How the Concorde Worked

what's going on. Everybody's right with the world. Oh, I've been spelling this wrong all these years, by the way, we've been spelling out like Flight of the Concords between that and Concord with no E and all my writings on the Concorde. Well you have that blog Concorde days. Yeah, but yeah, and I noticed there's no E on it, and I spelled days day z as you did. Chuck. We share a mind sometimes because I was about too had I not been taking a sip of coffee, I

would have said that at the same time d a Z. Yeah. Well, I was waiting on you to take a sip so I could steal that thanks to uh. In fact, I tried to get a And we're gonna talk a little bit later about the experience of flying on the the famed and fabled Concord Jet airliner. That's what we're talking about. But I tried to get in touch. I know a person who made that trip. Uh, Justin's mom. I don't

know Justin, Well, imagine Justin but mother. Ok. Yeah, Justin's mom carry from England, and she made a like since I've known her, so I guess one of the one of the last trips early two thousand's. Yeah, that would have been I think it's two thousand three, October two thousand three when it was decommissioned. Yeah. So I hit her up on Facebook and it was like, Carrie, you know, let me know what it was like. But she's in a hurricane ravage North Carolina, so she's probably like buzz off, chuck,

everything all right with her. Yeah, Yeah, they're good. They went inland. Shout out to all of our peeps who were who had to go through Florence. Yeah, my sister was there right in the middle of it. She okay, yeah, she's good. Trees down in the area, but like minimal house damage and they're high on you know, they sit higher up, so it's not like they're not flooded. That's good because a lot of the area is yeah, and she was also I mean, she said it's bad, but

she said the news is always just so sensationalized. She's like, this is not like Hurricane Katrina or anything. Did you see that UM clip of the Weather Channel? Dude? No, I didn't, So what was he just like making stuff like no, leaning into the wind like he was about to be blown over? And then in the background, two guys just strolled by and like shorts and flip flops, not even I mean, like I don't even think their

hair was blowing. That's shameful. It is shameful, and I'm so glad that that made the round because that's ridiculous. It is, you know, especially for a weather event where there's genuine fear and like you could incite panic. Like I think that there's a lot of a lot wrong with that. So let's shake on it. Okay, alright, So concords. So we're talking concords today. I never got to fly on one. You didn't, because go ahead and assume Jerry didn't UM, And I don't know anybody who did, but

I would have loved to have. And I think I've stepped on board one. There's one at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum by Dullus. I thought you met you boarded a flight and they're like, sir, you're on the wrong plane. Back when you could do that, Sir, you're asleep right now. This is a drink. UM. I can't remember if they actually let you step on it or not. Um. Where was this Dulless Dullis Airport that the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum? Is there one still there? Yes, it's um.

It's called the Stephen f Udvar Hazy Center. I just call it the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum at Dulless. It really nice. They have like a a stealth Um black Hawk, No, not black Hawk, Blackbird SR. Seventy one Blackbird. Did you know that those things are built so that when they're on the ground, the plates that hold them like that make up the plane, they have gaps in between them. The reason is because that thing flies so fast and gets so hot that the plates expand and

it becomes solid when it really counts. But on the ground, apparently when it's taking off, it would just leak fuel everywhere because it doesn't have like a solid plate to to speak of. That's like us basically becomes solid when it counts anyway. At the Seran Space Museum at Dullus, which is frankly worth flying to Dullus just to go to it's that good. Is a concorde I think it's an Air France concorde Um, one of the last ones that was ever flown. Yeah, I'm a fan of air

and space museums. You you would love this one, man. I wouldn't. I wouldn't say I'm like an aviation uh how owned, But I know people that are, well you you don't have to be to appreciate this. Yeah, sure for everybody. And there's a space shuttle there too. Yeah, I'm gonna have to check that out. Yeah for sure. I used to go to the one in Pennsyl Pensacola, the Naval Air Museum. They're growing up, and I just thought it was cool, you know, walk around looking at planes.

You're gonna love this. Well, all right, so let's go back in time to uh the swinging sixties in England. Yeah, which was pretty swinging. It was, in fact very quickly. I want to recommend that Michael Caine documentary my generation. I haven't seen it. It's not just about Michael Caine.

He's sort of like the host of what London was like in like the late sixties, so pretty cool, the whole Alfie thing, Alfie and the Rolling Stones and Marry and Faithful and he and Albert Finney and just like saying to the class establishment, yeah, we're young and also super rich. Well eventually sure, but anyway, in the sixties, this is the early sixties, so and quite as winging. Then the British and the French government's got together and they say, hey, let's uh, let's build a really fast

plane together. Yeah, because it turned out that the British and the French, we're both building what's called the supersonic transport plane s s t S. And they weren't the only ones doing it either. It was the Soviets and the Americans, the British and the French were all working on their own supersonic transport plane at the same time,

which is weird until you think about jet. Jet airliners were really really new, and so everybody was all about jet airliners, which made them think, well, what goes even faster than that? Supersonic planes that travel faster than the speed of sound. So everybody was working on them at the time. Yeah, I'm surprised that it was that early in airline travel when they thought, hey, maybe we can go really fast. That seemed like it would be like

a thirty years on developed it. I think there was a lot more like inspiration and ent, let's shoot for the stars to burn. Sure, um, who cares about the environment kind of thing. Yeah, but I I really get that that sentiment because I think about it, four different nations working on the same kind of pie in the sky project. That's impressive. So they built a couple of prototypes, um, and then the very first flight of the Concorde was nine.

