The Concorde Story: 21 Years in Service (Osprey Civil Aircraft) [Hardcover]

Christopher Orlebar (Author)

Book Description

Series: General Aviation | Publication Date: May 20, 2004

When commercial services began in 1976, Concorde quickly established herself as one of the wonders of the modern technical world. This lavishly illustrated sixth edition traces Concorde’s development from inception to withdrawal. It investigates how the Anglo-French Alliance tackled the project, Concorde’s entry into service and the aircraft’s eventual commercial success. Other SST (supersonic transport) projects are considered, as is the future of SST aviation. With reference to the official report, the tragic event at Gonesse in July 2000 is analysed in-depth and outstanding questions concerning the accident are considered together with why Concorde was withdrawn from service. The last chapter describes Concorde’s ‘Grand Finale’.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"I thought the many photographs in this book were outstanding and could be used as a reference for anyone building a model of the Concorde ... Overall, I just loved this book. The author really knew what he was writing about. He covered everything about this beautiful aircraft." -JAck Kennedy, IPMS/USA

About the Author

Christopher Orlebar joined British Airways, then BOAC, in 1969, he became a Concorde pilot and instructor in 1976 flying the aircraft for 10 years. He retired from BA in 2000. A Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, he is a frequent contributor to TV aviation documentaries, a lecturer and writer.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 168 pages
• Publisher: Osprey Publishing; 6th edition (May 20, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1855326671
• ISBN-13: 978-1855326675
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 0.9 x 11.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #849,457 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Full of historical and technical informations!!!, February 21, 1999

By 

Rodolfo (San Francisco) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Concorde Story: 21 Years in Service (Osprey Civil Aircraft) (Hardcover)

I first thought that this would be another picture oriented book. I was total impressed that it included both technical and historical information in detail and not just a pass-over subject. I learned about the relationship of MACH number to airspeed in the higher altitude. The effect of air friction and heat to the maximum speed the designers put on concorde. The pictures are all very informative and really related to the topic being discussed. I like the side-bars discussing all the technical pictures and diagrams on that particular page.

Get the hard cover one and you won't regret it. You'll get the first 21 years of Concorde's commercial service. After reading this book I wished that we have concorde every overseas routes to cut travel time to less than half of normal flight time. I felt it was only politics that prevented concorde from fulfilling it's design and purpose.

A salute to Concorde technology.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wealthy account, April 15, 2001

By 

Claudio Bompadre - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Concorde Story: 21 Years in Service (Osprey Civil Aircraft) (Hardcover)

"The Concorde story" is a fine testimony to management and professionalism of dedicated people like the author, involved in the day to day operation of this magnificent aeroplane. In fact this colourful book is an exhaustive description of the only supersonic commercial aircraft in airline service, seeing a lenghty duty in British airways and Air France livery.

It is clear that the program economical success was impeded by the oil crises of the early 70s and by the subsequent worldwide economic recession, but quietly the few ships built (16 in total) reached two important goals. First, their airline service was a keystone in proving that supersonic travel was technically and economically viable, despite the limits of preceding technological know-how and enviromental impact. Second, the fleet has demonstrated that producing an operating profit was financially feasible by careful industrial and commercial in-house resources, once the development costs were written off (and still it is, despite the notorious Paris crash). All these aspects are thoroughly narrated by Cpt Orlebar, telling the story behind the initial difficult steps and the progressive achivements in airline service. Very nice and objective is the chapter related to the competitors, since it shows how bad management (US SST program) and a technically trouble prone design ( Soviet Tupolev TU 144 SST ) failed to promote a challenger to the British and French enterprise ( and to make the supersonic technological race more interesting for everyone, just look at the current state of the art in the field: Aerospatiale AGV, Alliance ATSF, Dassault and Gulfstream SSJB, DARPA QSP, just to quote the most famous research studies). The best facets of the volume are the operations of a typical flight London-New York from the pilot point of view, the specifications and data of this flying marvel, and finally nice illustrations of powerplant layout, intake matching schedule, plane cutaway drawing, flight envelope chart.

The author provides a rare insight into the technical and professional endeavor of Concorde service and mantainance, giving a clear picture of high quality standard in training and duty of pilots and technicians, undoubtedly required to operate this beautiful airliner.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must-have for all Concorde fans!, November 24, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Concorde Story: 21 Years in Service (Osprey Civil Aircraft) (Hardcover)

This book is AMAZING! Orlebar is an actual BA Captain and has definitely done his homework on this one. It is really a great book, with TONS of pictures and a really cool graph in the back that shows all of the bits and pieces of the Concorde. Trust me on this one...you gotta have it!