Studies started in 1954, and France and the United Kingdom signed a treaty establishing the development project on 29 November 1962, as the programme cost was estimated at £70 million (£1.68 billion in 2023).

[4] Concorde is a tailless aircraft design with a narrow fuselage permitting 4-abreast seating for 92 to 128 passengers, an ogival delta wing and a droop nose for landing visibility.

In the early 1950s, Arnold Hall, director of the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE), asked Morien Morgan to form a committee to study supersonic transport.

[7] This led to the use of short-span, thin trapezoidal wings such as those seen on the control surfaces of many missiles, or aircraft such as the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter interceptor or the planned Avro 730 strategic bomber that the team studied.

[11] The aircraft would have to take off and land very "nose high" to generate the required vortex lift, which led to questions about the low speed handling qualities of such a design.

At the first meeting, on 5 November 1956, the decision was made to fund the development of a test-bed aircraft to examine the low-speed performance of the slender delta, a contract that eventually produced the Handley Page HP.115.

[27] The development project was negotiated as an international treaty between the two countries rather than a commercial agreement between companies and included a clause, originally asked for by the UK government, imposing heavy penalties for cancellation.

[41] During the early 2000s, Flight International described Concorde as being "one of aerospace's most ambitious but commercially flawed projects",[42][43] The consortium received orders (non-binding options) for more than 100 of the long-range version from the major airlines of the day: Pan Am, BOAC, and Air France were the launch customers, with six aircraft each.

A supersonic Fairey Delta 2 was modified to carry the ogee planform, and, renamed as the BAC 221, used for tests of the high-speed flight envelope;[50] the Handley Page HP.115 also provided valuable information on low-speed performance.

[62][63] Professor Douglas Ross characterised restrictions placed upon Concorde operations by President Jimmy Carter's administration as having been an act of protectionism of American aircraft manufacturers.

[70] Concorde pioneered the following technologies: For high speed and optimisation of flight: For weight-saving and enhanced performance: A symposium titled "Supersonic-Transport Implications" was hosted by the Royal Aeronautical Society on 8 December 1960.

The nozzle ejector (or aerodynamic) design, with variable exit area and secondary flow from the intake, contributed to good expansion efficiency from take-off to cruise.

[113] Concorde had livery restrictions; the majority of the surface had to be covered with a highly reflective white paint to avoid overheating the aluminium structure due to heating effects.

[123] Concorde's high cruising altitude meant people on board received almost twice the flux of extraterrestrial ionising radiation as those travelling on a conventional long-haul flight.

[139] Because of this high angle, during a landing approach Concorde was on the backside of the drag force curve, where raising the nose would increase the rate of descent; the aircraft was thus largely flown on the throttle and was fitted with an autothrottle to reduce the pilot's workload.

I think it's absolutely amazing and here we are, now in the 21st century, and it remains unique.Because of the way Concorde's delta-wing generated lift, the undercarriage had to be unusually strong and tall to allow for the angle of attack at low speed.

The twin-wheel nose undercarriage retracts forwards and its tyres are inflated to a pressure of 191 psi (1,320 kPa), and the wheel assembly carries a spray deflector to prevent standing water from being thrown up into the engine intakes.

[150] Concorde's drooping nose, developed by Marshall's of Cambridge,[151] enabled the aircraft to switch from being streamlined to reduce drag and achieve optimal aerodynamic efficiency during flight, to not obstructing the pilot's view during taxi, take-off, and landing operations.

[161] According to the official investigation conducted by the Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA), the crash was caused by a metallic strip that had fallen from a Continental Airlines DC-10 that had taken off minutes earlier.

The aircraft entered a rapid pitch-up then a sudden descent, rolling left and crashing tail-low into the Hôtelissimo Les Relais Bleus Hotel in Gonesse.

[163][164][165][166] Safety improvements made after the crash included more secure electrical controls, Kevlar lining on the fuel tanks and specially developed burst-resistant tyres.

[161] Normal commercial operations resumed on 7 November 2001 by BA and AF (aircraft G-BOAE and F-BTSD), with service to New York JFK, where Mayor Rudy Giuliani greeted the passengers.

Jean Rech, Sud Aviation, attributed this to two things,[176] a very heavy powerplant with an intake twice as long as that on Concorde, and low-bypass turbofan engines with too high a bypass ratio which needed afterburning for cruise.

Opposition to Concorde's noise, particularly on the east coast of the United States,[189][190] forged a new political agenda on both sides of the Atlantic, with scientists and technology experts across a multitude of industries beginning to take the environmental and social impact more seriously.

"[195] Concorde produced nitrogen oxides in its exhaust, which, despite complicated interactions with other ozone-depleting chemicals, are understood to result in degradation to the ozone layer at the stratospheric altitudes it cruised.

[196] In 1995, David Fahey, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the United States, warned that a fleet of 500 supersonic aircraft with exhausts similar to Concorde might produce a 2 per cent drop in global ozone levels, much higher than previously thought.

[201] As a symbol of national pride, an example from the BA fleet made occasional flypasts at selected Royal events, major air shows and other special occasions, sometimes in formation with the Red Arrows.

Elizabeth II and Prime Ministers Edward Heath, Jim Callaghan, Margaret Thatcher, John Major and Tony Blair took Concorde in some charter flights such as the Queen's trips to Barbados on her Silver Jubilee in 1977, in 1987 and in 2003, to the Middle East in 1984 and to the United States in 1991.

[221] The fastest transatlantic airliner flight was from New York JFK to London Heathrow on 7 February 1996 by the British Airways G-BOAD in 2 hours, 52 minutes, 59 seconds from take-off to touchdown aided by a 175 mph (282 km/h) tailwind.

This promotional flight circumnavigated the world from New York/JFK International Airport in 31 hours 27 minutes 49 seconds, including six refuelling stops at Toulouse, Dubai, Bangkok, Andersen AFB in Guam, Honolulu, and Acapulco.