The Rise (and Crash) of the Concorde Jet

Summary

Ridiculous History – “The Rise (and Crash) of the Concorde Jet”

Podcast: Ridiculous History (iHeartPodcasts)
Hosts: Ben Bowlin (A), Noel Brown (B), and Max “Zoom Zoom” Williams (C, super producer)
Date: January 13, 2026

---

Episode Overview

This episode of Ridiculous History takes listeners on a fast-paced, witty, and irreverent journey through the story of the Concorde jet—one of aviation’s most ambitious (and ultimately doomed) experiments. Ben, Noel, and Max riff on the dream of supersonic passenger flight, the gleaming heights of 1970s jet-set luxury, and the dramatic, tragic crash that ended Concorde’s reign. Along the way, the hosts share laughs, memorable asides, and insights into how technological advances often come with a unique set of challenges and unintended consequences.

---

Main Themes & Purpose

• The rise and fall of the Concorde as the world’s premiere supersonic passenger jet.
• The broader historical context of technological ambition in aviation.
• The social, economic, and technical factors that spurred the jet’s heyday—and led to its eventual demise.
• Reflections on luxury, exclusivity, and the end of the "jet age" dream.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Modern Experience of Flight

• Flying is a “love-hate” relationship for most people, with hosts joking about the discomfort of modern air travel versus its marvels (02:08).
• Personal stories shared about long flights, first-class experiences, and travel tips (04:20–06:47).

2. The Dangerous Path of Aviation Innovation

• Aviation’s history is riddled with trial and error, including inventors who died in their pursuit of flight (07:43–09:11).
  • Memorable example: Otto Lilienthal (“the flying man”) contributed to aviation at the cost of his life. His famous last words:

    “Sacrifices must be made.” – Ben, relaying Lilienthal’s quote (09:04)

3. Enter the Concorde: Ambition Takes Flight

• Introduction to the Concorde via a 1976 British Airways commercial (10:11–10:44), selling the jet as the “future” of passenger air travel.

  • “Concorde has crossed the Atlantic in three and a half hours. …Fly the future. Fly the flag.” (10:20–10:44)

• Historical context:

  • Supersonic flight broke the sound barrier—first achieved by Chuck Yeager in 1947 (12:30–12:55).
  • The “Mach” scale is explained (13:04–13:50), with top manned speed: Mach 6.72.

• Supersonic ambitions spread:

  • 1960s: UK and France join forces to build the Concorde, a symbol of “agreement” and technological cooperation.
  • US plans for the Boeing 2707 300 scrapped; Soviet response produces the Tupolev TU144, first to carry passengers supersonic in 1969—but not sustainable due to economics (16:58–18:26).

4. The Highs of the Concorde Era

• First Concorde flight:

  • March 2, 1969 – French prototype 001 takes off and lands successfully. The test pilot exclaims,

    “The big bird flies. Oui, oui!” (19:20)

• Performance:

  • Crossed the Atlantic in just 3½ hours, far faster than subsonic jets (21:12–22:10).
  • Could leave London at breakfast and arrive in New York before breakfast—“Double breakfast!” quips the team (26:11–26:13).

• Exclusivity and extravagance:

  • Only Air France and British Airways operated regular Concorde service due to prohibitive economics (23:33–23:57).
  • Ticket prices in 2003: about £6,636 (~$15,000 in today’s money) for a round trip (27:14–28:34).
  • No “economy” section: all passengers paid the premium, rubbing elbows with celebrities, royalty (e.g., Queen Elizabeth always reserved seat 1A) (31:31–32:01).

• Luxury in the sky:

  • Amenities included champagne, caviar, fine wines, and even cigars (“hotboxed” during flight—much to the modern hosts’ disbelief) (29:33–30:24).
  • Mach meter onboard, with celebrations at Mach 1 and Mach 2; French disco and champagne toasts for breaking the sound barrier (32:07–32:41).

  • “The people watching is bonkers...the 1% of the top 1% of the top 1%.” – Noel (31:31)

• Fun fact: Concorde passengers collectively consumed over a million bottles of champagne during its operational life (33:14–33:19).

5. The Crash and the End

• Tragedy strikes:

  • July 25, 2000: Air France Flight 4590 crashes shortly after takeoff from Charles de Gaulle, killing all aboard and several on the ground (34:10–34:38).
  • The only fatal Concorde accident; caused by runway debris puncturing a fuel tank after a tire explosion (38:59–40:21).
  • After the crash, both fleets were grounded for safety checks; Concorde briefly returned, but 9/11 created new travel restrictions and demand collapsed (34:38–35:55).

• Final flights:

  • British Airways retires its Concordes in April 2003, followed by Air France. Farewell tours draw large crowds of aviation fans (40:21–41:34).

