the company breaks the law and asks for forgiveness later. Like "oh the sonic boom is only slightly louder than Concord but really it's just a bunch of first nations people in Canada who are impacted and we are super rich and our time is so precious please just ignore these marginalized people and we promise we'll throw them a few bucks"

whartung 2y ago

It should be noted you can see the curvature of the earth in the photo. As I understand it, that was one of the perks of the Concorde in that in flew so high that the passengers could see this as well.

raldi 2y ago
I thought I remembered reading someplace respectable that the apparent curvature of the earth as seen from the surface or planes is actually just perspective, and would look indiscernible on a flat planet (or a huge one). But I don’t have a citation to share. Maybe it’s only true at sea level.
- loloquwowndueo 2y ago
  I wonder where you read that because it sounds like a very flat earther thing to say.
  - raldi 2y ago
    “Visual daytime observations show that the minimum altitude at which curvature of the horizon can be detected is at or slightly below 35,000 ft, …Photographs purporting to show the curvature of the Earth are always suspect because virtually all camera lenses project an image that suffers from barrel distortion” https://opg.optica.org/ao/abstract.cfm?uri=ao-47-34-H39 https://opg.optica.org/ao/abstract.cfm?uri=ao-47-34-H39 Another trick you can do: take this Concorde photo and use the rules of geometry to draw the rest of the circle, and look how small an Earth you’ve drawn.
    - saagarjha 2y ago
      Concorde flies higher than 35000 feet.
      - raldi 2y ago
        Nonetheless, try the exercise I suggested with extending the curve all the way around into a circle.

toephu2 2y ago

It always saddens me that in the 1960s it took 7 hours to fly from NYC -> London, and today, 60 years later, it still takes 7 hours to fly from NYC -> London... Apart from fuel efficiency improvements, there hasn't been much innovation in the commercial commercial aerospace industry, with the exception of Boom's supersonic passenger airplanes which is just now starting to become a reality.

BlandDuck 2y ago
Look at the bright side, at least flights today are still as fast as 60 years ago. For trains, you would be hard pressed to find a route that is not significantly slower today than 60 years ago.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- idlewords 2y ago
  They are not; the 707 flew noticeably faster than modern airliners (525 knots cruise, compare to 485 knots for the Boeing 787).
  - WalterBright 2y ago
    The cruise speed is selected for maximum fuel efficiency. The airplanes can fly faster, and do under special circumstances. Your gas car's maximally efficient speed is about 35 mph.
    - idlewords 2y ago
      If you want to go by top speeds, for the 787 (entered service 2011) it's Mach 0.9, for the A-350 (2015) it's 0.89, while for the 707-120 (1958) it's Mach 0.91. The 747 (1970) can go Mach 0.94. Modern jets are built to fly slightly slower than early jetliners, both in normal operation and at top speed. The reason is fuel economy, but the difference is real.

nunez 2y ago

As much as I appreciate being able to fly for relatively cheap, I think we can all agree that deregulation and fuel costs absolutely destroyed this kind of innovation for commercial air travel. I wish I was old and well-off enough to take a flight on that majestic bird.

happyopossum 2y ago
> deregulation No, hard disagree here - regulation is a big part of what killed supersonic flight the first time around.

idlewords 2y ago

Here is a monster pilot forum thread on Concorde that ends up pulling in senior engineers, pilots, aerodynamicists and even a former flight attendant. They lovingly go over every detail of the plane's design and operation. WARNING, serious temporal hazard. Do not click if you have work to do today or are supervising small children. https://www.pprune.org/tech-log/423988-concorde-question.html https://www.pprune.org/tech-log/423988-concorde-question.htm...

walterbell 2y ago
Long live old-school forums!
Fizzadar 2y ago
Thank you for the lost hours :) Fascinating read.
anothertroll456 2y ago
That was amazing! Thank you. Wait, idlewords is still around??
bragr 2y ago
>serious temporal hazard Wow, you're not wrong. "I'll read just a little bit," I said. 2 hours later...
dang 2y ago
Discussed way back when (thank you!): Epic Forum Thread on Concorde (2010) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8277343 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8277343 - Sept 2014 (49 comments) We should have another HN thead about this once the Boom boom settles down.
- idlewords 2y ago
  There's also that thread about the Belgian couple who drove across the Congo: https://forum.expeditionportal.com/threads/democratic-republic-of-congo-lubumbashi-to-kinshasa.50799/ https://forum.expeditionportal.com/threads/democratic-republ... I call these kinds of forum threads "afternoon destroyers". It would be fun to weaponize them into a whole organized link page.

Jedd 2y ago

I was fortunate to travel in one of these, back in 1996 - London to New York. (BA was offering some sweet deals to staff at partner airlines, at about 10% of retail pricing.) At the time there was no expectation that we'd regress, though had I been more generally aware I'd have noticed the lack of next-gen SST R&D during Concorde's operational lifetime. I recall they flew one out to Sydney Australia in the mid 1980's, but I think appetite was quite low, probably from both regulators and small market size -- despite the obvious appeal (it's about 24h flight time still in conventional commercial passenger jets, to get to the antipodes).

donavanm 2y ago
I believe Qantas will be offering Sydney to London direct on a newer A350 variant latter this year. Should be about 20hrs direct. Travel to europe is a bit of a pain in that layovers and scheduling can easily blow it out to 30+ hours today, especially if going to a secondary market in europe. It makes the ~14 hours overnight to the US west coast seem very reasonable in comparison.
- Jedd 2y ago
  That route's been touted for a while - and having done the SYD-LHR trip quite a few times, I'm not 100% confident it'd be a significant QoL improvement (except for business travellers). Pricing will be interesting to watch, in any case. As you note, a lot of the time cost is incurred for the 'last mile' part of that trip, so apart from the (tourist / comfort) benefits of splitting flights of that length, I could see it being much less appealing for travellers bouncing through London to get elsewhere into the continent.

guenthert 2y ago

"Meanwhile, the Concorde continued its effortless cruise toward New York’s JFK Airport." i.e. it used only 4,800 US gallons per hour of fuel (a 747 burns around 3600 gallons/h). Not what I would label "effortless", but not nearly as bad as I expected.

Almondsetat 2y ago

Seems strange that's the only photo. They never made test flights in pairs to monitor each other? And during these tests they didn't take any photos?

themadturk 2y ago
Well, the only photo released to the public at least.

barrettondricka 2y ago

There is a story about Concorde chasing a solar eclipse for an hour. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Concorde_eclipse_flight https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Concorde_eclipse_flight

blks 2y ago

It says that it was fastest airliner with 2.05 Mach, but Tu-144 was faster with 2.15 Mach