Concord: the fastest passenger aeroplane

 The Aérospatiale-BAC Concorde is jet-powered supersonic passenger airline.

(SST). It was a product of an Anglo-French government treaty, combining the manufacturing efforts of and the British Aircraft Corporation. First flown in 1969, Concorde entered service in 1976 and continued commercial flights for 27 years.

Among other destinations, Concorde flew regular transatlantic flights from London Heathrow (British Airways) and Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport (Air France) to New York JFK, profitably flying these routes at record speeds, in less than half the time of other airliners.

With only 20 aircraft built, their development represented a substantial economic loss, in addition to which Air France and British Airways were subsidised by their governments to buy them. As a result of the type’s only crash on 25 July 2000 and other factors, its retirement flight was on 26 November 2003.

Concorde's name reflects the development agreement between the United Kingdom and France. In the UK, any or all of the type—unusual for an aircraft—are known simply as "Concorde". The aircraft is regarded by many as an aviation icon

Prior to Concorde’s flight trials, the developments made by the civil aviation industry were largely accepted by governments and their respective electorates. The opposition to Concorde’s noise, particularly on the eastern coast of the United States, 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 Although Concorde led directly to the introduction of a general noise abatement programme for aircraft flying out of John F. Kennedy Airport, many found that Concorde was quieter than expected, partly due to the pilots temporarily throttling back their engines (known as "noise abatement" – spoken by the pilots as the command "Noise" during take off) to reduce noise during overflight of residential areas. Even before the launch of revenue earning services, it had been noted that Concorde was quieter than several aircraft already commonly in service at that time.

Concorde’s technical leap forward boosted the public’s understanding of conflicts between technology and the environment as well as the awareness of the complex decision analysis processes that surround such conflicts. In France, the use of acoustic fencing alongside TGV tracks might not have been achieved without the 1970s controversy over aircraft noise. In the UK, the CPRE have issued tranquillity maps since 1990.Concorde produced nitrogen oxides in its exhaust, which, despite complicated chemical interactions with other ozone-depleting chemicals, are understood to result in degradation to the ozone layer at the stratospheric altitudes it cruised. It has been pointed out that other, lower-flying, airliners produce ozone during their flights in the troposphere, but vertical transit of gases between the layers is restricted. The small fleet operated meant overall ozone-layer degradation caused by Concorde was negligible.