Facts about the Concorde

Statistics

Stretching from six to ten inches in-flight due to heating of the airframe Concorde measures is 204ft in length . Concorde is coloured in a specially developed white paint to adapt such changes and to disperse the heat produced by supersonic flight.
The wingspan is 83ft 8ins – which is less than conventional subsonic aircraft as Concorde flies totally  different using "Vortex Lift" to achieve a special  performance. The height is 37ft 1ins. To improve pilots' visibility during take-off and landing  Concorde had the typical droop nose.

Force

Four engines  of the Concorde were specially designed by  Rolls-Royce/ Snecma Olympus 593s, and  can give more than 38,000lbs of thrust each, with 'reheat'. This adds fuel to the final stage of the engine to perform the extra power needed for take-off and the transition to supersonic flight.  Among the pure jet engines flying commercially this are the most powerful.

Speed

Take- off  speed of the Concorde is 220 knots (250mph) (most subsonic aircraft have only  165 knots). Concorde cruise speed is around 1350mph, which is  twice more than the speed of sound - and at an altitude of up to 60,000 ft (over 11 miles high). Less than three and a half hours  last a  typical London to New York crossing,  a subsonic flight, for example  - eight hours.  Taking into account the five-hour time difference traveling westwards, it means that Concorde effectively arrived before subsonic aircraft  left -  travels "faster than the sun".

Service

Since she entered commercial service in 1976, more than 2.5 million passengers have traveled supersonically on British Airways' Concorde. An oil company executive, the most frequent passenger, flew almost 70 round trip transatlantic crossings a year.

Safety increase

To further increase safety on board,  a team of about 250 British Airways' engineers worked diligently, together with the competent authorities,. The engineers and technicians worked closely together to design and install a new Kevlar-rubber lining for Concorde's wing-based fuel tanks and the addition of specially developed Michelin tyres, as well as strengthened electric wiring in the chassis.