Museum of Flight (3) – Concorde

From the Museum of Flight in Seattle, a visitor may walk to an open site opposite to it by a pedestrian flyover bridge. Several historic planes are in display. They include the supersonic Concorde and the 'retired' US Air Force Ones. A visitor must show the coloured paper belt (actually it is the entry ticket or pass) before he or she is allowed to access to the planes.

Here is the brief description of the big bird, the turbojet-powered supersonic passenger airliner – Concorde (和諧客機). First flown in 1969, Concorde entered service in 1976 and continued for 27 years.

Among other destinations, Concorde flew regular transatlantic flights from London Heathrow (British Airways) and Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport (Air France) to New York JFK and Washington Dulles, profitably flying these routes at record speeds, in less than half the time of other airliners.

With only 20 aircraft built, the development phase represented a substantial economic loss. Additionally, Air France and British Airways were subsidized by their governments to buy the aircraft. As a result of the type’s only crash on 25 July 2000, economic effects arising from the 11 September attacks, and other factors, operations ceased on 24 October 2003. The last retirement flight occurred on 26 November 2003.

It was a big bird at the time of 1969, but it is far far smaller than as those jumbo jets as Boeing 747 and A380 in comparison. The advantage of taking it in the past was that it could fly fast and the passengers could save much time in flying from France or England to U.S. or vice versa.