This photo was taken when a Concorde from Air France visited Stockholm-Arlanda Airport on the 50 years anniversary of the Swedish Board of Civil Aviation in 1997. (Beneath the plane you can see a Saab 90. That was a successor of the Saab 99, and looked like a Saab 900 Sedan at the back and like a Saab 99 in the front. It was built between 1984 and 1987.)
The Concorde made its first flight almost exactly 30 years ago, on March 2 1969.
Already in 1956 the Supersonic Transport Aircraft Committee was founded in Great Britain. They had the task to study the possibilities of building an SST, that means supersonic transport, which means that they wanted to build an aircraft for passengers, which would fly faster than sound. While this was done in the UK, about the same project was done in France. So in 1962 an agreement was made, and from that time the Concorde-project was a co-operation between the English and the French companies.
The plane was designedfor relatively long ranges and got delta wings and two engines under each wing. The fuselage is thin and the nose can be lowered while taxing, on takeoff and landing to improve the flight crews' visability. The engines were built by Rolls-Royce/SNECMA and called Olympus.
After the first flight in March 1969, the Concorde made its first supersonic flight on October 1 the same year. Now many tests were made and during its 102:nd flight the Concorde reached Mach = 2 on the fourth of November 1970. On January 21 1976 the Concorde entered service with a trip between London and Bahrein with British Airways and a trip between Paris and Rio de Janeiro via Dakar with Air France. Today only British Airways and Air France use the Concorde but between 1979 and 1980 the Concorde also flew with the American airline Braniff and Singapore Airlines on certain routes.
A trip from London to New York only takes about three and a half hours with the Concorde and the cruissing speed is Mach 2.02, which is about 1330 mph when the air pressure is normal. The Concorde flies at an altitude of about 60000 to 63000 feet, which is about twice as much as ordinary airliners. The outside of the fuselage can be as hot as 198 F and the nose can be as hot as 266 F. This makes the plan some inches longer while flying. The Concorde doesn't take more than about 100 passengers but it is a long plane, 204 feet, and it uses 1.5 English or 1.8 American gallons of fuel each second. The Concorde is really fast. On August 16 1995 it flew around the world in just 31 hours and 27 minutes.
Most people travelling with the Concorde are rich and famous and so, because it costs 4700 Pounds or 7000 Dollars to cross the Atlantic Ocean with it.