PILOT: Three, two, one,
zero.
(engines roar)
♪
NARRATOR: It's a legendary plane
that flew at twice the speed of sound--
the Concorde.
♪
KATIE JOHN: You could go from France or Britain
to America and back in the same day.
NARRATOR: An unprecedented partnership between rival countries.
(applause)
Concorde was our man-on-the-moon project
here in Europe.
NARRATOR: A triumph of technology and invention
that revolutionized air travel...
MIKE BANNISTER: It's amazing that an airplane that was designed
and brought into production in the '70s
can still outperform pretty much everything,
including most Air Force jets.
NARRATOR: The ultimate in luxury for global jet setters...
JOHN HUTCHINSON: I think the regular passengers on the Concorde
thought that they were members
of a very expensive and very exclusive club.
♪
NARRATOR: And today, the inspiration
for a new generation of supersonic planes.
If I think into the future,
I would really like to be able to imagine
that I could walk out and get on a sleek, new,
quiet supersonic airliner
and get to where I'm going in half the time.
NARRATOR: Right now on "NOVA"--
"Flying Supersonic."
♪
Major funding for "NOVA" is provided by the following:
NASA WORKER: 15 seconds.
PILOT: Copy, 15 seconds.
NARRATOR: Flying high and fast is everyday business
at NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center.
Test pilot Nils Larson
routinely flies faster than the speed of sound.
LARSON: People always ask when you're a test pilot,
they say, "What's your favorite airplane?"
And the test-pilot answer is, "Whatever I'm flying today."
♪
NARRATOR: Fighter planes like these
are on the cutting edge of aviation technology.
They can travel more than twice as fast as a 747.
LARSON: From here you drive to Vegas,
it's like a three-and-a-half, four-hour drive.
When I go to do a Mach-two run,
it takes about 20, 25 minutes.
And then we turn around, and we're back in about ten.
NARRATOR: What if there were passenger planes that could fly this fast?
What if you could go from one continent to another
in half the time it takes now?
BLAKE SCHOLL: Think today of the places in the world
that are hard to access.
Think Singapore,
think Sydney,
that are, like, eight to 16 hours away.
When those flights become much shorter,
you can just decide to pick up and go
and visit Tokyo
or Sydney or Paris for the weekend.
NARRATOR: There was a time
when flying faster than sound in a passenger jet was possible.
PILOT: Three, two, one, zero.
NARRATOR: It was the Concorde--
a revolutionary plane
that crossed the Atlantic from Europe to the United States
in under four hours.
In the average commercial jet,
it can take almost twice that long.
Concorde was a triumph of technology.
But what people who traveled on it remember most
is its beauty and speed.
JOHN: Flying Concorde was like a fantasy for people.
It was partly the luxury, but mostly it was the speed.
You could go from France or Britain
to America and back in the same day.
SALLY ARMSTRONG: You could see the curvature of the earth,
because we were 11 miles high.
We would see the sun going down before we took off,
and then as we flew west, it was like it was rising.
Quite an achievement to go faster than the sun was setting.
♪
NARRATOR: Humans have long dreamed of being able to fly.
But when Concorde took off for the first time,
aviation itself was only about 70 years old.
One of its legends is Air Force test pilot Chuck Yeager.
In 1947,
he was determined to try to fly faster than the speed of sound.
Like light, sound is a wave that takes time to travel.
Depending on the altitude and air temperature,
Yeager would have to fly about 700 miles an hour
to surpass its speed.
It was daring and dangerous.
JAY DRYER: Prior to that there was even doubts,
can people even fly faster than the speed of sound?
Because as you start to get closer and closer,
the air compresses in front of the aircraft,
and then it creates some instabilities
and things that, that led people to believe,
"Is this going to be something that's too challenging
that we can even survive?"
(radio chatter)
NARRATOR: Yeager took to the skies
in a test plane shaped like a bullet,
called the Bell X-1.
(engine fires)
DRYER: After World War II,
that was just a great era of trying to really open up
and explore the boundaries of aerospace.
And so we were testing all types of aircraft
to see how you could go higher and faster.
♪
It was an experiment that was flown
in a rocket-powered aircraft dropped from a bomber.
NARRATOR: But just a few minutes into Yeager's flight,
there was loud double bang.
(two loud booms in rapid succession)
PETER COEN: My guess is that the local community
probably had heard a few crashes
over the years,
might have suspected that an airplane had crashed.
NARRATOR: In fact,
this was the first time a plane created a sonic boom,
as Yeager became the first pilot ever
to pass the speed of sound.