Together they made about twenty or they made twenty not about this is actually something where they know the number. Although I did see sixteen and fourteen production models, but every place I've seen sixteen sixteen was in more places, so not no production models. So like I guess prototypes and stuff don't count, like sixteen that actually flew commercially. Gosh, what did they do with the prototypes and his trash them or something? I don't know. Maybe that's the dullest

or No, that was probably a production model. Yeah, it definitely was, because you got you want seat stains on display and all their glory. This one smells like Gerard Depard. Oh God, not that guy. Uh. Alright, so you talked about the Soviets they built and this is hysterical. But they built something called the t U one, the tupa left, and they nicknamed it with a K, the Concorde Ski. Right.

That seems like a joke, I think, well, I think the Brits and the French nicknamed it, and kind of derisively too, because the Soviet what the Soviets came up with looks an awful lot like what the Brits and the French came up with. And it makes you wonder one of two things was there, like espionage going on on one side or the other one one group was

spying on the other group. I would say, yes, probably, Or is it just that the Concorde follows these aerospace principles that any highly skilled, well trained aerospace engineer would fall low and come up with on their own. Probably that too. I wonder that makes more sense though, because Concorde Ski was so hysterical. It seems like something from like the Benny Hill Shower or something. Right, So, so by this time I can laugh just hearing Benny Hill

Shaw Yeah. By this time, the French and the British are coming up with their own concord, the Soviets have come up with their own, and the Americans are like war out. I think Congress funded a report just saying like how much is this singing and cost? By the way, and um got back the bill and we're like, no, we're not doing this anymore. And they scrapped the boeing, which is the oh seven Oh is that what it

was going to be? And I think they made hey about the sound and the noise of the sonic boom. That's supposedly why there aren't super sonic planes anymore. They're going to be that their kin though, I think, well, we would have to repeal a law in the United States that you can't have overland sonic booms from commercial airlines, and you got the same law in Europe. So there's two huge continental markets that are just you can't service anymore because it's illegal to fly over I'm in a

supersonic plane. And that, from what I understand, is the true reason why there's not concords any longer. Really just the boom, not just the boom they're really expensive in but the boom killed it and it's kept it from coming back. Have you ever heard of sonic boom? Yeah? I don't think it's that bad. It depends on the sonic boom, right, I guess it depends on how big. I guess you wouldn't want one, you know, eight times

a day over your neighborhood. Well that's the thing is like, Yeah, you know, if if everybody was flying supersonic, think about how many planes fly overhead of you know a place that's a place where you live by the airport. Imagine each one having a sonic boom. No, that would get old. But I'm saying, like, if I'm at the beach and there's like an F sixteen I hear the boom, I'm kind of like, oh that's awesome. Yeah, you like toast him with your beer. I love it when those guys

buzz the beach like sending reything tumbling. It's fun stuff. Uh boy, should we take a break already? Sure? All right, let's do it. We'll describe what these things were. I right after this, sorry, Chuck, before we describe the concorde,

I'm kind of excited about. We should say what happened to the Soviets Um Concorde SKI, so it very publicly um flamed out and crashed at a play's air show, killed everybody on board and killed several I think eight people on the ground at this air show, which air shows are super dangerous to begin with, but apparently, and I saw footage of it, the Soviet pilot was basically flying a concorde like a stunt plane and overstressed it and it came apart in the air and just crashed. Yeah,

that's not a good idea, No, it's not. It seems like I mean, these things were definitely agile, but they seemed the best use was to fly straight and fast and high right, and their their performance at the air show followed the either air I guess the air France concorde um, which just took off, did its thing and then came back down like a normal flight, and the Soviets were trying to one up it because again it's the Cold War and France was friends with the US.

This would get back to the Americans. Well, maybe we should talk about the other famous crash too, because that had a lot to do with its ultimate demise, Like combined with many other factors that will get to like you're saying the expense in the boom. But had it not been for the crash on July thud of an Air France concord flight from Paris to New York, it may not have been killed all as quickly. So this one,

it was flight ninety. It was a charter that I think had a bunch of mainly German tourists headed to a cruise to depart from New York. And about five minutes before this thing hit the runway, there was a Continental jet that took off left behind a piece of metal that was about sixteen inches long and about three inches wide, very small. No one caught it. Uh. And then this concord runs over this thing at like three hundred and seventy miles an hour or something, yeah, which

