Airline & Holiday Information

Archive for the ‘Historic Aeroplanes’ Category

The most famous Concorde aircraft was more than likely the plane with the registration G-BOAD.

Its maiden flights was made on the 25th August 1976 at Filton in the UK, it was delivered to its new owner British Airways on 6th December 1976.

When it was first registered back on 9th May 1975 it was known as G-BOAD, in 1979 it was re registered as G-N94AD / N94AD.  During this period Braniff Airways leased 10 Concordes 5 from British Airways and 5 from Air France.

 G-BOAD was also leased to Singapore Airlines and it ran both liveries on the plane, cabin crews were mixed between the two carriers.

Concorde G-BOAD flew a total of 23,397hours and 25 minutes making 8406 landings and going supersonic 7010 times.

G-BOAD was also used in the fly past for the Queens Golden Jubilee on 4th June 2002.

G-BOAD is made its last flight to JFK where it now resides at the USS Intrepid Museum in New York. The Concorde is only there on loan and acts as a big advertisement for British Airways.

Concorde G-BOAD

Concorde made its first flight on the 2nd March 1969 and was introduced to chartered flights 21st January 1976.

Sadly Concorde no longer graces the skies, due to a fatal crash in Gonesse France 25th July 2000, killing all 100 passengers nine crew, and four people on the ground. The Air France Plane, flight number 4590 and the Concorde Registration F-BTSC, crash was caused due to debris left from a previous plane on the runway prior to Concorde. The debris punctured one of the tyres on the left which in turn triggered a series of malfunctions.

After this accident Concorde had a number of modifications, more secure electrical controls, Kevlar lining added to fuel tanks and burst resistant tyres.
Commercial flights proceeded on 7th November 2001 by British Airways and Air France. 10th April was D day for Concorde as both Air France and British Airways consecutively stated that they would retire there fleet of concords that year. Stating falling passenger numbers since the accident on 20th July in France and a fall in air fare sales from the September 11 attacks in New York.
That same day Sir Richard Branson  put an offer in to British Airways offering to purchase their fleet and have them re branded as Virgin Atlantic and he aimed to run them for years to come.

Concorde Heathrow 1987

Concorde set the fastest transatlantic flight time of 2:52.59 from London Heathrow to New York JFK back in 1996 this was set by G-BOAD.

The only operators to fly Concorde where, Air France and British Airways, although Singapore Airlines and Braniff International Airways, had a short term lease on them.

Concorde ran  4× Rolls-Royce/SNECMA Olympus 593 engines, it could reach Mach 2.2 or a maximum speed of 1,450MPH and would often cruise at Mach 2.02 (1,320MPH.

Concorde could fly 92-120 passengers, the seats where in two rows of two seats on each side.

Concorde Interior