• Reflection:

  • The Concorde was both a marvel and a cautionary tale—a vision of what could be, but not sustainable (41:34–41:59).
  • Some Concordes are still on display in museums:

    “You just can’t, you know, fly on them for now.” – Ben (41:34)

6. Notable Quotes & Moments

• On technological boldness:

  “Who has spat in the face of God for sure.” – Ben, on the ambitious scale of the Concorde compared to things like the Hoover Dam (33:28)

• On luxury:

  “You could smoke cigars, eat caviar and lobster… can you imagine though, in a limited sized cabin like that, just getting hotboxed by cigars?” – Noel (29:33–29:59)

• On exclusivity:

  “This is a Richie Rich Londoner.” – Noel, imitating society’s Concorde passengers (26:50)

• On the enduring legend:

  “It was a future in the sky. Until we fast forward to July 25, 2000.” – Ben (33:35–34:10)

7. Fun Fact: Flight of the Conchords Name

• The New Zealand comedy band’s name did not come from the plane. One of the members saw the word "Concord" on a toilet and — after a brief debate — used it as the band name ("flight of the Concords"). (43:02–43:23, explained by Max)

---

Structure of the Rise and Fall

| Segment | Timestamp | | ----------------------------------- | ----------- | | Aviation innovation pre-Concorde | 07:43–09:11 | | Concorde’s launch and tech context | 09:58–13:50 | | Global supersonic race | 14:38–18:26 | | Concorde’s glory days | 19:00–33:14 | | Crash and aftermath | 34:10–41:34 | | Reflection, legacy, and fun facts | 41:34–43:23 |

---

Final Reflections

• All three hosts say they would fly the Concorde if given the chance (41:59–42:05).
• The show closes with gratitude for pilots and flight attendants, and a nod to the never-ending push and pull between ambition, luxury, and the sometimes sobering realities of technology (44:07–44:22).

---

Summary Verdict

This episode of Ridiculous History is a high-energy, fact-packed ride—much like the Concorde jet itself. Ben, Noel, and Max blend historical detail with their signature banter, exploring the pinnacle of jet-age luxury, the economics of exclusivity, the tragedy that ended the dream, and what Concorde still means as a symbol of “what could have been.”

“Even something that ultimately doesn’t work out is a learning opportunity and hopefully informs the next big idea.” – Ben (41:34)

---

For more information, check out the full show transcript or seek out museum Concordes near you—they may no longer fly, but their legend endures.

Transcript

[A]

Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartradio. Welcome back to the show, fellow ridiculous historians. Thank you as always, so much for tuning in. Sorry, we're still kicking the gears, the landing gear on 2026. Let's hear it for our super producer, Mr. Max Zoom Zoom Williams.

[B]

Zoom, zoom. That's what you do when the plane ain't working right. You just give it a good kick.

[A]

Yes.

[C]

And raise the nose up. That's what you should always do. Just raise the nose up. That won't cause any problems.

[B]

But don't forget, down on the stick means up. Up on the stick means down. Key, key ingredient.

[A]

You guys know my flight instructor?

[B]

Yeah, Yeah, I played that game.

[A]

None other than the legendary, the one and only, the mythical Mr. Noel Brown.

[B]

In his own mind, it is I.

[A]

And for all of us, they call me Ben Bullen. In this neck of the woods, we love planes. Noel.

[B]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[A]

Guaranteed Human.

[B]

A decade ago, I was on the trail of one of the country's most elusive serial killers. But it wasn't until 2023 that when he was finally caught, the answers were there, hidden in plain sight. So why did it take so long to catch him? I'm Josh Zieman, and this is Monster Hunting the Long Island Serial Killer, the investigation into the most notorious killer in New York since the Son of Sam. Available now listen for free on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts. Love. Yeah, okay. You know what love hate, right? Because may with commercial flying, it ain't always the best experience. Let's just.

[A]

Right.

[B]

I love what planes represent, what they accomplish for us in terms of moving us to far flung lands. And also just the tech of it all. It's fascinating that we are able to zoom around in these, like, air tubes and somehow manage to walk out the other side unscathed.

[A]

Yeah, man. What do you think? I, I, I think if you're, I think you can agree with this. My understanding of your perspective on planes is that you like it when we're traveling well, but you hate the process of getting on.

[B]

Oh, it's a bummer. I mean, there's no two ways about it, you know, going through security, all that stuff. I will say that, you know, with some experience comes a certain order of operations that limits the stress of doing those things where a way that certain ways you pack, certain ways you dress, knowing exactly what kind of window you need to allow yourself so you're not freaking out because there's nothing worse. And it's only Happened to me once in, honestly my adult life where you're in that line and it's not moving like you think it should and you do not see the end in sight and your boarding time is about to expire.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, we've all been there. That's why. Peek behind the curtain, folks. My pal Noel and I one time we got a real dander up and we were doing something live in a couple of different cities and we pushed so hard to travel by train and they just said, no, guys get on the plane.

[B]

That's true. I think logistically it might have even been, or cost wise, it might have actually been more expensive in the region that we were in to do the train travel. But we also really love train travel. We love the planes, the trains and the automobiles.

[A]

We sure do, man. We sure do. I mean, it's so true that aviation, as you said, has fundamentally changed the world. And I. We've got it in the notes here. Yeah, we love planes. Once you get on them, they're dope. We also have to check in with Ol Zoom Zoom, our super producer, Max. I remember when you were traveling to the Pacific Northwest and you. I was surprised that you were not as excited as I would be about a flight that long.

