The Aérospatiale/BAC Concorde was a joint French and British supersonic airliner, one of just two to enter airline service. First flying on 2 March 1969, it entered service on 21 January 1976 with Air France and British Airways.

Quite an extended time between first flight and delivery was due to refinement of the design plus testing. It is said that Concorde was the most tested passenger airliner ever, as it had to be certified safe in the supersonic flight regime.

Concorde Video

Following on from the last video about the McDonnell Douglas MD-11, this time we look at a Concorde video. This great film was produced by the British Airways Film Unit in 1976, runs for 23 minutes and is called Transatlantic Supersonic.

This takes you through an entire journey on Concorde, through the eyes of some typical passengers. I quite liked the maps showing how fast it is to get from the Middle East and Europe to various places in the USA. You see everything in this video, including private transfers between connecting flights at London Heathrow.

Is that Dom Pérignon they’re serving on board? Sure looks like it! Seeing the original cabin style and on board service and comparing that to today shows that we have it pretty good. The food portions come across as a little basic, I thought.

The narrator says, “There’s plenty of stowage space for briefcases and jackets” which is true. However those overhead lockers would not cope with today’s very large cabin bags. At the end you see the planned routes – New York in 3.5 hours, Melbourne in 13.5 hours and Tokyo in 8 hours. Of course, only New York ended up actually being served.

One More Concorde Video

Here’s another Concorde video for you, which makes for a neat bookend. This was also produced by British Airways, runs for almost 6 minutes and was produced when Concorde was retired in 2003.

This one contains some great voice over from people who flew on Concorde, as well as a gorgeous selection of footage. Well worth having a look at!

Overall Thoughts

Air France flew their last Concorde service on 30 May 2003, with British Airways following on 24 October 2003. The very last flight of the aircraft ever was when G-BOAF, fittingly the last Concorde ever built, landed at Filton Airport on 26 November 2003.

I hope you are enjoying Concorde week with me. If you’ve just popped in, the first article is here, the second one on where all the Concorde’s are now is here, while yesterday’s article about Braniff operating Concorde in the USA is here.

What did you think of the Concorde video presented in this article? Have you any thoughts on them? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.

Enjoying the series? Check out the index to all the “Does Anyone Remember…” articles.

To never miss a post, follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
All my flight and lounge reviews are indexed here so check them out!

Featured image from Airbus Archive via ConcordeSST.