Show Notes
Concorde is an instant hit with celebrities. Mick Jagger, Sting, and Princess Diana are all frequent flyers – for the fast travel and the high-class atmosphere. Concorde itself becomes a pop star, with its own (horrible) feature film. But on the ground, politics and protests force it to alter its course.
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In the season finale, we go beyond rumor and speculation to answer: what really grounded Concorde for good? Aided by insights from an aviation journalist, we explore Concorde's legacy, its impact on the world, and the new projects it inspired that might return supersonic passenger aircraft to the skies.
On July 25th, 2000, Concorde suffers its worst nightmare. Minutes after take off, an Air France flight crashes into a hotel near Charles de Gaulle airport, killing all passengers and crew. It’s now up to the team of engineers to study the aftermath and piece together the final moments of the aircraft. They hope to explain the cause to the world and restore faith in supersonic flight.
Concorde makes aviation history when the first prototype plane takes to the skies. But solving complex engineering problems is only the beginning. At almost every turn throughout the 1970s, Concorde faced existential threats. The Oil Crisis, environmental protests, and allegations of "Aviation Colonialism" could ground the plane and end the supersonic dream forever.
While engineers in U.K. and France struggle to a prototype of Concorde up in the air, they respond by creating their version of an open office concept to build a fluid and collaborative work environment. Also in this episode - America enters the supersonic race, rumours of Russian espionage become rife, and Soviet Russia’s attempt at flying supersonic ends in a tragedy.
In episode one, host Nastaran Tavakoli-Far and producer Pedro Mendes set the stage for our six-part story of the people and teams that made supersonic flight a reality. The team travels to the Brooklands Museum in the U.K, where Nastaran sees a Concorde up close for the first time. Also in episode one, you’ll hear about the monumental 1956 meeting of the Supersonic Transport Aircraft Committee (STAC) that set in motion a complex network of teams from the U.K. and France to execute this ambitious project.