[C]

Oh, I mean, I don't, I don't. I've gotten used to that one. To Noel's point, the more you fly, the less annoying it is. I am both claustrophobic and afraid of heights. But off of a pro tip from you, Ben, I always ride window seat now and I just find it's less. Less just being that aisle seat just feels, you know, and I'm not the smallest guy in this world either, so like. But like, you know, having pre check is great having all these things, but I remember when I was Pacific Northwest, I was trying to take Amtrak up to Vancouver from Portland and it was so expensive and the times were terrible and it was so much cheaper for me just to rent a car and drive and shorter and it's just like, how is this a thing, y'?

[B]

All? I know we gotta get into the episode, but I just wanted to say I am taking my first ever trip to the land of Canada. I'm going to Vancouver at the end of the month and I'm really, really excited. I got a really cool Airbnb in Gastown which is like very Mad Max Fury Road coated, but it's apparently a mega hip area. And the Airbnb I got is like exposed brick, like loft kind of vibe with an awesome stainless steel kitchen. I'm really excited.

[A]

I'm about to also go on one of the longer flights in my history. Man, it's going to be. It's going to be wild.

[B]

Longer than Doha.

[A]

Crap. I'll have to check the times.

[B]

That's a great point. That was about as long as I could stomach. And thankfully the kind people at the event that we were participating in did fly us out. This does not happen ever. But they flew us out first class on Qatar Airlines, which will ruin flying for you forever in a good over, but not necessarily because there's just nothing else will ever measure up to it. It was like being in a sky hotel. It was phenomenal.

[A]

I wrote to those folks, Noel. And you wrote to Qatar Air. Yes. And I said, what is that tea that you guys serve at the beginning of the flight?

[B]

I bought some of it. It's actually like a coffee. It's sort of this sandy, gritty. It is called. I forget the name of it, but it's like the sandy, gritty stuff that you buy. Just boil hot water, pour it in and then you gotta strain the stuff out or you'll get these chunks of sand in your teeth. But it's sort of Arabic coffee is what they call it. And I bought some at one of the markets and it's really good. It's sort of a combination between coffee and tea. And one of the other beverages that I really enjoy, they served on the flight was saffron tea, which I have become mega, mega a fan of.

[A]

Absolutely. And this is another thing that we have to point out. So, yes, it's. Aviation has changed the world. Depending upon where you live and how much you have in your bank account or your sky miles or your whatever, their DMV power prison wallet, right in your commissary, in your sky commissary, you can literally hop around the planet from one plane to the next way faster than previous generations could have dreamed while traveling by sea or by land. But I was thinking about this too, man. The Runway. To modern aviation. To getting the three of us jabronis up in the sky. That passage of innovation has been littered with missteps and false launches and peril. And it reminded me, dude, of our series on the many, many inventors.

[B]

Oh, gosh, yes.

[A]

Who died trying to figure it out.

[B]

The Darwin Awards of it. All.

[A]

Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

That was recurring to me. And I couldn't remember the fellow's name, but wasn't there a dude that like invented like a flying machine? Like a winged kind of suit? And then he Crashed to his death, like into the side of a mountain. Like Wile E. Coyote style.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Yeah, I might be conflating it with an actual Wile E. Coyote cartoon now that I'm thinking about it, but it wasn't too far off. It was very Acme coded.

[A]

It was. Yeah. It was so weird that when we started our series on inventors who died by their own inventions, the first iteration was just about people who died trying to fly and it turned into a two parter.

[B]

Oh, and by the way, in case you wanted to do a little more digging, if you don't want to re. Listen to the episode, if you haven't listened to it already, Otto Lilienthal, known as the flying man, in fact did meet his demise in 1896 after his glider stalled out and crashed. He broke his neck. Though he did contribute significantly to what would ultimately be the first successful flight by the Wright brothers.

[A]

Yeah. In fact, this. This is a guy who is a candidate for an upcoming episode. We have on. Famous last words.

[B]

Oh, gosh, I don't remember. What did he say?

[A]

His. He is rumored to have declared in German, sacrifices must be made.

[B]

That is so German.

[A]

It's so German. It's like with my German ex boyfriend.

[B]

He accepted his fate in the furtherance of science.

[A]

It's like when my German ex girlfriend, as a compliment, told me she found me severely adequate.

[B]

Ben, in my mind, I pictured that your German ex girlfriend's name was as a compliment, and I thought that was. That's a very unusual German name, but.

[A]

It'S all in the accent. Yes. So today we are rocketing into one of the most ridiculous stories in all of flight history as we're thinking about the new year in travel. It is the rise of something called the Concorde jet. Oh, may we. Oh, may we please introduce this with a commercial from 1976?

[B]

I sure hope so, because you're setting it up so well.

[A]

Now.

[B]

When you fly the flag, you can fly the future British Airways Concord, the.

[A]

First supersonic passenger airliner to fly you.

[B]

At more than twice the speed of sound. Concorde has crossed the Atlantic in three and a half hours. And now she will fly you to.

[A]

Bahrain faster than ever before. It's all part of taking more care of you, giving you what you need.

[B]

First, best, and fastest.

[A]

Fly the future.

[B]

Fly the flag.

[A]

Fly the future. Fly the flag.

[B]

Wave the flag. I'm sold. Ben, how come we haven't heard about this? This seems great.

[A]

It seems pretty great, right?

[B]

Did it not take off? Did it not do what's Going on here. They made the commercial sound so confident.

[A]

Oh, yeah, very patriotic because that's, you know, British Airways, that's what they're talking about with fly the Flag.

