The Concorde, hailed as the epitome of beauty in aviation, captivated with its distinctive charm and powerful Olympus 593 engines. Its absence from the skies is truly saddening.

I was in a Dallas suburb near DFW one afternoon during the late 1970''S when a Concorde passed over me on take off at less than 400 feet of altitude. The awesome beauty just took my breath away

Absolutely loved watching this doco, Concorde has been my favourite jet airliner ever since i was little & what got me into liking aviation. Loved seeing the demo concorde & first production video footage on this.

So miss this aircraft. I was based in Camerberly, Surrey, UK for a while, right under the flight line from Heathrow airport. You could always tell when Concorde flew over. The sound of those glorious Olympus engines was so distinctive. And looking up there would be one of the most beautiful looking aircraft ever made. Hey a Lancaster still flies, as does a Spitfire, Merlin engines, oh yes. They always sound amazing, surely some wealthy person can get a Concorde flying again? Please?

It was a beautiful aircraft Jezzter, can I ask you as you lived in the flight line, was Concorde actually much louder than other aircraft, 707,727,747 etc? I once lived on the flight path of Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport at Annandale and some of those 747's got really loud, loud enough that I was certain that they left tyre marks on the roof of my place. Cheers.

@Greg Edwards As I remember is wasn't much louder than 747's, but very different. Kind of the difference between a road car & a race car. Concorde sounded like a racing beast 🙂

@Jezzter, thank you for that, the complaints of the New Yorkers that protested against the noise of something that they had never heard before sounds about right. I was at Sydney Airport with my parents and an uncle when Concorde landed on its tour in 1972, I was 10, my uncle set up some glasses in a pyramid like stack and said that these would shatter when Concorde came into land because of the noise, I said that it would have to be very loud, he said sonic booms were extremely loud, I said that it probably wouldn't be that loud as it was only going to land ( I understood what a sonic boom was, just wasn't sure whether it was going to do a high speed run before landing), I think most people were expecting it to go supersonic before landing, some misunderstanding brought about by the newspaper reports of the time, anyway it landed and being inside the terminal watching it I could just barely hear it, as you say, not much difference than any other aircraft of the time really.

I agree with you, after inventing such a classic piece of machine to just put them down, in my view grounding Concorde is just a waste of time and money, l like your comment,

If those that complained in the US, about the noise and frequency of air craft back then thus rejecting concorde, only knew what it was like now (without concorde!) 🙈 This documentary was a great look into the past history of aviation. Love the old Retro craft 😍👌🏾

You have no clue what you're talking about.. The Concord Failed because of Planes Breaking the Sound Barrier.. Why it was restricted along with every other Jet Aircraft from doing it anymore over land...Something Other Countries got sick of as well..

​@Up2NoGoodYOU have no clue what you're talking about. She didn't say anything about why it failed - YOU did. You were so eager to try to embarrass her that you ended up embarrassed . Whoop 😂

@Jontae Grace Are you off the Short Bus? Lets quote her... "Complained in the US, about the noise and frequency of air craft back then thus rejecting Concorde" So America didn't reject anything. As "Every" Country on the planet had restrictions. Now, What part you not get? As the reason Concorde failed. #1 it never made a profit. #2. It could only go Mach 1 over the Ocean. As Every country had restrictions of breaking the sound barrier over land.. Then #3 Only a handful of Air ports had the ability to support them.. Now go read more...

@Jontae Grace LOL>

It seems that the real complaints in USA were few but was 'amplified' to support of the US aviation industry. This view is supported by the many observers of the Concorde describing their experience here on YouTube

Watched it often taking off at Prestwick on training flights, I wonder if we will ever see another beautiful beast like her again.i doubt it so bloody sad 😢😢😢

still the most beautifull airplane ever made

Next to te blackbird and Tomcat

Back in 1981 I flew from Mexico City to LAX and my plane Mexicana DC 10 was parked next to the AirFrance Concorde…that was awesome to be so closed to it.