His pioneering feat came to be known
as breaking the sound barrier
and it started decades of research about sonic booms.
When a plane flies faster than the speed of sound,
it compresses the air in front of its nose,
which is then suddenly released again
behind the tail.
This quick compression and release
causes a shockwave.
And when that shockwave reaches the ground,
it creates the noise of a sonic boom.
(two loud booms in rapid succession)
COEN: If you think about a thunderstorm,
when the storm is right on top of you,
and you get that lightning flash
and the immediate crack of thunder
that, you know, causes you to jump out of your chair,
that's a sonic boom.
(jets roaring)
NARRATOR: In the 1950s
only military aircraft could fly faster than sound.
But civilian air travel was a growing industry.
A passenger plane this fast
seemed like it could be a fantastic asset
for airlines that would fly it
and the countries that would produce it.
The governments of Britain and France decided to fund work
on two competing supersonic airliners.
♪
A French firm designed one called the Super-Caravelle.
And a British company planned the Bristol Type 223.
But very quickly,
the technical challenges proved so enormous
that development costs soared.
Officials in Paris and London had to face a hard reality--
there was only one way
to save the dream of civilian supersonic flight.
JOHN: Neither country could afford to do it by themselves.
They had two very similar designs.
But they didn't have the money or the resources
to do it separately, so they came together.
♪
NARRATOR: In 1962 British and French officials
signed an unprecedented agreement
merging their projects into the Concorde--
a supersonic plane that could carry around 100 passengers
at more than 1,300 miles an hour.
The projected date for its first commercial service
was eight years away, in 1970.
IAIN GRAY: It was something that galvanized the industry.
There were a lot of political issues
about making the program happen, bringing it to reality.
But from an engineering point of view,
you know, this, this was a dream.
♪
NARRATOR: Engineers spent years developing the plane's new shape--
an elongated fuselage, a pointed nose,
and distinctive wings.
GRAY: Subsonic and supersonic are very different
from an aerodynamic performance point of view.
The shape of the aeroplane is very, very different.
♪
NARRATOR: Getting any plane off the ground involves four forces.
The engines provide its horizontal forward motion,
or thrust.
But when the plane is flying,
the thrust is opposed by air resistance--
this is called drag.
The plane is also pulled down by its weight,
the force of gravity.
So a fourth force helps keep it in the air--
this is lift.
And lift is a direct result of the shape of the wings.
♪
Straight wings offer good stability,
but don't allow optimal flying at supersonic speed.
A triangular shape, like the wings on fighter jets,
reduces drag and is better for fast flying.
But neither wing shape could fly 100 people and tons of fuel
at more than 1,300 miles an hour.
So Concorde needed something new.
The French and British engineers analyzed air flows
and refined the shape over and over again,
until they finally perfected Concorde's unique delta wing.
BOB VAN DER LINDEN: The techniques were familiar with designers at the time;
they just never applied them to an airliner before,
because no airliner was intended
to fly faster than supersonic speeds.
The Concorde itself has a modified delta.
There's this beautiful curve to it.
A delta wing is probably the best compromise
for high-speed cruising ability for... at supersonics
and low-speed handling.
♪
NARRATOR: Supersonic travel was an exciting new possibility
at the 1963 Paris Air Show.
One of the biggest attractions
was the first model of the Concorde.
And its daring new shape was not the only news.
American Juan Trippe,
president of the most powerful airline of the time, Pan Am,
had placed an order for six Concordes.
In Washington, President Kennedy was furious
when he learned about the order--
because he had already decided
that the American aviation industry
was not going to be left behind.
KENNEDY (on phone): Hello.
DOUGLAS DILLON (on phone): Yes, Mr. President.
KENNEDY: Did you see what Juan Trippe did?
DILLON: No, I did not.
KENNEDY: He put out an announcement this afternoon
that he is going to buy six planes
from the British and the French.
How could he do that when he knew we were about to go ahead?
Well, now, will you give him this message from me
and make it very clear that I think he ought to retract that?
That he ought to wait now
and see what the United States is going to do,
or otherwise it is going to be very clear
that Pan Am is contributing in a significant way
to the United States being in a secondary position in the air
and also to our balance-of-payment problem.
We'll give him all the trouble he wants,
because there isn't going to be anything
that's going to make me more excited than doing that.
All right-- thank you.
HALABY: Yes, sir.
(phone hangs up)
("Hail to the Chief" playing, crowd applauding)
NARRATOR: The very next day,
at graduation ceremonies at the Air Force Academy,
Kennedy threw the United States into the race.
