Concorde, which made its first flight 50 years ago on March 2, 1969, was a magnificent creature of the skies, a supersonic transport with roots in the 1950s and 1960s “boom” of aviation innovation. But what gave the Mach 2 marvel the ability to fly faster and farther than many military fighter jets?
Earlier this year, a Norwegian Air Boeing 787 Dreamliner hitched a ride on a powerful jet stream and flew from New York to London in a record-setting five hours and 13 minutes, landing almost an hour ahead of schedule. Record-setting, perhaps, but for a subsonic airliner. In 1976 -- over 40 years ago -- elite passengers were crossing the Atlantic in under three and a half hours, flying at twice the speed of sound in the Anglo-French Concorde.
