'Once you get hooked on the airline business, its worse than dope.'- Ed Acker, former chief of Air Florida.
So today: a fat Concorde shaped doobie. And by fat, I mean thin. Thin, light, and white hot...
Concorde was certainly the crowning glory of the aviation world. It took a decade of research to get it airborne, and it underwent a rigorous 5000 hours of flight development time. I wish more things were measured in hours. In particular, height. Or food. 'Cedric. I've had 300 hours of Kiwi fruit today. I feel 30 hours taller...'
The sleek, first-rate design was even more remarkable given there was no computer software sophisticated enough to help a great deal. The computing machines of the sixties were huge mainframes that mostly did sums and looked not unlike washing machines. See one at work, right here.
I feel both sad and relieved I will never go on a Concorde. Take off already does strange things to my face and soul. I can't imagine what might have happened to my mind as a passenger on a supersonic, ozone scratching firework, shooting into the abyss at the speed of sci-fi.
However, I do regret (and even my flight-disinclined mum does too) that even with a lottery win, there's no choice anymore.
Progress...regress? The only other thing on the horizon (away from the window, it's not there yet) is the European Space Agency's goal to create hypersonic flight, which would more or less shoot passengers like guided missiles in the direction of Australia. Look, its a massive flying cartridge pen! And it would fling you London to Sydney in just four hours. But it all comes down to cash. And the fact it has to climb through Zeus' arsehole to get enough altitude to go hypersonic, meaning the relatively 'short' London to New York hop, would be redundant. Estimated time of arrival in our lives? 2040.
The other option would be this: ZEHST, a sort of eco-rocket being prepped by Japan which will run on seaweed (and mermaids) and do London to Japan in less than three hours. The prototype will have rocket engines apparently. Mental. It's hard not to think you're reading fiction, sometimes.
In the sixties, Concorde had enough government investment and backers to take it from prototype to real life. Both British and French bigwigs ploughed money into it. Initial excitement over the soft furnished lightning bolt, was fervent. In a joyful throwback, both TWA and Pan Am ordered the pointy nosed sonic swans along with Boac and Air France, but only the latter two took them up due to some economic plot. And the fact the Soviet competitor and almost-twin, the Tupelov TU-144, crashed at the '73 Paris airshow, making investors nervous. But more on my favourite robo air-spaniel later.
Heel. Heeeel...
Drop it!
Good boy.
Concorde was a time bandit. You could get from New York to Paris in 3.5 hours (the same time it takes to charge a Tesla Roadster, undergo haemodialysis or cook an average sized turkey). The record held, London to NY, was even less than that - a mere 2 hours 52 (a time that this man dislikes very much). It travelled twice as fast as the speed of sound and a seat on it, cost between four and eight grand.
The menu was even more ridiculous. The website, airlinemeals.net details mile high meals, past and present (geek out on that vacuum packed moist wipe) and Concorde's spread is there in all it's glory. Check it out, it's pretty impressive: truffles, foie gras, lobster, bloody mary relish, a decorative lemon wedge, American Express Centurion Card wafers, a champagne bed bath... all the top treats.*
Millions of bottles of champers were quaffed in Concorde's lifetime**, making it the most light headed, serious piece of technology ever to be flung over the heads of mortals. Passengers included, Joan Collins, Victoria Beckham, Elizabeth Taylor and assorted royals, making it effectively a celebrity catapult. Often the celebs would pop in and see the pilot. The late Barbara Harmer (the first female to fly Concorde) was joined by Tom Cruise at the control decks as she descended into JFK. He just wanted the truth.
* Partly lies.
** Massively true.
The day of Concorde's test flight to RAF Fairford in 1969, my dad was busy being a student. This meant listening to John Peel. So luckily, he remembers Peel's response to the interruption of his broadcast, as newscasters described Concorde's maiden flight in the UK over the airwaves: pure, unadulterated... indifference. Ace. Unfortunately my dad can't remember what Peel was playing on the radio (or I would've embedded it here), but let's imagine it was something suitably cool. In fact, he jovially told me to 'make it up.' So I'm going to pretend it was The Velvet Underground. Boo, who would interrupt the Velvet Underground? 75% of them had sensitive eyes, for goodness sake.
Twenty years later, my dad was lucky enough to get a peep around a grounded Concorde, thanks to a friend. The pilot described how flying at 60,000 avoided all crap weather and turbulence, which meant while the jumbo crew at 35,000 feet were being flung about like socks in a washer dryer, the Concorde was up above, smoothly cutting the air like a Yanagi bocho through raw tuna.
Apparently the lack of tail fin made it handle like a fighter jet and it went into barrel-roles and dives easily (what willpower then, not to surprise ticket holders with arial tumbling). Indeed the Concorde cockpit looked like a cross between a weird, nerdy arcade game and robot's guts; the coolest collage of abstract looking widgets and analogue gauges. It was like a complex, physical dialect that only these specialist pilots got. A bit like French.
One of the best things about flying 60,000 feet above earth must have been the fact passengers could see the curvature of the earth. That's not a view. That's an astro dream. One passenger calls it 'a view from the edge of space,' where the sky glows a 'deep indigo blue.' Check out his earth snaps.
A couple of other things about supersonic flight: the plane BENDS. Not just a bit. Enough for the naked eye to take in (put some clothes on, rude eyes). The plane's fuselage used to extend by a whole foot, meaning back passengers saw the floor flexing. Not only did their plane go boomerang, it also heated up so much at supersonic speed, that the inside of the windows became warm to the touch. Great for passengers with Raynauds.
Livery design was restricted because of this heat. So Concordes were painted a reflective white and only that, to avoid them boiling the sky. Titanium white, snow white, white blossom...quite the palate. The upside of course, was that this aerodynamic streak of toothpaste never suffered any bad taste 'commemorative' paint-jobs. Except for once, when Pepsi shat all over it in 1996 with an expensive ad campaign to celebrate their rebrand (luckily the wings had to stay white). Look at it. It looks abused.
16 flights were made in its incarnation as an blue ode to the sugary fizz-cum-cheap-brass cleaner, before it was sprayed back. So some lucky folk, can actually say they've travelled in a flying Pepsi can. Consumers to the end...
With a 100% safety record, Concorde's life was ultimately buggered up by a lesser plane. In 2003 a piece of loose part plopped off the previous take-off - a Continental Airlines DC10 - which popped Concorde's tyre and caused its crash. Continental Airlines were fined and the mechanic who had a Kitkat instead of a cog-check (cautious guess) got 15 months in jail and a 2000 Euro fine. But Concorde's days were numbered. One bit of lousy workmanship. And a whole fleet extinct.
For the final flight in 2003, there were more celebrity bums on seats than ever before including David Frost who summed up Concorde's awesomeness, with this ode to time travel:
'You can be in london at 10am and New york at 10am. I have never found another way of being in two places at once.'
Except when you look in the mirror, right?
One thing they haven't addressed over the last eight years though, is where the elite get their swanky, sonic food fix now. Perhaps instead of eating on Concorde they'll have to make do with eating a Concorde. Made of salmon. Eat that, scientists.
Or maybe just bring back Concorde. It could be relaunched and painted like a banana. And wouldn't that endorsement please the Velvet Underground...
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