(song continues, applause)
KENNEDY: I am announcing today that the United States will commit itself
to an important new program in civilian aviation.
It is my judgment that this government
should immediately commence a new program,
in partnership with private industry,
to develop at the earliest practical date
the prototype of a commercially successful supersonic transport
superior to that being built in any other country of the world.
(applause)
NARRATOR: On the other side of the Iron Curtain,
the Soviet Union was also jumping
into the supersonic plane race.
♪
Two years earlier,
Premier Nikita Khrushchev watched a demonstration
of Russia's first supersonic military bomber,
the TU-22.
Standing behind Khrushchev was the plane's designer,
Andrei Tupolev.
He became one of the leaders of the Soviet effort
to build a supersonic passenger plane,
and the KGB was put into action
gathering information on Concorde.
(man speaking Russian)
(translated): When we heard the news of the creation
of such a fascinating airplane as Concorde,
Andrei Tupolev was tasked with investigating this subject.
All in all, our goal was to design a similar plane
and perhaps do it even faster, if possible.
♪
NARRATOR: It was now a three-way race--
and the engineers on each team
faced unprecedented technological challenges
at a time when computerization was in its infancy.
GRAY: It is remarkable,
the development and design of this airplane
was long before the advent of high-performance supercomputing.
There were many hundreds, thousands of engineers
working across the supply chain,
trying to optimize and get the right design solutions,
the right aerodynamics.
People joined the industry,
because they wanted to be part of this remarkable project.
NARRATOR: Concorde was the first time
that British and French aerospace designers--
former competitors-- built a plane together.
And that meant overcoming some very basic differences.
(man speaking French)
DOMINIQUE BERGER (translated): The British measured the plane's weight in pounds.
We measured in kilos.
I remember a session when we said,
"It's a pity, because the take-off mass of 90 tons,
it's not far from 180,000 pounds,"
to which an Englishman replied,
"But in pounds, it's more precise."
♪
(man speaking French)
(translated): The British would build their prototype,
and the French, their prototype.
Everybody talked to each other, exchanged views.
But there still were two assembly lines,
one in France and one in Great Britain.
NARRATOR: Each team was responsible
for building specific parts of the plane,
and each had a full-scale prototype
and assembly line.
And without the internet to quickly share information,
the project required not only high-precision craftsmanship,
but high-stakes logistics.
All through its development,
sections of Concorde were shipped back and forth
between Britain and France.
(Berger speaking French)
(translated): The British would send to Toulouse
a full-scale model
of the end section of their part,
and Toulouse would check whether its section would fit that part.
Conversely,
the French would send their end sections
to the British to check.
You had to interface parts with precision
down to a hundredth of a millimeter.
GRAY: It was a remarkable bit of technology achievement,
with the brains and the intellect and the enthusiasm
of young engineers at the time.
It just shows what can be done
when people want to achieve something.
NARRATOR: But the double production lines came at an enormous cost.
The two governments spent an estimated three billion dollars
developing Concorde--
more than ten times the original estimate,
and the equivalent of almost $20 billion today.
(airplane droning overhead)
The high development costs
didn't curb the enthusiasm of pilots,
who were eager to learn a new way to fly.
BANNISTER: Starting to reduce speed, we're all the way back to 220.
(turning knob)
NARRATOR: Before Concorde was ready for passengers,
they had intensive training in simulators like this one.
BANNISTER: As you can see, this airplane is more complex,
there are far more instruments, far more systems.
It's like four airplanes in one:
it's a high airplane, a low airplane,
a fast airplane and a slow airplane.
So, consequently, we have so many more systems to manage,
and the crew are doing twice as much work in half the time.
There's a lot to learn,
and it takes a pilot who's very experienced,
maybe been with British Airways for 25 years,
six months to learn to fly Concorde
as opposed to just two months
to learn to fly a conventional airplane
like an A380 or a 747.
♪
NARRATOR: One of the most important new features to master
was Concorde's unique nose.
In addition to the distinctive shape,
the nose actually moved into different positions.
In the air at supersonic speed, the nose was up,
and a visor reinforced
the plane's streamlined aerodynamics.
But it had to land at a very steep angle,
and this created a problem.
The long nose blocked the pilot's sight line
to the runway.
You're coming into land at quite a high angle of attack,
and sitting in the pilot's seat
with the nose up,
you simply would not be able to see the runway at all.
♪
The ingenious solution was a mechanism
that tipped the nose down
so the pilot had a clear view.
Start turning towards London,
down comes the nose.
100 feet above, just in out,
looking at the runway all the time.
Take the auto-throttles out.
