To cross the Atlantic Ocean in three and a half hours? That’s fantastic, there are no such flights – only eight-hour flights from Heathrow to John F. Kennedy Airport. But it’s more accurate to say that there is no such possibility now, and 16 years ago you could spend no more time on an intercontinental flight than on a domestic flight. True, you would have had to pay about ten thousand euros and forget about comfort, but flying in a supersonic Concorde passenger jet was worth it.
“The Concorde flew on a regular schedule from 1976 to 2003 and the frequency of supersonic flights did not exceed three flights a week. A single plane cost 23 million pounds (119 million in today’s prices). A total of 20 such planes were built. A Concorde ticket cost 30 times more than a normal flight, but seats sold out and the supersonic program is eventually considered profitable. “The Concorde stayed in the sky for 27 years.
The legendary plane, considered a technological marvel, was only the second supersonic transport in the sky. The first was the Soviet “Tupolev” Tu-144. The path of the Soviet plane is similar to that of the Concorde. They are “relatives” by design and some technological solutions, both carried ordinary passengers and heads of states, both have a history of plane crash near Paris. The only difference is that the route of the Concorde was nine times longer than that of the Tu-144.
The supersonic race
In 1947 the pilot Chuck Yeager was the first to break the supersonic barrier. He did it in a Bell X-1 rocket-powered plane in the sky over the Mojave Desert.
“The sky turned purple. The stars, moon and sun appeared in the sky at the same time. Chuck reached the upper atmosphere, where the air was so thin that there were no reflective particles,” the first supersonic flight was described in Tom Wolfe’s Battle for Space, a book about the Soviet and U.S. space races.
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The space race was not mentioned by chance. In the sphere of civil supersonic transport the well-known scenario was repeated, but there were more participants in the confrontation. The success of Yeager’s flight inspired politicians, businessmen and design engineers to develop the idea of carrying passengers at speeds in excess of 1188 kilometers per hour. At the time, even military F-86 or Mig-17 fighters did not have such speed.
From a technical point of view, a supersonic transporter did not look like utter fiction. In the 1950s, the development of such aircraft began in the USA, USSR, Canada, Great Britain and France. The first designs of supersonic aircraft did not differ from the usual “Boeing” and “Airbus”, but soon there were variants with delta and M-shaped wings. The delta-shaped wing won out.
The delta wing was proposed by the Canadians, who were soon called to Britain to continue work on the project. In the early sixties, the designers had a design ready for production. But the companies could not afford to develop it separately – it was too expensive. So in 1962, the Concorde was born – a joint British-French aviation program.
The union between the British and the French sowed panic in the United States. There it was believed that the long-range supersonic aircraft would quickly squeeze American machines out of the market. Worries reached such proportions that the American company Pan Am was willing to buy out part of the Concorde program. And Congress appropriated money to develop the existing Lockheed L-2000 (an important hero of the story) and Boeing 2707 projects, which were to get bigger, fly faster and go longer without refueling.
The USSR was developing its own project, which was handled by the Tupolev design bureau. In 1962, the authorities published a concept of the Tu-144 aircraft. A year later the government promised that by 1966 the country will build five prototypes of supersonic transport aircraft. Supersonic Tu borrowed the wing from the fighter MiG-21 and looked much like the Anglo-French project, for which the Western press called it “Concordski” (Concordski). There were even suspicions of industrial espionage, although the “stuffing” of the planes was very different.
The Americans quickly withdrew from the race. This happened after the Bongo II experiment, when the US Air Force deliberately flew over Oklahoma City without flying more than 20 kilometers above the ground. The optimum flight altitude for an ordinary passenger plane is 10 kilometers. Americans dreamed not only of transatlantic flights, but also of fast journeys from the East Coast to the West Coast. So they decided to check how overcoming the supersonic barrier interferes with residents. As a result, the authors of the experiment encountered more than ten thousand complaints about noise, broken windows and cracks in the walls.
The results of the vote that led to the cancellation of the program in the U.S.
The US Congress banned the flights of supersonic aircraft over populated areas, adding to this the arguments of unprofitability and harm to the environment.
Only the Concorde and the Tu-144 remained in the race.
Concorde versus Tu-144.
In the UK alone, nine major aviation design organizations worked on the project for a civilian jet aircraft and the creation of a supersonic commercial airliner. Later the Canadians and the French were added to them. It is believed that more than 800 different specialists worked on Concorde in France and England.
The engines for Concorde were developed by Rolls-Royce and Snecma. There were four of them on each plane, and together they provided a thrust of 169 kN, which allowed to lift 187.7 tons into the air. For comparison, the Boeing 747, which flies on British Airways transatlantic routes, has a thrust of 286 kN and a maximum takeoff weight of 442.2 tonnes. On takeoff, the engines of the Concorde burned fuel so intensely that a plume of smoke was left behind the plane. Another distinguishing feature was the cockpit, which tilted during takeoff and landing to give the pilots a clear view.
The alliance between England and France proved to be both a blessing and a curse. Economically, the Concorde was more profitable, but under the terms of the agreement the machines had to be assembled in both countries. The first flight was planned to be synchronized – two planes were to take off simultaneously at Paris and London airports. This resulted in a logistical nightmare, with parts being lugged from France to England and back again.
The Tu-144 took off on December 31, 1968 – two months earlier than the Concorde. On the first flight, the planes did not reach supersonic speeds. It was the next test milestone, which conquered the USSR in June 1969 and “Concorde” in October. But at the same time the Concorde was presented to the public earlier – in December 1967. After it the Central Committee of Communist Party of Soviet Union ordered to lift Tu-144 into the air by the end of 1968 under any circumstances. It was not enough.
Tu-144 was reworked many times after its first launch. Many restrictions were imposed on the airplane: prohibition to fly at night and in icing conditions. It was prohibited to take off from a wet strip. It had a service life of only 500 flight hours, that is, with three flights a week, it would last about a year.
At Paris Air Show in Le Bourget the TU-144 also appeared before the Concorde – in 1971. In 1973, Concord and Tu-144 met face to face at the same Le Bourget. It did not end well.