I mean, we'll get to that. But those things were fast when they were taken off. Yeah, so who knows if it would have happened on on a regular flight. Uh. And this thing popped up and it blew out of tire and disturbed the fuel tank. Yeah. Well the tire blew the debris into the engine and blew out one

of the engines. Yeah, and it ruptured the fuel tank. Too, so fuel just comes spewing out of it, Okay, And there's a very famous picture of that concorde taking off with just a trail of flames coming out of it, and you see it and you're like, wow, the concorde was cool looking, and then you realize it's not supposed to look like that at all. Yeah, two hundred feet of flames. So we'll talk in a minute here about

the the weird fuel distribution in this thing. But uh, it was about eighteen hundred pounds overweight at time of takeoff, and they said that didn't necessarily have anything to do with the wreck, but because it was overweight, they had one of the fuel tanks full, where otherwise it might have been a little redistributed, So that was most of the fuel at the time. Again, it probably wouldn't have mattered,

like any fuel on fire is not good. But what struck me was that it was on fire before they took off, Like they told them, you're on fire and you're still on the ground. But apparently they were going so fast that it was too dangerous, like you couldn't stop the plane. Well, the reason that I saw that the pilot um tried to take off even though he knew he was on fire. Was because he figured he could put the fire out just from the thrust up in the air, starving it of oxygen and basically blowing

the fire out from the engine. See. I saw that he couldn't stop because he was going almost four miles

an hour and they had to go somewhere. Um. I also saw that had they not had more fuel than what they should have had, had they not been overweight, they probably could have gotten aloft right, And I think the flight engineer also shut down one of the engines inexplicably, So now they were down two of their four engines, and they just crashed into a hotel, right, which is remarkable that more people in a hotel didn't die, but I think only one person in the hotel was critically injured,

and then everybody on board died the plane. Yeah, which I mean, did it blow up into a fireball or something like that. I don't think they're just going that fast. No, think they just crashed. I mean I'm sure there was a lot of fire involved. Uh, clearly from that photo. Yeah. So Continental and one of Continental's mechanics were actually found guilty of manslaughter. But then it was later overturned. The Yeah, interesting, um with the get they were exonerated in two thousand ten.

That really that that, yes, that piece of metal did start the series of events. But had it just been the piece of metal and nothing else, they probably would have survived. They would have taken off and then been able to come back in for a control. I wonder if the airport was sued. I don't know, because it's not the continental planes fault necessarily. From what I understand, France sues everybody when there's a plane crash that has

to do with France. They might sue us maybe about this, right, all right, so you want to talk about all right, that was a tragedy. Well that so that that, combined with the memory of what happened to the Soviet concourse, really shook people's faith. But as we'll see later on, there were a lot of people who were involved in this project who if they canceled it would lose a lot of face that I think hopped on the opportunity to be like, yep, concords aren't safe. We tried, We'll

just scrap it. How about that? Interesting? Yeah, this is a movie totally for the movie with any alright, so let's let's just talk about the plane and what made

it different and special. A normal seven forty seven Boeing seven forty seven goes about five D sixty miles an hour at just cruising speed at about thirty five thousand feet the concord, it's cruising speed was about hundred and fifty miles an hour at almost twice the altitude between sixty and seventy thousand feet, which is faster than the speed of sound. Yeah, by a long shot. I think Mack one is the speed of sound. This thing would fly mocked two cruising cruising speed and sixty feet. That's

eighteen thousand three D above sea level. Yeah, that's ridiculously high. You're basically kissing the edge of space right there. Yeah, it's not quite suborbital, but you're flirting with it. Right. So I was like, gosh, I guess it's about where Felix bomb Gardner jumped for that one stratosphere jump. Remember when he did that. He jumped at twice that height and I think twenty eight thousand feet. Yeah, that's insane. That guy jumped out of a platform skydive from that height. Yeah,

that's almost so high. That it's like, what's the difference between that and yeah, maybe you know, I don't know. And he lived, He did live, and he really pulled out because remember he started to spin and they were worried. He blacked out and he was done for I bet he's not finished. No, I'm surprised he hasn't done anything recently.

It's been long enough. Yeah, all right, so let's talk about the design of this thing, because you can't just like soup up an engine on a seven seven and say all right, now you can fly faster and higher, like this plane had to be completely designed for this purpose. Yeah, because again seven, which flies pretty fast, we just totally break up if you could somehow get it to the speed of sound, because the speed of sound itself is really really fast, and it's a different type of flying

just from the friction and everything in the air. But also to get to the speed of sound requires um a lot of effort on your planes part. Do you ever read the right stuff? Now? I never read that. The Tumbults did a great explanation of Chuck Yeager being the first person to break the sound barrier, like no

one knew what happened beyond this wall. Of sound that forms or wall of air that forms that the nose of the plane, and Yeager was like, it's gonna like it felt like the plane was just gonna break the pieces. But he just knew, just knew that if he just got on the other side of it would be smooth sailing, right, absolutely, right. Yeah, supersonic sailing or supersonic flight is smoother than subsonic flight. Um, and it's definitely smoother than flying just below the speed

of sound. But it's just this beautiful description of what you're doing it that's awesome. Yeah, But the point is is to fly at super sonic faster than sound speeds, you have to have a specialized plane, I think, is what you're trying to say, like five minutes ago. Sure, So we're gonna go through each one of these sort of design features and uh, one by one, starting with the fact that it was streamlined to begin with, and it's designed so like you were talking about that wall

of air. Uh, in order to help punch through that, you have to streamline your plane. And the Concorde had very famously it just looked cool, but it had a very specific purpose. That needle like nose on the front that's to punch through that wall of air. Yeah, it wasn't to look cool, no, but it did look pretty cool, that's just aside beside benefit. And the plane itself was very sleek and in um needle like too. Yeah, for sure.