50, 40, 30, 20,
15...
and now start to bring Concorde to a halt
using brakes that are underneath my feet.
And she's such a delight to fly.
The six months that you take to learn
is worth every single moment of it.
♪
NEWSREEL NARRATOR: Toulouse: the giant hangar at Sud Aviation's headquarters
was the focal point of the world.
For inside was the most exciting new thing
in the world of aviation: Concorde number 001.
(marching band playing)
NARRATOR: In 1967, after five years of intense effort,
the very first Concorde prototype was unveiled
to an eager audience.
(applause)
Despite the fanfare, it was not yet ready to fly
and the three-way race for a supersonic transport plane,
or SST, was heating up.
VAN DER LINDEN: There was a technological race
between the West and the former Soviet Union.
There was competition
between Europe and the United States as well.
And Great Britain and France got the leg up on the United States,
and many in the United States wanted to build an SST
just to compete.
♪
NARRATOR: The American entry into the race came from Boeing--
a supersonic passenger plane called the 2707.
♪
Like Concorde,
the project was financed by government money.
But the design was even more ambitious--
over a hundred feet longer,
carrying more than twice as many passengers,
and flying about 500 miles an hour faster.
♪
But it would ultimately be the Soviet Union
that became Concorde's biggest competitor.
Today, a museum east of Moscow
features the plane that gave Concorde a run for its money---
the Tupolev 144.
(man speaking Russian)
YURI VALKIN MARKOVICH (translated):
Here is a legendary flying machine.
The name of that legend is Tupolev 144.
It's the first supersonic airliner in the world.
♪
The first flight of a supersonic airliner in the world
took place in the U.S.S.R.
We were the ones to win the first stage
of the supersonic race.
♪
NARRATOR: In the throes of the Cold War,
the TU-144 was not only
a technological challenge for the Soviets,
but a political one as well.
The Kremlin issued a mandate:
"Get the TU-144 off the ground
by the end of 1968-- before Concorde."
At the last possible moment to reach that goal,
the TU-144 took off on December 31, 1968.
(engine roaring)
♪
37 minutes later, it landed at an airfield near Moscow,
and its pilots were given a hero's welcome.
The plane had not broken the sound barrier.
But in the three-way supersonic flight race,
the Soviets could claim the first victory.
(Markovich speaking Russian)
MARKOVICH (translated): It's an enormous success for our country,
comparable in scope to launching a space rocket
or to Yuri Gagarin's space flight.
♪
NARRATOR: When Western journalists saw the first photos of the TU-144,
they were stuck by its remarkable resemblance
to Concorde.
The similarities were so obvious
that the Russian plane was instantly nicknamed
"Concordski."
HUTCHINSON: I have no doubt
that there was industrial espionage
on the part of the Russians;
and probably there was industrial espionage
on the part of the French and the British as well.
(speaking Russian)
(translated): Let's just say
that the intelligence services had specific goals
that made development somewhat easier.
The West and our country met with similar technical problems.
So we did try to obtain
some information on the Concorde.
That is to say, when certain issues arose,
they were passed on to the intelligence services.
Then these services completed the tasks.
♪
NARRATOR: The KGB had a dedicated network of spies around Concorde.
Russian agents even managed to smuggle microfilm
containing blueprints and other documents
out of France in toothpaste tubes.
French security forces eventually caught up
with the Kremlin's spies,
some of whom were tried and expelled from France.
(Rigmant speaking Russian)
RIGMANT (translated): If I remember well,
some of our diplomats were thrown out of France
at the time.
It's just work, not espionage. (chuckles)
Like any other work!
♪
NARRATOR: Whatever the Russians wanted to call their efforts,
it soon became clear
that the TU-144 was not just a simple copy of Concorde.
Its wings were a modification of the delta shape.
It had different landing gear,
and its fuselage was longer and wider.
It had the same number of engines-- four--
and a tipping nose.
But there was one distinctive feature:
whisker-like front winglets.
HUTCHINSON: The Concordski had these little winglets
that came out for take-off and landing.
Those winglets modified the air flow over the wing
in such a way that you could come in
at a lower angle of attack,
which meant less engine power required
and therefore less noise.
So it was a very, very good feature,
that of the Concordski design,
and I think as I say,
if there'd been a second- generation Concorde built,
they would have incorporated winglets into it.
♪
NARRATOR: Ten months after the Concordski's debut,
Concorde was ready for the ultimate challenge--
flying supersonic for the first time.
♪
In the cockpit was André Turcat,
the first European to break the sound barrier,
and test pilot Jean Pinet.
