In 2003 an amazing fleet of aircraft was retired after 27 years of scheduled service flying passengers at over Mach 2. Concorde was an aircraft that had started on drawing boards in the late 1950's before moving into the prototype phase in the early 1960's. Due to the rising costs of construction it was decided that the UK should look for international partners for the project, and France showed real interest. Two prototype craft were built, one in the UK and one in France which both had their maiden flights in 1969. In total 6 aircraft were built before the production models were built, 2 prototypes, 2 pre-production and 2 development. This aircraft is 1 of the 2 pre-production models known as 101 - G-AXDN.

As it was a pre-production model it only flew 632 hours over 269 flights (which 168 were supersonic). It was retired in August 1977 to here at the Imperial War Museum, Duxford where it now sits surrounded by other ground breaking aircraft. After the initial 6 aircraft another 14 production aircraft were built between 1975 and 1979.

The beginning of the end for these amazing aircraft happened in July 2000 with the crash of F-BTSC leaving Paris Charles de Gaulle en route to John F. Kennedy International Airport. The whole fleet was grounded until it was clear what happened. The first commercial flight didn't happen until November 2001. Unfortunately by now low passenger numbers caused by people being not so eager to fly on Concorde and the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks along with the rising costs of maintenance meant that they were becoming un-economic to keep flying. In April 2003 the retirement of Concorde was announced.

This view is to the side showing its slender profile and small size.