The the wings it had a uh what's called a sweatback delta wings, so the wings were triangular and connected to the fuselage all all along. So it wasn't just like a rectangular wing coming off you know, you've seen pictures. It's just like a big folded napkin, like a big triangle, yeah,

kind of. And and for those of you not in the know, a fuselage is like the main body of the plane where the passengers go, that's right, and not many of them in the case of the Concorde, no, because it was much smaller um width wise than a seven forty seven seven sevens like twenty ft across. This is half that, and so it would fit about a hundred passengers in two rows of two with an aisle going down the middle. It was not a big plane.

It was small, no, And apparently there was a bathroom in the middle, so it sort of divided into two sections, but they weren't different like one wasn't first class and one was business. They were all identical. But I have pulled some quotes from writers and one of the guys was like, but you still felt better if you were in the front, like you were a better person, I guess,

which is crazy because you will die sooner. Um, did we determine that at one point you're slightly more likely to survive in the rearver plane crash in the middle of the two really not the front though, to take that first class snobs. Uh, yeah, so not in a half feet wide, um two and two feet long, So it's a little shorter than a seven forty seven, but not much, not much. So it's just it's just narrower and more streamlined, like a little dark just punch him

right through the air. Yeah. Uh. The other thing is the fuselage, like you said, the body. Uh, in the wing there was there was no space, like I mentioned, It was all just attacked in the and the engine mounted not on struts but directly to the wing. So that was very different. Yeah, it's That's one of the things that's like so iconic about the Concords design is that it was it appeared to be like all one piece, Like the body just kind of moved out into the wing.

The wings like dropped down to to produce the engines and then dropped back and then went back up into the wing. It just looked super cool, and I'm sure a lot of it was aesthetics, but even more so it was this thing has to have as few separate pieces as possible, because more pieces means they could break up.

You want to just basically be one solid plane. Yeah, and because of that wing design, it meant uh, not only did you have reduced drag and better lift for takeoff and landing, but there we was there was no horizontal stabilizer on the tail. So when you look at a regular jumbo jet, you see like the horizontal piece of the tail goes up, then you have the two little tiny wings on that they don't They didn't have those tiny wings, so again just kind of streamlined right exactly.

Um the nose itself too. So the wing that's a pretty significant aerospace design. I didn't realize that until it started popping up like and researching this again and again that like it's one thing to design a wing that can you know, cut through the air at supersonic speeds. But you aren't gonna land or take off at supersonic speeds, so that wing has to do double duty. It has to be able to keep you aloft at supersonic speeds.

It also has to keep you aloft at subsonic speeds. So, from what I understand, the wing on the Concorde was like a triumph of engineering. Yeah. I don't know about you, but I don't get scared to fly. But sometimes still when I look out and I see the wing wobbling and kind of flapping, I think, Man, I wish more of that was connected to the plane. Yeah, it just looks like more stable, it looks like it's trying to flap its way. Yeah, that always is dis concerting to me.

I have to say, I have come so far with fear of flying, and I've thanked her before and I'm going to thank her again. Thank you to you me for getting me over my fear of flying, because my life would be so much worse if I were still scared to fly. Well, yeah, she was probably like, dude, I want to go places right with you. You're gonna have to get over this, buddy. Yeah, I remember the days when you were the what was it the dark

Night of the sky or the black Ghost and the sky. Oh, I'm glad you brought that up, Joshua, were a blanket completely over his head while you flew, so it could be the black Ghost, of the red Ghost of the gray ghosts, depended on the color of the blanket, Chuck. To my great dismay, I found recently that they washed those blankets maybe once every four flights, over once every eight flights. Did you think they washed them between every flight?

I thought it was new every time that I wouldn't have put it over my head if I had known that, Like God knows, who did wide into that blanket? Did you know? I thought they were either single serve and then they like donated them, or if they did rewatch them that it certainly was not every flight. I wish you would have brought this up because I can still like taste old blankets in my mouth. Now I think I'm hallucinating, but I can still taste it. It's the same.

It's real to me, all right. So I believe before we got sidetracked a minute ago, you were about to say something about the nose tilting and moving. So what's the deal there? Okay, So the angle of attack. If a plane's flying straight, we'll call that a horizontal angle of attack. I call it getting there. What is this ninety degrees? What are you talking about? So what angle is this? Well, you're not saying an angle, You're just

you just have your arm out straight. Okay. So let's say a plane is flying completely horizontal parallel to the ground, but it's flying forward, so it's if we pop it up so the nose is up, it's flying at a steep angle of attack. I think if it's coming down really fast, it's also a steep angle of attack. But the concorde is meant to come in so that its nose is popped up way higher than like a seven or forty seven when it lands. The angle of attack.

The problem is is because of that long needle like nose, if you're a pilot, you can't see past that when you're flying or taking off because the angle of attack is so steep. So they actually designed the nose too basically elevate downward to get out of their view when the plane was taking off her landing, and then before it went into sub or supersonic speeds, it would pop into place so that it was a pointy needle. Yeah,

so it actually awesome. Yeah, it moved in flight and you can and it also had a little visor on it because you're going so fast too. I guess just to break that wind over the window or that bird guy, can you imagine what that thing did? The birds are in into Yeah, no bird, No, like a Randy Johnson fastball. Yeah. Do you ever see that Big Unit? Wow? Look at you. It's like it's almost like when Emily throws out of sports fact every now and then. That was alive in

America the nineties. Everybody knew who the Big Unit was. No, that's true. She was talking one time about she said something about Eli Manning. It's like, how do you know Eli Manning? She's like, I know the Manning guys. She's like one of them wears the the orange outfit and when whears the blue outfit. At least she didn't say costume costume outfit. You know who's got me and Emily combined beat is hodgment. Oh for sports? Yeah, he's just

willfully ignorant of sports. Yeah, although he has gotten into a thing here in his middle age where he will go to a sporting event if someone offers him the chance, because he just was almost more like a sociological experiment, not like oh I want to go root for the giants or whatever, just like, oh, well, this is fascinating to observe. Count the number of hot dogs that are eaten by Hodgman, No, just by everyone around him. Um, all right, where were we the visor and killing birds?