(radio chatter)
Neither of them knew
how a plane this big would react at supersonic speed.
(Pinet speaking French)
PINET (translated): The hour-long flight was about the gradual increase of speed
from Mach 0.9 to Mach 1.05.
So at each step,
I would test whether everything was working well,
and it was going so well
that at one point I asked Turcat,
"Okay, can we keep going?"
And he said, "Certainly not!
"The flight plan ordered Mach 1.05,
we stop right there."
♪
When we landed,
I was surprised to see so many journalists,
and the mechanics who hung a sign on the nose of the plane:
"They made it!"
♪
GRAY: Concorde was our man-on-the-moon project
here in Europe.
Getting Concorde, that first flight,
that was our space race.
We did it.
We built Concorde, we flew it successfully,
and it's an icon.
♪
NARRATOR: In the U.S.
President Nixon was in the White House.
In 1971,
with the cost of the Vietnam War escalating,
Congress decided the Boeing SST was too expensive
and canceled it.
VAN DER LINDEN: The country wasn't completely behind the idea
of building an SST,
certainly not with taxpayer dollars.
So the aircraft was defeated in Congress.
By a very narrow vote, but it was defeated.
And so the U.S. SST program failed.
(crowd murmuring)
NARRATOR: In an ironic twist,
at the end of that same year, at a meeting in the Azores,
Nixon met French President Georges Pompidou,
who flew in on the first Concorde prototype.
NIXON: When I arrived at the airport,
on the Spirit of '76, a Boeing 707,
I saw parked in front of me a Concorde,
which had carried the president of France.
And our ambassador to France, Mr. Watson,
pointed out that he had come from France
at a speed three times as fast
as we had come from the United States.
(Pinet speaking French)
PINET (translated): At the end of the conference,
each president was walking back to his own plane,
and then I suddenly see Nixon stop,
so his delegation stops too.
He turns around and comes toward the Concorde.
President Nixon walks up the stepladder
and greets us.
We explained the Concorde to him.
He stayed in the cabin for a few minutes,
and then he said,
"Well, in the end, it's you who were right,"
and he left.
NARRATOR: Even though Concorde
was not yet certified for commercial flight,
Queen Elizabeth and President Pompidou
were already posing onboard to promote the new plane.
But there were significant concerns
about its profitability.
Fuel prices were rising sharply,
and the potential for Concorde to ever make money
was questionable.
Still, by 1972
the excitement about supersonic passenger travel
led 16 airlines around the world
to place sales options on Concorde.
VAN DER LINDEN: In the airline business, when there's a new airplane,
especially one that promises, you know, great new performance,
many airlines are interested to get onboard
and they place options on the aircraft.
Not orders, they're options.
And quite a few aircraft placed options, including Pan Am.
But when Pan Am and every other airline
actually looked at the numbers after the test flights,
and they realized this aircraft could not make money,
they canceled their options.
NARRATOR: In the end, the only sales were
to the French and British government-owned airlines.
They bought 14 Concordes in all--
seven for Air France
and seven for B.O.A.C., which later became British Air.
♪
The 1973 Paris Air Show
was the first time the Russian TU-144 and the Concorde
were presented together
for fly-by demonstrations at subsonic speed.
Concorde went first,
taking off and landing smoothly.
Then the Soviet plane roared down the runway.
(jet engines rumbling)
(explosion)
A few minutes later,
to the shock of everyone watching,
it broke up in flight and crashed.
Everyone onboard
and eight people on the ground were killed.
(Turcat speaking French)
(translated): We clearly saw pieces come off the plane before it crashed,
hitting the ground in two different places.
(translated): It's a big setback for the Soviets.
Yes, and for us.
We share...
Do you think that it
will compromise their supersonic program?
I don't think so.
I think they have more guts than that.
Just as we would if such a situation occurred.
♪
NARRATOR: The cause of the crash was never officially determined.
The TU-144 was put into service in 1977,
but it was plagued by mechanical problems
and another crash.
It stopped flying passengers after only 55 flights
and was retired for good a few years later.
♪
But in Paris and London, the long wait was over at last.
After more than 13 years of joint effort,
the dream plane was finally taking off.
On January 21, 1976,
for the first time,
passengers arrived at their boarding gates
with tickets stamped "Concorde."
♪
Just before noon,
a British Airways Concorde left the gate at Heathrow Airport.
Its destination: Bahrain.
At the very same second,
an Air France Concorde to Rio de Janeiro
rolled down the runway in Paris.
The double takeoff was broadcast live.
199 people
were the first commercial passengers in the world
to fly over 1,300 miles an hour.
