The construction of Concorde was one of the most complex operations ever undertaken in the aircraft industry, and it was developed across two countries in two languages. The testing programme was initially meant to last 12 months, but instead it went on for 7 years. Concorde 101 at Duxford is a pre-production model – its purpose was for the testing and refinement of Concorde, from how to deal with ice on the wings, to seeing how Concorde would cope travelling at Mach 2 in thin desert heat. So what was it like to test this supersonic airliner to the extremes flight after flight? We spoke to test engineer John Dunlevy who worked on Concorde 101, and Peter Archer, chairman of the Duxford Aviation Society. We head on board and into the cockpit and even see the nose droop in action.

Correction: Please note that the video states the Air France Flight 4590 Concorde crashed due to an engine fail which is incorrect, the flight crash was caused by debris on the runway. Apologies for this error.

View and licence some of the film clips used in this video at IWM Film: https://film.iwmcollections.org.uk/c/...

CREDITS
Film of Concorde 101 in development and arriving at Duxford courtesy of Heritage Concorde
Images of John Dunlevy as an engineer courtesy of John Dunlevy
Film of Concorde arriving in Helsinki 1984 © Kauko Helavuo
Boeing 2702 © Bill Abbott, Flickr

With thanks to Duxford Aviation Society and Heritage Concorde for helping us produce this video – find out more about their work:
https://www.heritageconcorde.com/
https://www.duxfordaviationsociety.org/

0:00 Intro
2:42 Peter Archer, intro to Concorde 101
4:02 John Dunlevy's career on Concorde
6:08 The issue of de-icing
7:50 The escape chute
8:42 Into the cockpit
10:09 Drooping the nose
13:08 Flying as a passenger
15:10 101 arrives at Duxford