Books - Concorde Jet

Product Description:
An in-depth study of not just Concorde, but also the Tupolev TU-144, the only two supersonic transports that made it into production and service. Alongside the fascinating development of both these aircraft, he also examines the many projects in Britain, France and the U.S. that never made it beyond the drawing board. A full account of the first Concorde accident (25 July 2000 - Paris) is also given here.



Customer Review: An excellent look at the Aerospatiale / BAC Concorde:
The Airlife's Airliner series of books cover individual commercial aircraft types in an interesting, in-depth manner.

Each volume of this British series covers a unique commercial aircraft type from its design, production, entry into service, its usage by airlines, and in some cases eventual demise.

Each volume features plenty of color and black and white photographs of the subject aircraft along with a complete construction list (accurate to date of publication for aircraft types still being built).

This volume covers, unfortunately, almost the entire operational life of this amazing aircraft. The only successful SuperSonic passenger airliner (there was only one other - the Russian Tupolev Tu-144 (which actually flew first)) the Concorde has plied the skyways between London and Paris and New York City.

Always interesting and always able to draw a crowd of on-lookers, this elegent airliner is about to ffly its last flight as Airbus Industrie has declined to continue supporting the existing fleet of aircraft. Fortunately ... both Air France and British Airways have decided to donate all of the airframes to aviation museums located around the world ... so that future generations may marvel at what could have been the next revolution in commercial air travel.

Product Description:
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is analysed in-depth and outstanding questions concerning the accident are considered together with why Concorde was withdrawn from service.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’.



Customer Review: The Concorde Story: 21 Years in Service:
Nice book to own, especially for those that have flown on the concorde. Good insight into how it came about, with nice pictures as well.

Customer Review: Attractive and Informative Account:
This review refers to the 1997 edition (21 years in service).

I was looking for a good, thorough introduction to Concorde. This book, alongside Calvert's, did the trick.

This is a large, colorful, attractive history of Concorde with a focus on British Airways. While there are lots of nice pictures and diagrams, the text is clear and engaging.

It was worth looking for it used as it's out of print.

Enjoy!

Customer Review: A wealthy account:
"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.

Customer Review: A Tribute to the Beautiful Bird: Concorde:
This book is the most detailed and accurate account written of Concorde. The book appropriately starts with its development and gradually goes chronologically through its maturation. It also contains many priceless and rare photos of Concorde in its early days. There is also an account and explanation of a routine flight from LHR London Heathrow Terminal 4 to JFK New York John F. Kennedy International Airport. But, one of the most interesting chapters in the book has to be the one detailing the steps to becoming a Concorde pilot and its gruelling training compared to that of a Boeing 747-400 pilot. The final parts of the book also contain the important production roster, detailing the registrations of all Concordes, where and when they were manufactured, to whom and when they were delivered, and their present status. This book is a most for all Concorde enthusiasts. A most enjoyable and captivating book.

Customer Review: This one is quite hard to review:
This is one of those books written about one special aircraft that is beautifully done, with fantastic photos and copy, but just does not have a whole lot to tell that is interesting or holds you to your chair. The history of this aircraft is dull becuase it is such a good aircraft. It has had little go wrong, so it is really only a lot of facts and figures that you are left with. A great book for lovers of this aricraft, but little to hold you to the edge of your chair.

Product Description:
No one can see a Concorde fly without watching the progress of this marvel through the sky. As chief test pilot for the Concorde, Trubshaw gives the inside story from its early days of planning in the 1950s, through its design and preflight testing, maiden flight, and demonstrations, and on to its certification and airline service. Trubshaw covers various aspects of the program, including high costs, tensions between the French and U.S. collaborators, problems obtaining landing rights in New York, and post-delivery modifications. His descriptions are interwoven with insights into the maneuverings of politicians, industrialists, and trade unions, which ultimately led to the decline of the British aircraft industry in the 1970s.



Customer Review: Lots of political, organizational and technical detal:
I was looking for a good introduction and foundation for understanding Concorde and I thought this book along with Orlebar's would do the trick.

I was very disappointed with this one, though. It devotes lots and lots of words to (from my point of view) arcane historical and political issues. After a couple chapters I just gave up and returned this book. I was very happy with the Orlebar and Calvert books.

If you're interested in the detailed very insider-oriented story of Concorde, this may be the book for you. (And it appears from a number of the reviewers that it was interesting for them.)

Customer Review: An insight into technical tribulations of Concorde project:
"Concorde" provides an engrossing and objective assessment of the famous program by Cpt Trubshaw, notwithstanding his close association with the entire project. In fact he was the Chief Test Pilot for the british side on the first joint-venture (Aerospatiale & British Aeronautical Corp.) in the european aviation history. His drive, energy and enthusiasm are widely recognized since he remained a key member of the Flight Test programme during development phase and even after the aircraft entered airline service.