[B]

So this is like a commercial fighter jet, basically, right? That's sort of the idea.

[A]

Similar technology. Yeah. Okay, so where did the Concord come from? And to our earlier question, why is it not around today? Perhaps most importantly, will it return?

[B]

And most, most importantly, is this where the delightful New Zealand comedy duo Flight of the Concords derived their name?

[A]

That's a good question. Has to be. They spell it differently.

[B]

They do spell it differently and it is plural, but still can't be a coincidence. So let's hearken back to Britain. If you couldn't guess in the 1950s when a bunch of plane buffs, plane loving dovin boffins, really, you know, fell all in head over teakettle with the idea of a supersonic passenger plane. Hence the breaking of the sound barrier.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. And for quick context, folks, obviously commercial aircraft, regular degular peasant aircraft already existed, but the world was so excited and a little bit frightened when the news spread that some planes, some aircraft could feasibly fly faster than the speed of sound. We're talking Mach 1, baby.

[B]

We're talking sonic boom. Because it makes that sound, right, doesn't it? When it breaks, it makes this. It makes the pop pop. Yeah.

[A]

A guy named Charles Chuck Elwood Yeager, he achieved or he broke the sound barrier in something called the Bell X1 on October 14, way back in 1947. This proved to the world that the sound barrier could be broken. By the way, speed of sound at 68 degrees Fahrenheit, it's around 767 miles per hour.

[B]

Is this a mock something situation?

[A]

What is.

[B]

Okay, it is.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because when you break the speed of sound, you hit Mach 1, Mach 1.

[B]

And is Mach 2 a thing?

[A]

It is. It is Twice.

[B]

How many machines can we achieve as a human species?

[A]

Ah, it's a work in progress.

[B]

Okay, fair enough. What is the maximum machs currently?

[A]

What are the maximum machs currently?

[B]

Geez Louise. Ben, it looks like we've achieved Mach 9.6, which was, I guess that was unmanned though. Experimental scramjet. That's a fun name. Get out of here, you jet. In 2004, Mach 9.6. However manned we have. I don't like manned humans. We've only achieved Mach 6.72, or about 4520 mph. And that happened in 1967.

[A]

Let's not say only Come on. That's so fast.

[B]

My bad. You're right. I don't mean to poo poo. That's very, very meaningful. Especially again, I was remarking 1967. That's very impressive. By William J. Pete Knight.

[A]

Yeah. And so we see this technology goes back decades and decades. Breaking the sound barrier also broke everybody's minds. They had no idea we could achieve this. So world militaries immediately keep in mind, folks, we're still in the 40s. World militaries immediately rush to explore this as a tool of war. But about a little over a decade later, a couple of the big boys in the game started asking each other, hey, what if we could also, you know, make some money on this?

[B]

Yeah. Cause when you think of fighter planes, like they're typically kind of a one person deal or two, maybe, you know, one in the front, one in the back. How does one scale something like this? It seems like it needs to be as low weight as possible to be super nimble and to be able to achieve those levels of speed. And in order to make it commercial, you gotta shove more humans on there, right?

[A]

Exactly. And you also have to give.

[B]

A.

[A]

Bit of a boon to the private aerospace companies that are constructing these supersonic craft. So maybe it was someone in the private aerospace industry who said, yeah, we'll build your death jets, but also we'd like to make a little bit more money, a little bit of cheddar.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So this is something that was very front of mind for these folks. In 1962, Britain and France joined forces on the Concorde supersonic transport, or sst. And you can just hear the optimism sing in the name Concorde, meaning agreement. The British and the French, as opposed to discord. Right. The British and the French, who historically don't always like each other, they were like, ah, jets are cool though, situation there, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The French folks said, oh, we and the US also got in the game a little bit. You know, the U.S. especially post World War II, has all of the coolest, most dangerous toys, right? Yeah.

[B]

So you get these wonderful toys.

[A]

Right. It's no surprise that the president at the time in the 60s, a guy named Johnny K. To his friends, he said, we're going to do an American version of the supersonic transport. This would be the Boeing 2707 300. But then later, Uncle Sam scratched the whole thing. They never even built a prototype, which.

[B]

Is a little bit fortuitous, wouldn't you say?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

It's almost like somebody at the drawing board stage got To a point where they're, like, not sure if this is gonna fly literally.

[A]

Right. Or, you know, I mean, it might.

[B]

Fly, but it also might, like, you know, crash.

[A]

Can it land? Can it take off? Can it do the hard part? Yeah. The Soviets were playing the game too, and put the tremendous heft of their centralized economy into building something called the Tupolev TU144. This is the world's first passenger plane to ever fly supersonic above the speed of Sound in 1969. And they launched the passenger service of their own in, you know, communist. In the Soviet Union.

[B]

And I know sometimes we give the Soviets a little grief for flying too close to the sun. Right. But, you know, they did certainly achieve some incredible things. But wouldn't you say that had something to do with the fact that they were willing to take a lot more risks?

[A]

100%. The space race shows us the same thing. I mean, from Ottoman to Kursk, this. The Soviets throw bodies at a problem.

[B]

There you go.

[A]

That's.

[B]

That's. And dogs.

[A]

Dogs got like, my cold war is coming out. Okay, let me. Let me dial it back here.