So now let's talk about the engines. Okay, So those engines on a concorde where there were four engines, two on each wing. Yeah, Rolls Royce, how do you say the other company taking a stay up at it? I would say the s S silence. So I'm just gonna go the Necma Olympus or Snecma. I would have gone with Snecma. All right, maybe it's Snecma. It sounds like a skin condition, it does. So the Rolls Royce Necma engine we're capable of eighteen points seven tons of thrust each,

which I have reference. It does sound like a lot. And if it doesn't sound like a lot to you, prepare for this. The four engines aboard the concorde um combined burned six thousand, seven hundred and seventy one gallons of fuel per hour, and not only that. Yeah, that sounds like a ton. It was. Well, supposedly it took a ton of fuel per seit that was the rule of thumb for the Concorde, Like literally a ton of

fuel per passage, that's what I read. Um. And the the fuel they used was kerosene, which is so redneck for like a British Airways air France joint thing. They were burning kerosene hank Kill City. Yeah, well that was propane, but still that's right. Um alright. So, like we said before, though, these engines were attached directly to the underside of the wing.

There were no struts. I know, when you're in a plane now and you just look at a normal jumbo jet, it looks like that engine is attached to the wing, but it's or part of the wing, but it actually is attached with these metal poles called struts, right, which is fine for sub sonic flight. Um. Again, though the engines for the Concorde are basically part of the wing so that they wouldn't come off U and then the after burning that is probably the coolest part of this

whole thing to me. The Brits called it reheating or having a wet engine. Yeah, but after burning is like what an F sixteen will do. Uh. If you want extra juice, you mix raw fuel, you know how you see like the red flame coming out of the back of an engine. You actually mix raw fuel with that after it's been burned once, just to juice you even more. Yeah.

Like the whole reason they have um uh tests of your cars emission systems is because you're you don't burn all of the gas that you're trying to burn in your engine, some of it escaped, unburned or partially burned. What the what an after burner engine does is it captures that exhaust and puts it through a second burner to get as much of that that what would have been lost energy from being lost and just giving it that extra boost. That is how it would reach supersonic speeds.

Um and the it was it would be so loud in there apparently when the afterburners were on. But in the in the British French Concord you didn't have to have after burners on all the time. In the Soviet Concord Sky you had to have the afterburns on the whole time, So it was like unodly loud in the cabin the entire flight. That was another mark against it. Well, that's crazy because afterburners are for like even in fighter jets,

it's like for minimal use. But when you're like on the highway to the danger zone, that's when you kick in the afterburners. Yeah, it's just like every now and then to get more thrust. That's that is crazy. It's only meant to be for short bursts. Right from what I saw. They had to have the afterburners on the whole time to maintain supersonic flight in the t U one. Is that right? Yeah, that's yeah. The concord sky that is nuts. Well, no, wonder it didn't work. Um, should

we take another break? Sure? All right, we'll talk more about fuel and paint right after this things chop cho Sorry, alright, fuel and paint. What's the deal with the fuel? Seventeen fuel tanks, thirty almost thirty two gallons. Yeah, that's a lot of fuel. Yeah, and I think it does. I did see a ton of seat, which we'll find made the concord really expensive to operate. Yeah, so that fuel

against kerosene, which just blows me away. Um, they they had it designed really ingeniously because again, when you fly supersonic, all sorts of different things happen, and one of the things that happens is the balance of the plane. That what you would call like the center of gravity shifts backwards. And when that happens, like it's tough to imagine because you think the opposite is going to happen. But imagine you have like a little doul, a little stick balanced

on your finger. If you move your finger further back along the dowell, you'll notice that the front of the doull goes down because the center of gravity is further back. It's balance is further back. So that would happen when you hit supersonic speeds in the concorde. Yeah, so in motion that's called the aerodynamic center. Um, I like center balance, but that's well, I think that's the same thing, but in motion, Okay, I might be wrong, and aerodynamically speaking,

uh yeah. So they had what they call they had three auxiliary or trim fuel tanks. If you've ever been on a boat, a boat has a way to trim the the motor. You might have trim tabs on it, or you might have a little button that makes your boat motor go up and down and that's to keep you know, that's how you don't you're not cruising along through the water with your nose way out of the water. You you trim that thing and then it'll lower the nose a little bit. I had no idea that's what

that was. Yeah, trim. So it's the same thing in this plane. But they used fuel that they would shift backward and forward to level this thing out to find its aerodynamic center balance, right, they would they would if the if the aerodynamic balance center balance was that what it was, aerodynamic center like, they could pump just as much fuel as it took to these empty tanks to balance the plane out and make it fly perpendicular or horizontal parallel to the ground again like they wanted to.

