Why the Concorde is an engineering masterpiece
On March 2, 1969, the legendary Concorde took to the skies for the first time.
It instantly became an icon of design and had a performance that was way ahead of its time.
So, how fast was the Concorde? With a take-off speed of 250 mph (400 km/h) and a cruising speed of 1350 mph (2,175 km/h, roughly twice that of standard passenger jets today), it could fly from London to New York in just under three and a half hours instead of eight hours (which was standard at the time).