[B]

Yeah, for sure.

[A]

And admit that the Soviet government did a tremendous job with the Tupolev.

[B]

That's wild that they achieved that. Yeah.

[A]

They ended up wrapping their passenger service in the early 1980s, and their issues weren't so much technical as they were economic, because. Spoiler, fellow ridiculous historians, Very few people in a communist empire could afford the high prices for a ticket on a supersonic craft.

[B]

It is one of those things, Ben, where it's like, is it worth paying double to get there twice as fast? Like, is it that big a deal to just factor in the time and work around it, you know, and how.

[A]

Much is your time worth? That ultimately becomes the decision point. So in the case of the Tupolev, it's not the engineering that's at fault. It's the society, arguably, in which the craft was created.

[B]

So back to the Concorde. Just a little while after the Tupolev TU144 achieved liftoff. That's more of a space term achieved takeoff. Britain and France came through with their prototypes for the Concorde. And these little guys, they're big guys. They could scoot.

[A]

They could scoot. They were fast needles in the sky. So Concorde's first flight takes place on March 2, 1969, when the French launched launch their prototype, creatively named 001. And the. The French test pilot, lo and behold, is able to get this bad boy scooting in the sky successfully. Land her. And then when he lands, he simply says, the big bird flies. Yes, yes. Just so.

[B]

I learned that in the Muzzy videos.

[A]

Is that true?

[B]

No, but I just remember the. Remember the Muzzy videos? Cartoons were talking different languages. I just remember in the commercials they used to play, it was like, je suis le grand musi.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

Je suis la joon vie.

[A]

It's like. It's like learning Japanese from old Kurosawa films.

[B]

Oh, for sure. Yeah. Throne of Blood. I wish there was more blood spray in the Muzzy cartoons.

[A]

Yeah. You know what? Let's revisit that. And maybe we can make a case in this episode for revisiting the Concord. I don't know. I'm skeptical, but optimistic.

[B]

It is a good gauge of if someone's in your kind of age group, if they rem. Muzzy. It was a bit of a moment in time where those commercials were on, like, children's television channels, like, all the time.

[A]

Yeah. But I think you're right. More blood spray. More blood spray really amped up their game. So not to be outdone, our. Our pals over in the Kingdom, they make a prototype and they call it, in a burst of creativity 002.

[B]

Such a move, really, if you think about it. So, yeah, they flew from Bristol's Filton airfield in the United Kingdom a few weeks later. And then at this big old air show in Paris, both of those models were on display.

[A]

Beautiful. Right. And then we go to. I bet they look dope. Oh, they still do. Right. And then we go to 1973. It's September 26th. The Concorde makes its first nonstop crossing of the Atlantic. It's flying at an average speed of 954 miles per hour.

[B]

Would you feel G's G Force? You know, the way that you do when you're breaking the sound barrier in a fighter jet and where he squishes your face back. Seems like that might be a little unpleasant.

[A]

Yeah, that's a great question. It probably depends upon your rate of acceleration. Right. Cause they're not breaking the sound barrier right off the ground. Right. So this is the French version of the Concorde. It flies from Washington, D.C. to Orly, Paris. And it does so in three hours and 33 minutes, which is just baffling.

[B]

It's impressive. It's impressive. But also, again, like, you know, just factor in the time. That's all I'm saying.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

It is a bummer, though, to sometimes lose a whole day to travel. And if there's a time change and all of that. You know, this could potentially mitigate some jet lag and stuff like that. I mean, I could see how it could be a positive thing. I'm poo pooing the idea, but I could see circumstances for transatlantic flights where cutting the time in half like that could be pretty solid.

[A]

Yeah. And then the question becomes, is this nothing more than a rich boy toy to help justify the war effort?

[B]

I didn't even think about that aspect of it, Ben. The whole war of it all.

[A]

I guess we should say the war industry.

[B]

That's exactly right. The military industrial complex.

[A]

That's the one. Okay, so we are, you, Max and I, and you listening at home, folks. We are major airlines around the world and we start putting in our bids. We want to have a Concorde fleet. We want to have a Concorde service. But then in our own boardrooms, we start thinking through the economics, the nuts and bolts per passenger, ticket prices. One by one, we all withdraw from the game. So only two airlines ultimately purchase the Concorde. Air France and British Airways.

[B]

Ben, I can't remember if I mentioned this. I took an Air France flight recently on the way back from Germany. Oh, Copenhagen, Denmark. Yeah. I don't know that I'd been on an Air France flight before. And the thing that was most remarkable about it, the moment those wheels touched down on the Runway, they dropped the most banging Daft punk esque track. And it just, it was almost like someone was there waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting. And touchdown.

[A]

Boom.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Just like the guy in any orchestra during a big number who just holds the cymbals for like 10 minutes.