His professionality and objectivity in the book are backed by his opinions about the flawed concepts that affected commercial success of the whole programme. Some of them are strictly technical, in fact an instance is given by the avionic layout: to stay in touch with the 50-50 responsability of design and production shares, the inertial navigation system was totally new and prone to fail during alignment phase(it was actively discouraged aircraft entry during the phase), while airlines wanted off-the-shelf equipment because they already had them in planes and spares. Another example is the moving map display debate that was engaged between french and british counterparts. Trubshaw points out the entire matter was nosense since most of flights were planned over oceans (avoiding sonic booms over populated territories) and the task of keeping it uptodate(over a featureless area)would have been enormous. Another nightmare was the autopilot-autothrust system that were unable to cope with unexpected large temperature shear aloft, inducing almost uncontrollable climb/descent, this behavior required a long testing phase, being unacceptable for airline service. The complexity of design is well explained, showing the long experimental trials to get powerplant reliable since the engine-intake matching was a real challenge(nice descriptions are reported in Seddon&Goldsmith'"Intake aerodynamic" for aeronautical engineer students). One of the greatest factor affecting the project was the lack of a firm customer from the outset. Since no airline was a player from the beginning, Aerospatiale&Bac went on to start afresh with everything, not employing proven equipment(just the opposite of Skunk Works' policy of off-the-shelf apparatus when innovation was not required), so they lenghtened the development phase and they forced airlines to reinvent crew training, raising development&operating costs to unbearable levels. Despite tecnical details, the book is amusing for the great human touch of the author. His typical british sense of humor is always ready to induce some smiles at the authoritative content, delighting readers' attention to events. It was real fun when the author delivers the story of one of top manager of Bac effusively welcoming the first gentleman joining in at a reception for a demonstration flight, just to discover that the poor chap was the piano player hired for the evening. Another story is related to the rapturous welcome occurred at Sidney although the airport fire brigade got rather excited when the tailbumper threw off some sparks at touchdown. Its final outcome prompted a design modification, encouraging a small wheel on bumper in production aircraft to avoid fire tracks' pursuings on runway during landing roll.

"Concorde" is really a deep insight in the project history. Vivid memories are supported by a fascinating selection of photographs of the aircraft, many taken from the author personal collection. A highly recommended portrait of political&industrial aeronautical endeavor in aviation litterature!

Customer Review: Inside Story But Not the Whole Story:
This is a good book. It describes the lineage of Concorde fairly well, demonstrating graphically, and textually the French and British designs providing development information for Concorde.

This book however TOTALLY neglects one of the most important sources of aerodynamic, structural, material, construction, economics, route analysis and other information necessary to produce the Concorde.

This source of course is the Hawker-Siddeley Group. Nowhere in Trubby's book are the SST designs Hawker's produced in cooperation with BAC. When Avro Canada folded in 1959 Jim Floyd moved to Britain to head Hawker's SST design effort, bringing with him 5 other engineers from the Arrow project. The Arrow was designed to the same performance as the Concorde using the same materials, milled structural components and other technologies, yet flew 11 years earlier. Avro Canada had also produced the first "credible" in the eyes of TWA, SST design FOR Howard Hughes and TWA. Their parametric studies, economic analysis etc. were rolled into the Hawker SST design(s) and then into Concorde.

Pity people cannot give credit where credit is due.

Customer Review: One Half of a Must Have Set:
If you could only have two books about the Concorde, this must be one of them, the other being The Concorde Story by Orlebar. This book fills any gaps left by the other and presents the politics, design/developement, crews and actual operations involved with this beautiful vision of Man's desire to fly. If you are a fan of this aircraft, you'll want to sit down in your favorite chair and absorb the wealth of text, illustrations and pictures this book has to offer.

Product Description:
This study of the famed supersonic commercial transport examines the history, design production and service of the Concorde, from the initial planning stages to the aircraft's first flight in 1975 and the tragic accident in France in July 2000. The story begins with a brief background of supersonic flight and a look at plans dating as far back as the 1950s for a commercial SST. The story of how the eventual Anglo-French collaborative adventure took root despite political differences is accompanied by a complete design and testing history, complete technical specifications and more than 150 photographs and illustrations.



Customer Review: Concorde:
The Concorde flies from New York to London New York to Paris
Washington,D.C. to London Washington,D.C. to Paris.
Air France/British Airways. they use the Concorde on the set of The Concorde Airport 79.

Customer Review: Excellent introduction and thorough:
I looked at a number of Concorde books, and this one and Orlebar's Concorde Story stood out.

This one is easy to read, very informative, talks about the technology without getting too detailed and talks about some of the politics and difficulty without getting caught up on it.

It's black and white and medium format, so the Orlebar makes a nice color complement to it.

Enjoy

Customer Review: Very enjoyable reading:
This book talks about the design of the aircraft and flight operations first. Then it goes on to describe flight testing and the history of the aircraft.

