In the autumn of 2003, the slim, droop-nosed supersonic jet known as the Concorde made its final flight, it was a trans-Atlantic flight, as so many were. As the British Airways airliner arrived in front of several thousand spectators, there to watch it at Heathrow Airport, it was a bittersweet moment in aviation.
It was great to celebrate all the milestones that this craft had introduced, but sad that it had died such a slow, ignominious death. But as with so many other things, the Concorde, though it could withstand the elements and the extremes in changes of temperature, though it could withstand the pressure of supersonic speed, it could not withstand the attacks of the economy.
For even then, no company could keep an expensive vehicle like the Concorde in the air for long if it was a drain on their budget.
In the five years since the death of the Concorde, jets have still flown, and people have even managed to fly with a certain amount of luxury and flair. But up to this point, nothing has quite duplicated the experience of the four-engine slim aircraft which flew at double the speed of sound in the plane once dubbed “the time machine.”
