Considered by many to be as demanding as the US space programme, Stephen Skinner chronicled the testing and certification of Concorde in a special Key Publishing magazine on the legendary aircraft. It was a colossal challenge taking almost seven years and more than 5,000 flying hours – twice that of the Airbus A380.
The testing and certification of Concorde was a mighty challenge for the British and French engineers involved. Some have referred to it as being the UK’s and France’s equivalent to the US space programme.
Where the giant Airbus A380 only took 20 months from maiden flight to certification with a 2,500-hour flight test programme, Concorde’s revolutionary technology needed more than 5,000 hours, utilising eight aircraft during the almost seven-year-long flight test programme. This included nearly 1,000 hours of route-proving on airline routes in typical airline service conditions.
As the final production Concordes were appreciably different from the prototypes, the test programme was longer than it might have been, but not because of any major difficulties encountered.
The flight test programme required the examination of all systems and their functionality through all aspects of the aircraft’s flight envelope – its…
