Genesis of a Legend: The Origins of Concorde

The story of Concorde begins in the heart of the 1950s, in the context of technological emulation and aeronautical rivalry. While American airlines dominated the skies with subsonic airliners, France and the United Kingdom dreamed of a cutting-edge aircraft capable of breaking the sound barrier while carrying passengers.

This shared ambition led, on November 29, 1962, to a cooperation treaty between Sud-Aviation (future Aérospatiale, then Airbus) and the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC). The supersonic aircraft project was launched, mobilizing mixed teams of engineers and technicians and involving 350 French companies and 250 British ones – a collaboration marked by numerous challenges, particularly differences in working methods, languages, and measurement systems (metric versus imperial).

On January 13, 1963, French President Charles de Gaulle suggested naming the aircraft “Concorde,” and on October 24, the first full-scale mock-up of the “Concord” without the “e” was unveiled. The very name of the aircraft sparked debate and controversy. It was ultimately the British Minister of Technology, Anthony Wedgwood Benn, who settled the matter by adding the “e,” symbolizing “Excellence, Entente, Europe” – a powerful message of transnational cooperation.

The first prototype, 001, took off from Toulouse on March 2, 1969, before breaking the sound barrier on October 1 of the same year. The aircraft already generated worldwide enthusiasm, promising a revolution in air transport: linking Paris to New York in just over three hours.

January 21, 1976, marked the beginning of the commercial supersonic era for Air France, with the inaugural flight from Paris to Dakar and Rio. The opening of the regular Paris-Washington route followed in May 1976, and the Paris-New York route in November 1977. These transatlantic flights, completed in a record time of around 3 hours and 30 minutes, allowed passengers to cross the ocean faster than the sun, offering the unique possibility of a same-day round trip for business meetings.