BEFORE CONCORDE French projects
As British manufacturers were proposing concepts for a supersonic transport, so their French counterparts were thinking along similar lines. Concorde would prove it made sense to join forces — but not before France’s aviation industry had demonstrated cutting-edge design innovation, including a nuclear-powered ‘Super Caravelle’
PART TWO
In France the initial impetus to build a supersonic airliner came from the aircraft manufacturers. In the vanguard was the Toulouse branch of the design office of SNCASO, the Société Nationale des Constructions Aéronautiques du Sud-Ouest, led by technical director André Vaultier. Its interest in an SST began in late 1957.