[B]

Yeah. And then hits the big one. Or the kettle drum boom. Yes, 100%. It was pretty impressive, I can't lie. And also the plane had rear and front cameras that you could access while in flight. And that was a really cool feature. So kudos to Air France. They've always kind of been ahead of the curve a little bit. British Airways, I'm not as familiar with, but they both launched that service in 76 like you said, and it was super limited. Ben, we live near a major airport here in Atlanta and I think we all can get a little fatigued with just the sound, constant sound of commercial flights taking off. Can you imagine if we also had to deal with the explosive ear shattering noise that is a sonic boom.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. This is the next issue they run into. Service is limited not solely because of the capabilities of the craft itself, but because to your point, Noel, breaking the sound barrier is. Spoiler, beep us here, Max. It is loud as it is so beep. Thank you for the beep, Max. It is so gosh darn loud. So both the French and British governments, they said, all right, the Concorde can only fly at supersonic speeds over water, basically over transatlantic routes. And also, would it make sense to hop a Concorde jet from London to York or something that close?

[B]

You know, certainly not.

[A]

I don't see how it works. So it's not only expensive to build these guys, it's not strike one. It's not only limited in its deployment, strike two. It is still kind of, you know, for rich people.

[B]

But the science of it is so incredibly impressive. Ben, you, by the way, excellent work on this research for this episode. Ben found that this is actually constitutes flying faster than the speed at which the earth rotates.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

So it can pick up passengers from London at breakfast time and then zoom, zoom them all the way to New York City before us. Breakfast time.

[A]

Double breakfast. Breakfast. Second breakfast.

[B]

That's a. Yeah. Potato.

[A]

Right. On the same dang day. Right.

[C]

So if you jump in here real quick, considering what. Considering the amenities on the flight that we will get to, you could say it's the third breakfast.

[A]

Oh, gosh, yeah. That's a great point there, Max, because this inspired, you know, the upper crust of society to brag to each other, oh, you must fly the Concorde. Oh, I'll see you. I'll see you in a few hours when you land. You see, old boy, I'm on the Concorde flight.

[B]

Yes, of course. And you were, of course, there, Ben, doing an impression of sir David Frost, who loves to brag about flying the Concorde being the only way to fly because it constituted being in two places at once. The only way in this human life to achieve such wonders. I love that David Frost. Obviously this is a Richie Rich Londoner.

[A]

Yes. Yeah, we can maybe do an episode on him later, but okay, he loved the Concord, and he definitely paid out of the nose for it, because in this might surprise folks, it continued through 2003. So these are some of the most relevant numbers we have for ticket fare. In 2003, the standard return fare, like a round trip from London to New York was 6,636 British pounds.

[B]

Dum, dum, dum, dum. Which, if we inflation calculator it with a boop and a boob. Max, where's your dead tamboo? Thank you. Gracious. That would be a whopping. What are we talking, 11,242 British pounds sterling today? Or 15 grand, roughly.

[A]

Yeah. And this gets A little complicated. We have to double dragon it. That's $15,131.72 in todayish prices. That's more than 15 grando boys per ticket.

[B]

What's a grando boy?

[A]

It's a word we made up to mean 15 grand.

[B]

Love it, Love it. Thank you. You did it with such confidence that I absolutely believed this was a thing. And you know what? Now it is.

[A]

Oh, thank you, man. I feel like I just got knighted. You've knighted me. But also we have to point out because of the limited size of the fuselage, there's no real basic economy option. You are paying the same ticket price as the celebrities.

[B]

Yeah, like Robert De Niro, as in Cachesh, which it would cost you quite a lot of. As we previously mentioned, you did get a lot of perks. This is borderline like the glory days of 60s Pan Am, you know, luxury though it had to of course be contained a little bit. But you did get fine foods and wines. It was a limited cabin size, so it was incredibly exclusive. The service was immaculate. The champagne was a flowing.

[A]

Seriously, this is back when you could smoke on planes. They would give you cigars, you would eat caviar and lobster. I don't even like that. There are still ashtrays on some older planes.

[B]

It's really weird to see. But also like I, I don't think either of us were old enough to have ever been on a flight when smoking was still a thing. Though I do seem to recall people smoking in airports, but.

[A]

Airports, yes.

[B]

Can you imagine though, in a limited sized cabin like that, it's just getting hot boxed by cigars.

[A]

There's not enough ventilation.

[B]

No, of course not.

[A]

And also I remember I've been on private planes where I've been not fancy small like puddle jumpers where the. The pilot was smoking and I was like, oh, that's not that. That's a choice. It's not the choice I would have made. But thanks for getting us there, man.

[C]

Recycled air. But yeah, I think Hartsville is actually one of the last airports to have smoking areas. It's been in the last like 15 years. At least. Last.

[A]

They cut it.

[B]

Yeah, way less than that. We. It's just been in the last five to ten years.

[A]

More like five.

[C]

Which is funny because I think they're all pet relief areas. So if someone's walking through Hars field and they have a pet with them. Enjoy the smoking areas.

[B]

And those man looking up at the ceiling in those smoking areas, it's just like covered in gook but of course, in Europe, you're still going to have smoking areas in nearly every major airport.

[A]

100%. A lot of different. A lot of different countries around the world are still much more friendly to that kind of stuff. Anyway, so there we are. We've got our caviar, we've got our lobster. This is ridiculous. We're champagne drunk. We're trying out cigars for the first time. And then we start watching the other people on the flight. And the people watching is bonkers.

[B]

Oh, my gosh. Second to none. Celebrities, royalty, the upper crust of the upper crust, the 1% of the top 1% of the top 1%. When Queen Elizabeth flew, which of course she did, she always got seat 1A as reserved.