It is a special plane and it is flown in a special way. It is a must have for those curious about the concorde.

Product Description:
According to photographer Wolfgang Tillmans, "For the chosen few, flying Concorde is apparently a glamorous but cramped and slightly boring routine while to watch it in air, landing or taking off is a strange and free spectacle, a super modern anachronism and an image of the desire to overcome time and distance through technology." With no text other than the inner-front flap's description, this fourth printing of Tillmans' iconic artist's book consists of 62 color photographs of the Concorde airplane--taking off, landing or in flight, and sometimes as just a tiny, bird-like silhouette in the sky. The photographs speak of both the beauty and the environmental devastation produced by this fabled French airplane, both sides of which Tillmans captures in his casual yet formally elegant signature style.

Product Description:

Product Description:
The three great British postwar airliners come alive in this the third edition of the Legends of the Air series. One was a pioneer in jet air transport that paid the price of discovering a previously relatively unknown problem in airframe design - fatigue. One was a major commercial success by any standard and a leader in its field. The third was an incomparable technological success that did not find its anticipated world market for a wide variety of reasons.

But for the little appreciated effects of metal fatigue associated with the new art of pressurisation, de Havilland's Comet would have secured the destiny of the British aircraft industry for decades to come, so advanced was it compared with the competition.

Meanwhile, the Viscount had no such problems, some 444 were built and the type even met with success in the fiercely contested North American market..

The Anglo French Concorde, the 'Big Racer', is elegance personified in an airframe designed in the pre digital age and yet after more than two decades of ultra safe day to day supersonic service is now set to fly on till at least 2010.

Viscount, Comet & Concorde features around 70,000 words of text, hundreds of photographs, 48 specifically commissioned color sideview drawings, technical drawings, specification and production tables, and more.



Customer Review: Trend-Setting Book on Three Trend-Setting British Airliners:
In the 1950s and 1960s, three new British airliners forever changed the way we travel by air. They were the De Havilland DH.106 Trident, Vickers Viscount, and BAC/Aerospatiale Concorde. Two other pioneers were Sud Aviation SE-210 Caravelle, Tupolev Tu-104, and BAC-111; I would love to see these three treated together in another volume.

The Comet was the first production jet airliner, and the plane paid a heavy price for that distinction. Although De Havilland took strong precautions in designing a pressurized airliner that would fly higher and faster than anything before, the concept of metal fatigue was not well understood. Several well-publicized crashes doomed the success of the Comet; when the redesigned Comet 4 emerged, the British airliner was easily outclassed by the Boeing 707 and Douglas DC-8, both of which benefited from what was learned from the Comet.

The Viscount was the world's first turboprop airliner. The difference between the new turbine and previous piston engine was readily apparent and appreciated among passengers; the Viscount heralded a new standard of comfort and reliability in short- to medium-range air travel. Vickers sold 444 airframes, making it the most successful British airliner ever. The plane's engines themselves are an aviation classic; the superb Rolls-Royce Dart went on to power the Fokker F-27, Handley-Page Dart Herald, and Hawker-Siddeley HS.748 among other aircraft.

The Concorde speaks for itself. Though the Tupolev Tu-144 preceded Concorde, the Anglo-French airliner remains the only successful supersonic transport. With its recent 2003 retirement, the Concorde has attained somewhat of a cult status.

Mr. Stewart has presented three very different British designs, each it its own way a pioneer. Each section includes a detailed production list, data on types and subtypes, and detailed sketches. This book is a highly worthy addition to any commercial aviation enthusiast's bookshelf.

Customer Review: Concorde - Serious Politics:
An interesting if somewhat heavy read! A very detailed account of the political history surrounding not only the Concorde but the rise (& fall?) of the SST projects. Whereas other Concorde books (such as the excellent one by Brian Trubshaw) looked at the developmental trials, tribulations & achievements from an engineering point of view, this book puts an entirely different slant on the whole SST ideal. It looks at how the changing economic, environmental & social attitudes impacted on the course of the SST, and the effect they had on the political manouvering of the time. Much of the earlier chapters are devoted to the one-sided political push to form a UK/US collaboration. Later chapters are devoted to the desperate efforts made at gaining landing rights at New York, while the final chapter examines future prospects for a new SST, although here the book is beginning to show its age.

Customer Review: A good read !:
Comprehensive yet very readable account of the political battle fought to establish a supersonic transatlantic Concorde service.

Interesting nuggets throughout.

Recommended.

Customer Review: Heavy!:
This book is seriously good if you're in to international politics, cultural devides between Britain, France and America and how to stifle a good scientific idea.

However, the detail that the author has included is at times heavy going and if you want information on this great and controversial aircraft I would recommend you read other books on the subject.

If you are fascinated by how people can get in the way of progress for no good reason... buy it now.

Customer Review: Brilliant book!:
This really is a rather good book. Trust me