While most certainly will have heard of retired Franco-British supersonic airliner, Concorde, few have seen it up-close – and this landing footage will blow you away.
As it comes in to land it seems like any other aircraft – but the sonic boom as it passes the camera is what makes Concorde a unicorn of aviation in this video from the eighties or nineties in Oshkish, US.
It had a maximum speed of Mach 2.04 (1,354 mph or 2,180 km/h at cruise altitude, over twice the speed of sound).
And this animation has revealed just how fast the speed of sound actually is.
The supersonic aircraft actually blows the hats off spectators, who admittedly are standing very close to the runway in this incredible video by Patrick Mack.
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For many years Concorde was the ultimate way to travel in flashy and luxurious style.
It was the first commercial supersonic jet, reaching New York from London in under four hours.
It seated 92 to 128 passengers.
With its high-profile clientele and second-to-none travel time, the supersonic jet seemed poised for long-term success.
But several factors, from ticket prices to a catastrophic crash in 2000, led to the plane’s demise.
The cost of a ticket was astronomically high, costing about $12,000 in today’s money for a round trip across the Atlantic.
The original Concorde took its last journey in 2003 after entering service in 1976, but the plane’s icon status remains intact.
Fortunately, after two decades, it appears several companies, and even NASA just unveiled a revolutionary ‘quiet’ jet set for commercial supersonic flights.
The typically loud supersonic boom is reduced
Rather than the typical jarring sound it’s reduced to a “neighbour’s car door down the street being closed” – making the US Federal Aviation Administration more likely to approve it for flights over land.
Some of the images used in this article are created using AI.