And then when it was coming out of sub sonic speeds, the opposite would happen, that the center would move towards the front and the back would go up, so they would pump gas back to the other tank and level it out again. Really ingenious stuff. Yeah, I just think of a see saw. Yeah. And how however many little kids you would need to put on there to equalize me? Yeah, because you're moving the full frum from different places Yeah, that's just great, pretty cool man, way better than my

stupid Dowell on your finger idea. Uh, well, imagine me on that doll, same thing, broken doll. Uh. And that's when I mentioned earlier when it had that famous crash in two thousand of its fuel because of you know, they had to have it in a certain place for takeoff. It was all concentrated right there where that fire was

so bad news. Yeah, that's just bad luck. And then the paint was special paint even because crazily enough, this thing got super hot, right, they came up with a white, a shade of white that's like four times more reflective than the white you see on no plane, which apparently look at the concorde and blind you on the spot. Um. Yeah,

Presian white sounds pretty nice, man, um. But they would do this to reflect heat, and they were they wanted to reflect heat because they needed to get rid of as much heat as they possibly could, because this thing would get really hot at the speeds it was going, just because of the friction it's going through the air, the air molecules in the air, and the faster you go,

the harder you run into these air molecules. The hotter things get and that the Concorde would actually you could touch the windows from what I saw, and they would be warm to the touch and the flight, whereas if you touch a window on a forty seven, you're freezing because it's like negative sixty degrees fahrenheight out there. It would get up to like two hundred, like positive two hundred and sixty degrees fahrenheight on this out the outside

of the nose in particular of the Concorde. And that's despite the air temperature which would be even lower higher up right right, like negative sixty. Yeah. So in the end, the paint was about double twice as reflective as any other jet. So that's solved that problem. Yeah pretty well. Uh all right, so I guess let's talk about flying on this thing. Like we said, can only hold a

hundred people, right, a hundred wealthy, wealthy people. Yeah, Like round trip was ten to twelve grand And I don't know if we said this, Like the lure of the Concord was not just that it was it looked cool and it went like really fast. It cut the time to get from London to New York or Paris to New York virtually in half, which is huge, Like if you've ever made that trip, it's just long enough to

be we started to get pretty uncomfortable. Um so half the time, like three and a half hours basically from London to New York. That was a really valuable thing that people would be willing to pay for. And you had to pay a lot to get on the Concorde. I saw upwards of twelve thousand dollars round trip, which correct me if I'm wrong, But if that's like nineteen eighty money, that's like thirty two grand today. Yeah, and

that's for sitting in what amounts to like a bucket seat. Um. Apparently the meals were very nice and the service was impeccable, sure, and you felt special and the lounges were Did they have lounges, Yeah, they had special Concorde lounges. See, I didn't see anything but seats in a in a bathroom. They well no, no, I'm sorry. At the airports they had special lounges just for Concorde passengers. Yeah, they had to gus see it up. I guess I got like

a foot massage. Yeah, but I mean, if you're talking thirty two tho dollar round trip tickets, like you were sitting there rubbing elbows with like the world's elite and celebrities, And on one particular day in ve Um, one of the people you might have been sitting next to was none other than Phil Collins. That's right. Do you want

to tell them about Phil Collins in the concorde? Uh? Yeah, all right, I remember because I was watching Live AID at the time and as if Live AID wasn't a big enough awesome thing to do on a I can't remember. It was Saturday or Sunday afternoon. Tell the kids what Live AID was. Oh, jeez, we should do a Live AID episode. Yeah, we should. Live AID was a benefit concert, and not the first benefit concert, but the first huge um multicontinental benefit concert. There was a led Zeppelin reunion.

It was that big, the first ever back when they hadn't been broken up for that long, which is crazy. Um USA. For Africa, wasn't that what it was called? Uh? I don't know if it was. If Live AID, I'm not sure if you say for Africa was different, but it was. They're basically trying to alleviate the um the droughts famines in in Western Africa, right, headed up by Bob who very famously portrayed Pink in um The Wall of the movie The Wall and was you've seen that right, Yeah,

but I didn't know that was Bob Geldo. Yeah, that's Bob Geldo in the movie. The character's name is Pink. Not in real life. Everyone I know that. Uh. And he was the singer for you know, he had the big hit for the boomtown Rats. No idea. I don't know why. I don't like Mondays. No. I thought that was an Elvis Costello song. No boomtown Rats. It sounds just like Elvis Costello, doesn't it. It sort of does. I never thought about that. I always thought that's who

it was. Yeah, okay, alright, So we got Bob Geldof put on this huge concert to help fund to help fund um this charity for Africa, which we've mentioned before was actually like a terrible move. It went straight to the war lords, remember, yeah, it did. I think in our Famine's episode we talked about this good one. But um, it was such a huge concert that it took place at the same time in Europe and North America. Yea, Like this concert spanned the Atlantic wasn't it in Philly, Yes, Philly,

and I believe London, right, So that's the stage. It's the hugest thing ever. That's where Queen very famously just brought down the house at Wembley Stadium. Uh and one of the great performances of all time. Many many performers did so. Uh. And Phil Collins, as if that wasn't big enough, was like, here's what I want to do. I want to play on both continents. I want to do both of these shows. So he did. He did

a show at Wembley Stadium. From what I understand, it went pretty well, and then he went to the I think he throw and hopped on in British Airways Concord and flew from London to New York, took a helicopter from New York to Philadelphia, and I think he went on stage at one or two pm in London, and he made its Philadelphia on time to take the stage and I think two pm in Philadelphia. Time travel, yes,

because that was the thing. The concorde got you there so fast that it was less than the time difference between the East Coast of the United States in London or Paris, and so it was actually like a four hour trip, but there's a five hour time difference, so you could actually travel back in time figuratively speaking with the concorde. And that's what Phil Collins did. So he went off a stage in London and then came on stage in Philadelphia. It was pretty thanks to the Concorde.