JOHN: They did something that nobody else in history has ever done.
You had this aeroplane that operated like a fighter plane
but carried people in comfort.
You weren't wearing an oxygen mask.
You were sipping champagne and enjoying fine food.
(speaking French)
(man speaking French in voiceover)
ALAIN VERSCHUEÈRE (translated): Passengers loved that party feeling,
when you toasted with champagne glasses on a magic plane,
and ideally it was when
the Machmeter indicated the breaking of the sound barrier,
and then at Mach 2.2.
Those were the moments
when passengers liked to be photographed
in front of the Machmeter.
While passengers were enjoying the ride,
many amazing innovations were at work in flying Concorde.
♪
When it went from subsonic to supersonic speed,
the shockwave pushed its center of lift backwards,
increasing drag.
In order to keep the cabin horizontal and stable,
engineers came up with an ingenious system.
HUTCHINSON: So what did the designers
come up with as a solution?
They said, "Okay, if the shockwave
"is pushing the center of lift back down the wing,
"why don't we change the position
of the center of gravity as well?"
NARRATOR: The only weight that could be moved around in flight
to change Concorde's center of gravity was the fuel--
more than 31,000 gallons in 13 separate tanks.
VAN DER LINDEN: One of the most technologically significant features
of the Concorde you can't see
was the ability to transfer fuel
from fuel tanks at the front and fuel tanks in the back
as the aircraft transitioned
to supersonic speed and back to subsonic speed.
They had very high-speed pumps
that were able to transfer the fuel fore and aft,
depending on what was required.
And that helped balance the aircraft out
and change the center of gravity.
NARRATOR: Supersonic speed also meant that the exterior of the plane,
made of aluminum,
got so hot that it actually stretched during flight.
VAN DER LINDEN: The Concorde was designed
to expand almost nine inches in flight.
The floor itself sits on rollers,
and the aircraft expands and contracts underneath it,
but you never notice it when you're in flight.
The only thing you notice after about three hours,
it's getting kind of warm in the airplane,
and the window, which is no larger than your hand,
is actually hot to the touch.
NARRATOR: But while Concorde was a technological success,
concerns continued to grow
about whether it would ever be a financial one.
Its biggest potential market, New York, was off limits.
Because of the sonic boom
and the noise from takeoff and landing,
the Port Authority would not allow it
to fly into the city.
(cars honking)
VAN DER LINDEN: In the United States,
there was a great deal of pushback in New York,
because of environmental reasons,
particularly sound.
The Concorde on takeoff is extremely loud.
I mean, it's got four bomber engines on it
with afterburners.
And when those engines are lit,
it's very, very loud.
It shakes the windows.
(jet engines roaring)
You're flying a very loud airplane
over one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world.
So there's going to be a lot of unhappy people on the ground.
NARRATOR: Without New York routes,
there was no guarantee that Concorde could survive.
The noise from supersonic flight was a bigger problem
than just landing in New York.
In fact, any supersonic flight over land by civilian planes
was banned in 1973
and is still against U.S. law.
That's because the sonic boom is heard on the ground
under the entire flight path of a supersonic plane.
COEN: We call it the carpet,
it's essentially right directly under the flight path
of the airplane,
up to 25 miles on either side,
is exposed to the sonic boom sound.
If you do fly over land supersonic,
there is a lot of people that could be disturbed by the sound.
NARRATOR: But there are almost five times as many people
flying on U.S. airlines today as there were in the '70s--
so any breakthrough that could speed up travel
would be a huge advantage.
NASA PILOT (on radio): NASA ground, cover zero seven control.
NASA GROUND: NASA Ground, copy, 12,000,
and we are ready for you on the ground.
NARRATOR: For decades, scientists at NASA
have been trying to answer a key question:
could they design a quieter supersonic plane?
The solution might lie
in changing the shape of the shockwaves
that produce sonic booms in the air.
COEN: We call the sonic boom the N-wave,
and that's because if you plot it on paper,
you have a large spike, a gradual decrease in pressure,
and then another large spike.
So you hear the bang-bang.
(two loud booms in quick succession)
What we're trying to do is
we're trying to change those spikes
into a more gradual pressure rise.
So instead of an N,
you've got more like an S lying on its side.
And you don't get a bang anymore.
♪
NARRATOR: Test pilots like Nils Larson already know
that certain flight maneuvers make a lot less noise.
And he helps the researchers make recordings
with a daring dive.
LARSON: We start up at about 49,500 feet, roughly.
(engine roaring)
And then they give us a point based on winds
and where they have the microphones
and that kind of stuff.