In December 1988, I was upgraded to fly Concorde from British Airways Business Class to First Class...By the powers that be, someone chose not to be upgraded to a flight on Concorde which moved me up to that fabulous status and the words, "You've been upgraded to fly Concorde". Take off was a complete loud rush and not as smooth as I imagined, until we took flight...Then a fabulous experience never to be forgotten...from NYC to Paris... I wished it lasted longer.... I suppose it did because I've been thinking of that flight since 1988...

How did they film this plane when it was passing the sound barrier? Did they use a military plane to fly beside it or use telescopic cameras?

Used to watch Concord fly over Brixton every evening around 5:30pm in mid 80's. The Vulcan, Falkland heroes. Mission Impossible. The howler.

America has the distinction of having the fastest SST that never flew. Bravo to the British and French who had the balls to accomplish what we couldn’t

Why would you build a Passenger Plane. That could not go Mach 1 over land? Which restricted it to a few Coast to Coast Air Ports. With a long enough runway to support them. As they could only break the Sound Barrier over the Ocean.. And not one every made a Profit.. They had to be subsidized by Taxpayers. They could not even afford to fly on it...

​@Up2NoGood Boeing invested its entire cash flow in 747, which became the most profitable investment in the history of civil aviation. 747 has changed the world..Concorde on the other hand the biggest money loser...

There were 2 prototype Concordes, 001, which is the French one, and 002, the British. Then the two pre production models, 101 the British one, and 102, th French. The British 101 is at Duxford, and that is the one that I have been on. 002 is at Yeovilton. The French ones are 001, which is at Museum of Air and Space, Le Bourget, France. The 102 is at Orly Airport.

We have a British one here in Barbados as well.

Very well done!

.What a great plane shame is not around anymore.

How can you do a doc about the sound barrier without mentioning the X-1 and Chuck Yeager?

37:29 From Europe to Singapore in 12 hours by supersonic express? I would hope it would be half that as current subsonic flights from LHR to SIN take 13 hours 20 minutes.

they probably added the time at Singapore which is six hours ahead. Otherwise, doesn't make sense

I live in Seattle and for years ive been wondering why is there a random concorde in Boeing Field when they had nothing to do with this geography lol

When it flew above the Kenyan airspace in 1993, the sonic boom was so loud it made chickens lay eggs without shells.

Hint: It had wings end jet engines!

34:50 : Los Angeles to Tokyo is a distance of 8800 kilometers. The Concorde had a maximum range of 7300 kilometers. 35:10 : Paris to Sydney is a distance of 17.000 kilometers, a Concorde would have needed two stops to refuel.

Good point. Could that be without passengers and with a tail wind... that doesn't make sense either because doesn't the jet stream go from east to west, right? Idk... very odd.

The Concorde made one fatal mistake that could not be corrected without drawing attention to it. It put WINDOWS on the PLANE. Enoch (Priest & Prophet)

Great documentary. More about the technological achievement and less about rich people and Champagne.

I will always remember the day when I had an early breakfast in Bahrain and late breakfast in London.

Awesome.

Oh I am so envious! 🙂

Had America's attempt not been a dud, would NYC's reaction been the same? I think not.

I like that one guy that said we shouldn't allow it for anybody because he can't afford it himself. Jealous much?

The Air France crash was part of the beginning of the end for the Concorde, but the enormous amount of fuel the plane consumed and that fuel’s rising price made the Concorde no longer economically viable. That was the real reason they discontinued the Concorde along with declining passengers and the plane flying with a lot of empty seats.

Concorde the 3rd most beautiful airplane next to the Blackbird and the Tomcat

I still remember newsreels of the Eco-loons at JFK rolling around on the floor screaming and holding their ears. "Not Invented Here" syndrome. The USA was easily capable of producing the next generation of SST.

Of course, problem was that they tried to go way too big and way too fast for the technology and materials of the time, Concorde in size and speed was more realistic and it worked beautifully for 40 years or so.

I grew up in the middle of the United States outside St Louis in the 70s and remember hearing sonic booms over head occasionally. Then they outlawed super sonic air travel over the continent and I haven’t heard another sonic boom since I was a young kid. Trust me those booms are very loud and they would be constant if you lived in a large continent.

