KerbalX

A Symbol of What the Future Could Bring

In 1976, the future was in the air - literally. The skies above London and Paris were abuzz with the sound of a new airliner unlike any seen before in the West. It was beautiful - it had a large, sweeping delta wing and a long, pointed nose unheard of in a time just now getting used to the era of the widebody jumbo jets ushered in in 1969 by the Boeing 747.

Even with its name - Concorde - the new airliner was breaking conventions. It was a joint project between the British Aerospace Corporation and the French Aérospatiale in an attempt to be the first to offer transatlantic flights between New York and London in less than four hours.

Flown exclusively by Air France and British Airways, Concorde was a luxury only for the unimaginably wealthy, making the airliner a symbol of the grand future which was only a few years away. Unfortunately, due to high maintenance costs and a high-profile accident, Concorde was retired from service in 2003, with no replacement on the horizon.

Details

• Type: SPH
• Class: aircraft
• Part Count: 482
• Pure Stock

Flying Concorde

Concorde (never referred to with an article, because French) is a pleasure to fly, requiring a certain amount of skill to do so, but with looks more than making it worth the hassle.

Early versions of Concorde had trouble getting into unrecoverable flat spins due to drag from the fairing body. That problem is mostly fixed now, and can be eliminated by using as little yaw control as possible in turns, instead relying on roll and pitch to execute turn maneuvers. Additionally, major turns should be executed only when flying below 200m/s, for the same reason.

The droop nose on Concorde is functional, and like the real deal, can be lowered for landing to ‘increase visibility’, and more importantly, act as a speed brake. Toggle the nose with 1. RCS deploys a flap which helps the nose function correctly. Due to the drag on the fairing, it is not recommended to attempt to raise the nose during flight. This mirrors the real flight profile of Concorde - the full 12.5 degree droop was only used for landing, and it was quickly raised during taxiing to a more modest 5 degree droop.

Cheers, Au revoir, and happy flying!