And so you point the nose at the ground, 53 degrees.
It feels just like you're going straight down.
It can get pretty exciting pretty quickly.
And that produces a shaped boom.
And it sounds a little bit more like distant rolling thunder
instead of the typical N-wave
that kind of gives you that crack-crack sound.
NARRATOR: A passenger plane would never be able to fly like this.
But Peter Coen and David Richwine lead a team
that's designed a model of an experimental plane
they hope will produce this kind of softer boom.
It starts with a nose that's even longer than Concorde's,
to help dissipate the shockwave in front of the plane.
COEN: So normally what would happen with a conventional nose
is you'd have a fairly strong shockwave
on the nose of the airplane.
So, by giving it this long, slender shape,
we're replacing that shockwave
with a more gradual compression,
which essentially makes for less noise
up when the whole signature actually reaches the ground.
NARRATOR: Another new feature is putting the engine on top of the wings,
instead of underneath them.
This will send part of the shockwave
at the back of the plane up, into the atmosphere,
instead of down to the ground.
RICHWINE: So you're not going to hear that startling boom.
You're going to hear more like a, a thump
that you might hear, like, in an apartment next door
if someone was closing their door
or something like that.
(jet engine rumbling)
(faint boom)
NARRATOR: The recordings from Larson's test flights
and computer models of the sound a new design might make
are used to test how people on the ground react.
ALEXANDRA LOUBEAU: We bring in people from the general public.
They basically rated their annoyance on a scale
of "Not at all annoying" to "Extremely annoying."
And then in yet other studies,
we added a vibration component,
so they were sitting
on chairs that were shaking.
And so you don't necessarily hear that,
but you feel the vibration,
and so that changed the overall experience.
NARRATOR: When they find sound levels
that people think are acceptable,
they'll try to replicate them
with a full-scale, operational plane
based on the model.
It will fly over communities across the country
to see how the sound plays out in different altitudes,
different seasons, and different weather.
No one is sure of the outcome,
but the data will be presented to the F.A.A.
If regulations about supersonic flight over land change,
that could open up the market
for a new generation of passenger planes
almost as fast as Concorde, but much quieter.
So really we would like to take the boom out of the boom.
If I think into the future,
I would really like to be able to imagine
that I could get on a sleek, new, quiet supersonic airliner
and get to where I'm going in half the time.
NARRATOR: Ultimately, it was a court decision
that allowed Concorde to land in New York.
But the pilots changed their approach,
slowing down to subsonic speed
while they were still over the Atlantic,
so that people on the ground would not hear the sonic boom
on landing.
(speaking French)
(translated): So British and French engineers and pilots
had to come up with incredibly complicated flight maneuvers,
ingenious maneuvers,
to prevent Concorde from making too much noise
over residential areas.
As a result, New York takeoffs and landings
were no picnic for the pilot.
It was tough. (chuckles)
♪
NARRATOR: Despite the tricky landing procedures,
in November 1977, two Concordes--
one French and one British--
finally arrived in New York.
And the opening of the first supersonic routes
between Europe and New York
kicked off what came to be called "Concorde-mania."
(Verschuère speaking French)
VERSCHUEÈRE (translated): All the fashion models took the Concorde,
show business people, actors,
and politicians, of course.
When there were U.N. general assemblies in New York,
in the front cabin, you'd have five or six prime ministers,
two presidents.
It was the world's rich and powerful
who traveled on Concorde.
♪
NARRATOR: Flying on Concorde was also the ultimate assignment
for the cabin crews.
ARMSTRONG: It was such a privilege,
because you were flying the flagship of the airline.
And, you know, we were so nervous,
even though we had
years of experience flying.
It was, it was a whole different game.
(Verschuère speaking French)
(translated): Michael Jackson was a frequent Concorde flyer,
and his little indulgence was to get a Big Mac.
Not a big deal, but not so easy to make on a plane.
So we'd get the Big Mac at the airport
and reheat it onboard to please him.
♪
NARRATOR: But the speed and glamor came with a very high price tag.
In 1978 a round-trip ticket from New York to London or Paris
cost about $1,500,
which would be almost $6,000 today.
Over its time in service,
the round-trip price went up
to the equivalent of more than $14,000.
As oil prices skyrocketed through the '70s and early '80s,
Concorde's huge fuel consumption also became a problem.
It burned at least twice as much fuel per passenger as a 747,
and that meant that longer
transcontinental flights were impossible.
And pollution from the plane's high-altitude exhaust emissions
was becoming a serious environmental concern.
