a high-flying story

Certainly, we will never see the beautiful white bird fly away again. But you can always go into ecstasies over her slim figure with perfect measurements – 25.56 m wingspan, 62.10 m in length, 12.19 m in height – and admire it, in real life, at the Air and space museum from Le Bourget airport, near Paris. This temple of aviation history dedicated to Concorde an entire hall. Two models pose there permanently for posterity: the Concorde F-WTSS Prototype or “Concorde 001” and the Concorde F-BTSD “Sierra Delta”.

The first had made the inaugural supersonic flight (non-commercial) in 1969. The second, in the colors ofAir France, was, on May 31, 2003, at 5:45 p.m., the penultimate to land at Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle, coming from New-York-Kennedy Airport. The supersonic adventure was coming to an end.

Guided tours

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No more private trips (no more than 100 passengers), aboard a plane flying faster than its shadow, at Mach 2, 02 (2,200 km / h). With him, it only took 3h26 (including 2h54 at supersonic speed) to get to New York and only 3 hours to return: transatlantic flights are always faster in the west-east direction.

But the Big Apple was not, let us remember, the first destination for the Franco-British plane. On January 21, 1976, Air France and British Airways posted it on Paris / Dakar-Rio and London / Bahrain respectively. Then, in May 1976, on Washington, after the American authorities had finally given the green light. Except that to win New York, the Grail, it was still necessary to await that of the New York port authorities.

The Air France Concorde took off for New York for the first time on November 22, 1977, so that Wednesday makes forty years to the day. An anniversary that the Air and Space Museum at Le Bourget is preparing to celebrate slightly delayed, on Saturday 25 and Sunday 26 November to allow as many people as possible to attend.

The Concorde can be visited permanently: 22 steps to climb to enter the cabin then 29 steps to descend to dry land. But, once is not customary, next weekend, the device will also unveil its underside: its covers will be open and a former supersonic mechanic will tell you all about the four Rolls-Royce / Snecma Olympus 593 engines which propelled by consuming without moderation 20 tons of kerosene per hour.

The first “White Bird”

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In addition, a curator and a restorer will explain how they maintain the eternal youth of the two beautiful birds since they are nailed to the ground. Finally, several times a day, screenings and guided tours will be scheduled.

For these, two themes were selected: “100% Concorde”, the biography of the supersonic. And “Crossing the Atlantic by air”, that is to say the whole history of Paris / New York, started here, at Le Bourget, in May 1927 with another “White bird”, the plane of Nungesser et Coli disappeared at sea, off Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon. Two weeks later, the “Spirit of Saint Louis” of Charles Lindbergh landed triumphantly at Le Bourget, after 33h30 of non-stop flight from New York.

As for Air France, it had inaugurated this “Star Ribbon Line” (name given to the first commercial link between the two cities) on July 1, 1946. Departing from Orly airport, the DC4 “Ciel de France” had landed in New York – La Guardia after 23 hours and 45 minutes of travel, punctuated by two stopovers in Shannon (Ireland) and Gander (Newfoundland). Today the jets take about 8 hours.

“40 years of the first supersonic commercial flight Paris / New York”, November 25 and 26, 2017 at the Air and Space Museum, from 10 am to 5 pm: free entry, guided tours € 14, children € 11 , access to planes included.

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