@Tim Patrick, they can be very loud, depending on the distance, altitude, local terrain, wind direction, air density and a number of other factors, sound decreases by the inverse square of the distance generally, so the source of a sonic boom at X distance could be very loud, with the source twice as far away it will sound about as quarter as loud as X. Most countries have banned supersonic flights over land (mainly populated ares) land unless in times of emergency. With Concorde retired only the militaries have aircraft that will go supersonic, rockets and missiles go supersonic but space agencies tend to launch, recover and do reentries over oceans.

The Concord exhaust was nothing but water vapor? Either someone is lying or they lack a basic understanding of chemistry. Even if the engines were perfectly efficient and either running lean or at perfect air/fuel ratio, part of that exhaust was CO2. And, since neither of those conditions was true, the exhaust also contained: CO, unburnt hydro-carbons and nitrous oxides, just like the exhaust from EVERY fossil fuel burning engine. LOL! The Russian SST was the TU-144. That's just too gross.

Strange the communist's in the USSR didn't protest the SST but the communist's in America did.

Well, the Concord is a beautiful aircraft. Ability to reach supersonic speeds, is a wonderful progress, in aeronautic engineering. But, something needs to be done, to reduce the huge amount of noise, produced!

Losing Concord set aviation back years, It was a knee jerk reaction of a awful disaster. There is a place now for supersonic travel, it just needed time and development to become affordable. No Concord, No development in this passenger service that will eventually come, just later than it could have.

It had the necessary power and aerodynamics to fly like that. And it was killed off by the nyc liberal mob that didn't want it flying in and out of nyc. Those mutants said that it was "too loud".

Not true. Buy hey, it’s the internet

It was so loud that it was breaking windows

​@Renata Avgeri BREAKING THE SONIC BOOM 🔥🔥

Ironic that all the Hebrews in NYC were complaining about how the Concorde was bad for the environment while they protested in their huge Cadillacs, Lincolns, and Buicks.😅.

They missed something, making this PR Propaganda. The first few times they approached the sound barrier, the shock wave blew the engines out, so there was a very quick redesign of the nascelles, making them shape-shifting, too.

Shape shifting? Like the SR-71? What do you mean?

@K G Same basic problem, different solution, he used deflectors. The idea may have come from Fred Lanchester, whose protégé he had been. He was also chums with Sir Frank Whittle, came for Sunday lunch once.

@Rahere I got ya. What is your favorite plane? I really like the SR-71 and the 747. There are a few others but the SR-71 reminds me of my dad's 78 corvette that became mine. What about you?

@K G I'm retired UK Army, so the Hercules. Something that can drop me in a hundred yards is not to be sniffed at. What's happening with the A-380 is ridiculous.

@JelMain  very cool. I can not imagine how you feel about the politics once you got in, but I can guess that stuff didn't matter as much as having your team's back. It sucks how you are treated once you return. I am sorry about that. I like the phrase, forgive me as I don't know it word for word, but it goes something like, "Let the guys in suits go to the front lines and see how long wars last." I get it. Some stuff in other countries is deplorable. However, the United States may go in for other reasons. I am glad you returned, and I hope your adjustment back to civilian life was not too bad.

Marasatheywomarasabkwohathjwodakaranamskarahamamantahukeaajmadarasapkasathajudaeskaleyamajnasamamfemagtahuaajmabadmalekhugadhnyavadete

You from Sri Lanka ?

Awfully biased documentary.

please explain

@Jezzter it only features British aircraft developments. I agree they were cutting edge but so were France's... yet no comment is made from the beginning on French developments. Sad. Concorde was French British. Both countries contributed to the program

@Guillaume Romain Yes I know, Aérospatiale BAC Concorde. The first one to fly was French built. I don't give a damn about which country built it, I just love the engineering & beauty of this aircraft. Calm down plz

@Jezzter I love Concorde as much ss you do. Yet one cannot speak about Concorde without mentioning where it came from... I quit watching this documentary 10 minutes in. There are far better documentaries out there (I.e unbiased)

50/50 French/British and no one should be ignorant of that.