It was amazing. And then they had a camera crew following him and stuff. I remember seeing like he's at the airport now and he's getting on the helicopter. It was a big deal. Yeah, and apparently Share was on the concorde. It was Share with Phil Collins and it's like, hey, what's going on? And Phil Collins like, oh, we got this live AID thing. She's like what is that? And he told me. She was like do you think I could come? And he's like, yeah, I sure, just show up.

I don't know if she did show up or not, but she didn't know about Live ABE. Maybe she joined him. She was probably like, why wasn't I invited? Kind I would say that if I were Shared, well, wrong with me. She would have been like snap out of it to Bob Gelda. Alright, so Phil Collins is on this plane. Um, through his eyes, this is what it looks like. You take off, nose down thirty eight thousand pounds of thrust to get you going from zero to two miles per

hour in three seconds. That is mind boggling. Yeah. Like you feel a little bit of like push you back in your seat on a regular plane, but not much. This is like you're sitting normally. You're back in your seat like at the snap of a finger from what I gather. Okay, so Phil collins face is like smashed off under the seat behind him, and he's like, what have I done? All right? I should have never left Genesis. I don't know about that. I don't know that he

left Genesis now, he just did his own thing. Yeah, that's right, great solo career. That's a good documentary too. There was a Genesis stock out a couple of years ago. Yeah, like it covers starts with the Peter Gabriel years. That's good stuff. All right. So you're back in your seat. Phil Collins is drinking his um vodka cranberry slashing all over his face. They reached cruising altitude very fast and past the sound barrier. The noses up now and inside.

This is very clever. They had a displace on on what mock you were flying so everyone could see, Yeah, mock and altitude pretty cool. Yeah, and again like the the in flight service was just bar none like the cutler. He was amazing. The food was amazing, the wine on board was amazing, the service was amazing. Like when you were on the Concorde, apparently they would you would leave with a signed certificate saying that you've been on the Concorde.

That's pretty cool. Like that's how important it was, even like the super rich and famous and um, the whole presumption was is that the super rich and famous would pay to go on this flight and everybody else would just fly sub sonic. Um. But it was just too expensive even for the super rich and famous. Yeah, and but we didn't mention even before where you took off. I think the pilots made a bit of a show

of it, and they told everyone, like, prepare yourself. What you're about to experience is not like a regular flight. You're gonna be pushed back into your seats. We're gonna be going this fast this soon. And everyone's getting all jazzed up, you know, because like, hey, this is awesome. We're all super rich and we're all going super fast. Uh. Then once you get up there and you look out the window, what do you see? Apparently you can see the curvature of earth. That's crazy. There would not be

any flat earther's had everybody written on the concorde. If there were still around, right, you'd be like, no, it's around. And apparently you don't really feel the speed um even when you're hitting. Yeah, like even when you hit the speed of sound, it doesn't feel much different. Although I did see it was very noisy in the plane because of the afterburners. Yeah, I mean this one dude, I got a bunch of quotes from people. He said it was more like office chairs, bucket seeds, very small windows,

very noisy, extremely noisy. But I challenge anybody it didn't have a smile from ear to ear when they got on it, it looked like the seats looked like the bucket seats of a Ferrari. Yeah, like an expensive sports car. They were a polster that way there. They looked like a sports car, very nice sports car seats, but it was a plane fall of them. It was really cool looking. Yeah. This one guy, Fred Finn, international businessman, apparently took seven

hundred and eighteen flights on the Concorde. I saw that he holds the record, right, he's got to Yeah, he has seven eighteen signed certificates that he was on the concod So they definitely made it special for that price tag. About two and a half million people flew flights on the Concords. That's a lot for how expensive it was, and the fact that it really just ran from ninety two thou three. Yeah, that's a lot of that's a

lot of people. But it just like you said, it wasn't affordable, right, No, So from the outset, apparently the Brits were like, oh my god, what have we gotten ourselves into? And I saw it compared to the Brexit of the time, that the politicians all knew that this was a terrible idea. It was just a huge money was a huge money pit, but they pretended in public like it was going to do great things for Britain.

