Getting from London to New York in under four hours may sound like the stuff of science fiction, but in the closing decades of the 20th century it was a short-lived reality. Commuting across the Pond came to us via the supersonic airliner Concorde, which was twice as fast as any other commercial passenger plane in the sky. This was technology in its pomp: from the graceful tip of its tapering nose to the imposing broad spread of its delta wings, Concorde raced between Europe and the US at up to Mach 2.04 (1,350mph).
Concorde represented a moment of technological collaboration between the UK and France (both members of the European Union at the time). From the highest level of government to the mechanics who serviced it, these two nations worked together on an aircraft that could rival Nasa’s Apollo programme. While ‘concorde’ is French for ‘agreement’, there was little evidence of the project ever living up to its billing...