So even as it kept flying,
there was more and more doubt about a supersonic future.
VAN DER LINDEN: It was just not affordable.
And you have to understand, it's an airliner.
It's a tool for airlines to make money.
This is a case of the economics trumping everything else.
If it doesn't pay its way, it won't survive.
♪
NARRATOR: On the afternoon of July 25, 2000,
an Air France Concorde to New York
left the gate in Paris.
Onboard were 100 passengers and nine crew.
Just as it was taking off,
an air traffic controller told the pilot
he saw flames at the rear of the aircraft.
HUTCHINSON: My mobile phone rang.
And I picked it up, answered it, I said "Hello?"
And the voice said, "Is that Captain Hutchinson?"
I said, "Yes, it is."
And they said, "It's the BBC here.
We want to interview you about the Concorde crash."
(alarms blaring)
NARRATOR: A cascade of events had gone wrong.
The plane was overweight.
There was a sudden change in wind direction
but no change in runway.
And then a small piece of metal
on the tarmac caused a tire to explode.
The debris hit a gas tank.
Fuel escaped, instantly caught fire,
and caused a catastrophic loss of two of the engines.
♪
The death toll was 113,
including four people on the ground.
ARMSTRONG: I was at home, and somebody phoned me up.
And I put on the TV.
And it was the same impact as, almost as the Twin Towers,
where you couldn't believe your eyes.
♪
(translated): Everybody thought I was onboard.
But I was home, and it was very distressing.
The irony for the Concorde is,
until that loss,
it was statistically the safest airplane in the sky.
After the loss,
it was statistically one of the least safe.
That's only because it flew so seldomly.
♪
NARRATOR: After the crash,
all Concordes were temporarily grounded.
But even when flights resumed,
the supersonic plane's days were numbered.
Concorde would only be in service
for two more years.
♪
The dream of flying faster than sound
still makes headlines today.
Boeing is working on a plane the company hopes
will fly almost three times as fast as Concorde.
And Airbus has a concept for a plane
that could go from New York to London in an hour.
This research will likely take decades
before it's known if flying that fast--
at hypersonic speed-- is really possible.
But start-up companies like Boom Technology in Denver
are already working on new planes
that build on the legacy of Concorde--
despite the continued existence
of regulations against supersonic flight over land.
SCHOLL: It's not just New York to London;
it's San Francisco to Tokyo, L.A. to Sydney.
There are about 500 routes on the planet
that have enough traffic
for a supersonic flight to exist with our airplane
without flying supersonic over land.
♪
NARRATOR: Using computer simulations,
newer composite materials,
and different engine technology,
today's pioneers want to build supersonic jets
that will be more environmentally friendly
and more affordable.
SCHOLL: The way we've approached it at Boom
is to say, "Hey, let's start with Concorde.
"There's a design that we know worked.
"And what we have to do is improve upon it.
"Let's do something
"that's going to make economic sense for airlines,
that's going to make economic sense for passengers."
And, as a result, this is going to be sustainable.
This isn't going to be, you know,
a couple routes on the planet for some very wealthy people.
Ultimately, this is something that's going to go mainstream
and change the way all of us get around the planet.
♪
NARRATOR: The very last flights of Concorde were in 2003.
BANNISTER: Watching millions of people around the airport
waving and cheering--
it was a very emotional moment,
and something I shall remember for the rest of my life.
(translated): This was the time when I realized
that I had participated in something exceptional.
♪
NARRATOR: The remarkable breakthroughs of Concorde
will always be a milestone in aviation history.
And if a quieter,
more cost-effective version of the legendary plane
can be built,
another new chapter will begin.
COEN: The U.S. was the first country to break the sound barrier
with Chuck Yeager in the '40s.
I like to think what we're doing
is going to break the sound barrier for the rest of us,
so that's pretty cool.
♪
(Verschuère speaking French)
VERSCHUEÈRE (translated): Even now,
on all the flights I worked,
there is someone on the crew who tells me,
"My regret is that I never flew on the Concorde."
♪
NARRATOR: On "NOVA"...
victims of a gruesome slaughter.
WOMAN: They've suffered extreme violence.
The rope is still visible around the neck.
NARRATOR: A moment of terror frozen for thousands of years.
MAN: This body goes back to the early Bronze Age.
NARRATOR: Can modern forensics solve the mystery
of who they were and how they died?
MAN 2: It's an image of ritual killing.
NARRATOR: "Ghosts of Murdered Kings,"
next time on "NOVA."
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visit shopPBS.org or call 1-800-PLAY-PBS.
This program is also available on Amazon Prime Video.
♪