And I think this is right before the European Union started, and I believe the Concorde actually was probably one of those projects that helped foster the European Union at the time, because Europe was not that many decades away from being ravaged by World War Two, and again the Marshall Plan came along. And by the way, I have to say, in the Think Tanks episode, apparently I said that the Marshall Plan was based on the New Deal, which is

totally wrong, and I know it's wrong. But some listener wrote in and said you were really wrong, and I was like, I didn't say that, and apparently I did, but I know that that's not the case. But the Marshall Plan rebuilt Europe and at the same time it

brought Europe together and helped foster the EU. But I think the Concorde was a project that helped bring the EU along, but it was a money losing project and the reason the Brits stayed in it was because they were afraid the French were going to sue them for even more money if they backed out. I love history, man, yeah, and I think I think. I think that was a money suck, even at full capacity, but like when you started having like half full flights, we only have fifty

people on a plane. Um, it was just blowing through money. Plus also, nowadays, if if the Concorde were still around, there would be huge issues with it because it burned so much gas kerosene, sure, but it just burned through so much and created so much greenhouse gas. It was just such a just a polluting monster that if we had gone just too supersonic planes, that would be an issue by now for sure. But yes, expense the sound,

the sonic boom, um definitely got rid of it. But I think also um, British Airways and Air France the only reason they took these planes on it because they got them for free from their governments. Um. Yeah, they bought like boughtom for a dollar or something. And there was this there was this point where, you know, in the seventies and I think again in like the early nineties, where it really seemed like supersonic passenger travel was this nut that we were going to crack, and it just

went away. And the reason why, like Reagan actually wanted NASA to work on a transport plane that basically went suborbital. I could get you to Tokyo in two hours. It is crazy, but it's basically what Elon Musk is talking about with SpaceX. I think he says he could get you from New York to Tokyo in thirty nine minutes. But again, the environmental impacts just the wastefulness of the fuel.

It's just mind boggling how how inefficient it actually is. Yeah, and there's something about building something just for the super rich that it's not like it's not a great time for that. I think he said he could do it for about more than an economy class ticket on a plane though, Yeah, which would be pretty amazing because he's a magician. He is. Did you see the dear Moon?

Announced me last night. Oh dude, he's building a rocket that it's a it's a transport like passenger rocket that will go past the moon, like it's a tourist um trip past the moon. And this Japanese artist, now he's a Japanese entrepreneur, I can't remember his name. Um, he bought the whole he bought all the seats, and he is going to over the next like five years, I think before the flight, invite an artist from like nine

different fields to come with them. Uh, just on the premise that they go back and make something that that they were inspired to make from the trip. It's like his gift to humanity. Um, this art project that he's basically kind of clumping onto. Elon Musk's BFR rocket. Well, sir, I think a podcast eloquently describing that trip would be a great contribution. So podcasting is in art. Yeah, why not choose the most downloaded podcast in iTunes history to

do that. Yeah, he'll be like, okay, sure, but you guys have to choose which one goes. Oh you could go, Oh, we'd flip a coin. We'd leave it to UM to Javier bar down to this sign who gets the plug through the head. Uh. So we had the famous wreck in two thousand and then finally in April two thousand three, UM Air France president Jean Cyril Spinetta said, one, we're

shutting it down. And then I think on June twelve they delivered to Dullest that that one Air and Space Museum, that very first production Concorde that was delivered to Air France and UM. I believe October two thousand three was must have been the last British Airways flight. Then yeah, I guess they stuck around a little bit longer, you know, the Brits. Uh. You can also go to the Aerospace Bristol Museum. That one. You can definitely get on board

really wander around. Yeah. I saw a video of that in France. The Museum Air in Space Paris Leborge uh Intrepid Sea Air and Space Museum in New York apparently has one that has a space shuttle too. Auto and Technic Museum Sunshine in Germany. In the Museum of Flight in Seattle, I think has one nice all worth visiting for sure. It's net and you don't have to be like an aviation buff. You can just be inspired by that kind of thing. Yeah, I can't wait to hear

back from Carrie and see her firsthand insight. Maybe I'll read that as a listener mail. Oh, that's a good idea. She'll probably say the same thing, which is like so loud, so loud and cramped, and there were a bunch of snobs on board. Phil Collins was crying so so scary it. Uh, Okay, Well that's Concords and it's done for now. Who knows, maybe they'll make a comeback and we'll do a follow up, agreed. Uh. If you want to know more about Concords, type that.

We're in the search part how stuff works dot com. And since I said that, it's time for listener mate, I'm gonna call this one one I found in a stack that I meant to read a while ago. So sorry. Sorry to Stephen if you've been waiting on this. Hello, my name is Stefan. I'm twenty three years old and I'm from Stuttgott, Germany. I started listening to your podcast because I want to improve my English for my bachelor's degree.

That isn't that's hats off to Stefan. So I searched at Spotify for English podcasts and I found a playlist with some of your podcasts. I found out that they were from two thousand nine. It was so much fun to listen to these. They were about castles and Ninja's and hiccup uh. And after listening to these episodes, I thought they are from two thousand nine. I don't think Josh and Chuck do these podcasts still today? Wrong? But I search and I saw that you still make podcasts,

and I was very happy. That's the story how I started to listen to you two guys, and I found nothing that changed from two thousand nine to today. You make the same podcast the same way. So great, the greatest. It's true. I really like this guy. I hope you read my email. Would be very glad with the best regards, Stephen Stephen from Stott I love it man, Thank you, Stephen. That's really awesome. That was great. It was really well written. Yeah,

you're doing great with your English. Coherent everything about it couldn't have done anybody on myself. Yep, we understood that more than we understand Jerry on most days. Uh. If you want to get in touch with this like Stefan did and let us know how great we are and how good we're teaching you English, is that correct? Sure? You can write to us, well, you can hang out

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