[A]

She's the Queen for the queen, and is one of the only people on the planet who actually doesn't need a passport. I mean, it's weird.

[B]

It sounds barrier gimmick of it all, too. They kind of commercialized that aspect into a fun collectible.

[A]

Oh, yeah, yeah, they gamified it. Right. There's this big mock meter at the front of the cabin. And the cabin's small enough that you can see it. Right.

[B]

And when they break the sound barrier, they drop some French disco and.

[A]

Yeah, they drop some. They drop some French disco that will later become daft funk. They pass out yet more champagne, and this thing just says it's a big celebration when it hits Mach 1. And then it's a big celebration when it hits Mach 2, twice the speed of sound. And that's when people have a champagne toast every time.

[B]

Sorry, Mach 2 is when they drop the French disco and they do the champagne toast.

[A]

Yeah. And so they got a lot of flights in what we say. British airways starts in 1976. So all the way up to 2003, their Concorde fleet operated close to 50,000 flights, clocked up more than 140,000 something flying hours, traveled almost 150 million miles. And along with that, everybody riding on there, including the Queen of England, collectively consumed over 1 million bottles of champagne.

[B]

I mean, that's again, I say to you, there must be a reason. This isn't something that we hear about anymore.

[A]

I mean, it's like the first time we saw the Hoover Dam, man, who has spat in the face of God for sure.

[B]

But I just mean, like, it seems like they found some pretty consistent success, you know, running these flights for the super, super rich. So, I mean, there must have been something that caused things to change. I think we know that there is. That's what this Episode's kind of about right.

[A]

Absolutely. This is our turn. I mean, those numbers from British Airways don't even count. Air France. For just a few decades, the Concorde was high and mighty. It was a different world. It was a faster one if you could afford it. It was a future in the sky. Until we Fast forward to July 25, 2000.

[B]

2000. Yeah, yeah. Again, blows my mind that this was as recent as 2000. That's when an Air France Concorde flight, air France Flight 4000, 590, crashed just after takeoff at Charles de Gaulle Airport over there in Paris. 100 passengers, nine crew, and four people on the ground were sadly killed. Both Air France and British Airways found their Concordes grounded in order to run significant safety checks.

[A]

100%. Yeah. And this is the standard operating procedure in this situation. You know what I mean? Just like a car gets recalled or model of car gets recalled after accidents. However, they endured for time. In 2001, the Concorde is officially back. The skies are looking a little less gloomy. But as we'll recall, Noel, something else occurred that year in the United States. September 11, 2001, one of the worst disasters on U.S. soil in the country's history.

[B]

Changed a lot of things.

[A]

Oh, gosh, yeah, man. Remember when we could just shoot? Did you ever do this pre 2001, I would just go hang out at the airport.

[B]

You could meet people also, like, at their gates. You not have to go through security. I mean, it's hard to remember even a time before tsa.

[A]

Yeah, it really is strange how quickly things get normalized. And as we said, because of various laws, both France and Britain were largely dependent on the United States for their Concord roots. And so when travel, air travel, especially around US Areas, doesn't exist. Those are empty seats. They're crazy. Travel restrictions like you just mentioned.

[B]

And the operating costs of these things must have been astronomical. And if you're running these things as a loss leader, I mean, that's not gonna last. That's not gonna be sustainable for long.

[A]

Yeah. So this is a double whammy. It's spelt doom for the profit, as you said. Right. These are expensive to run, and therefore it spelled doom for the birds. And we want to acknowledge, yes, all plane crashes are terrible. All crashes are terrible. But folks, run back what Noel just said. This crash in 2000 is the only fatal Concorde accident in the entirety of its operational history. It was just so new and so fancy that one thing going wrong. It's kind of like when Teslas first came out. Or when electric vehicles first came out, there was a lot of skepticism about this, this new rollout of an automobile. Also, the cybertruck is trash.

[B]

Not only is it trash in the way it operates, not as advertised, but it's just, boy, does it a dumb looking car. A real barnacle, a real albatross for anybody driving that thing around.

[A]

I love 90s video games and I think they belong on the screen and not in real life.

[C]

Whenever I'm on the highway and I have one of those things next to me, I'm like, I gotta merge over as fast as possible. Cause I'm like, man, I just feel like I'm going to get run over by something made by someone who watched a knockoff of Tron like way too many times. So ugly.

[A]

Well, riddle me this, guys. If the Tesla company came to us and said, do an episode on Cybertrucks and we'll give you each one, Cybertrucks.

[B]

Will become a footnote in history. Sort of like the DeLorean.

[A]

Sure, yeah. DeLorean's a good copy. Even the El Camino, you know, it's just a weird looking thing.

[B]

Well, yeah. Well, I mean like, if you want a car, get a car. If you want a truck, get a truck. Who needs a truck, right? A Croc.

[C]

You can sell one according to Google AI for around 70 to $100,000. So if I'm allowed to sell it, sure, I'll take it.

[B]

Well, again, because of, because of the historical curio of it. All right, it's.

[C]

I wouldn't drive it.

[A]

I don't know if anybody really drives it. Not well.

[B]

So later investigators, Jesse Pinkman did.

[A]

Oh, that's the Camino though. We're talking cyber.

[B]

Oh, cyber jug. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, wait. I see, I see those cyber trucks rolling around here in Atlanta. Plenty. And a lot of them have really awful, like rats, decals. Yeah, it's a real humiliation ritual driving these things around.

[A]

Well, you know, that's for some reason or another the only vehicle that you could get that we wish you well on the road. Just be careful because they have some design flaws. Kind of like the Concorde.

[B]

So I hear. And you know, there's a reason I can't believe it was as recent as the early 2000s that these things were happening. I just had was complete blind spot for me. Did not realize that it was that recently. But you, if you can imagine. I think we talked about. Did we talk about the last kind of nail in the coffin here?

[A]

Oh, the investigation for the accident Shows us what happened. And we want to recommend a great deep dive on YouTube by a guy called Mentour, pilot M E N T O U R Pilot. He will walk you through all of the blow by blow events and factors leading to that tragic accident of flight 459 0. Essentially it failed due to compounding known defects and unfortunate happenstance. It ran over debris in the Runway. The debris was small stuff that was left behind by the aircraft that took off just before it. So it runs over this, the boom boom. And it causes one of the Concorde's tires to explode. The tire explodes and disintegrates and it shoots little tire pieces. Shrapnel across. Yeah, shrapnel, just so. All across the underside of the wing. It damages landing gear so they can't retract it. It ruptures one of the fuel tanks and They've got like 13 fuel pods on these things. The fuel starts leaking, it ignites, it knocks out the engines. One on two on the left side, everyone dies. This happens in less than two minutes real time.

[B]

Oh, geez. It's really, it's pretty awful. So on April 10th of 2003, British Airways announced that they were retiring their fleet of seven Concordes. They did a farewell tour of the United Kingdom and North America with tens of thousands of, you know, Concorde stands saying their goodbyes to this iconic aircraft. And in May of that year, Air France also retired their first fleet.

[A]

And so it goes. We flew too supersonically close to the sun. And now, fellow sky lovers, we don't want to get all mopey about what could have been. When you're talking about inventions and you're talking about experimental ideas and innovations, even something that ultimately doesn't work out is a learning opportunity and hopefully informs the next big idea. And let's remember, you can still go see some Concords live and in person today. Just get to your browser of choice and you can find, you can maybe find some in your area. You just can't, you know, fly on them for now.

[B]

No, you sure can't, Ben. This was all news to me. Super, super interesting. Really, really enjoyed doing this one with you. Thanks for the excellent research.

[A]

Oh, thank you, Nola. And thanks to everybody for tuning in. Question. Knowing what we know now, would you guys fly a Concorde jet if we didn't have to pay full ticket price?

[C]

Absolutely.

[B]

Yeah. I think I would. I would.

[C]

Lobster, caviar, things. I can't eat from the condition, but.

[A]

Still, I would pay extra for the no cigar flight. Honestly, not to Sound like I'm not still a cool person in my old age. But when you described it as hotboxing Noel, that really stood out to me because cigars, even in like a big room are. They announced themselves.

[B]

Even just the recycled air of it all, the mouth breathing of it all, you know, I mean, can you imagine if we were literally mouth breathing smoke?

[C]

Just imagine the mouth feel from all the recycled cigar smoke.

[B]

Ah, yes, it turns the stomach.

[A]

A big, big thanks, of course, to our super producer, Mr. Max Williams.

[B]

Max Zoom Zoom.

[A]

Before we give a thanks to our favorite mouth breather, Jonathan Strickland, AKA the Quister, we did hear in the chat Max was looking up the origin story of flight of the Concord. So how about we end on that?

[B]

That one?

[C]

It is very long, but I found it from what appears to be their official website. But basically they had booked a gig and they didn't have a name. So one of them went to the bathroom and noticed on a toilet that it was titled the Concord. And the other guy was like, what about flare the Concords? And they're like, okay, that's the origin story.

[B]

Well, Max, with the facts, Disappointing as they may be, nothing to do.

[C]

I don't write the fact.

[B]

Nothing to do with the topic of today's episode, but well done, my friend.

[A]

Big, big thanks, of course, to AJ Bahamas Jacobs, the rude dudes of ridiculous crime. Who else?

[B]

Well, you know who else. Ben, Christopher, Haciotis, and even Jeffcoats here in spirit, of course.

[A]

Yes, and big thanks to everybody who works with the airline industry. Thank you so much for putting up with our stuff. Flight attendants and I think think a lot of pilots are severely unappreciated.

[B]

Hear, hear. We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. You can't make the most of your data if it's stuck in different silos. If it's scattered across the cloud on prem and with your apps, then it's hard to access, hard to work with, and increasingly expensive. Now you can see it all and manage it all from one place. Welcome to Data Done Right. You can start managing your data, not your infrastructure. It's unified, simple, secure, and it's only with the pure storage platform. Get [e-mail] a decade ago, I was on the trail of one of the country's most elusive serial killers. But it wasn't until 2023 when he was finally caught. The answers were there, hidden in plain sight. So why did it take so long to catch him? I'm Josh Zieman, and this is Monster Hunting the Long Island Serial Killer, the investigation into the most notorious killer in New York since the Son of Sam. Available now listen for free on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts. Wherever you get your podcasts, this is an iHeart podcast.

[A]

Guaranteed Human.