F-WTSS 001 - Autorisé à décoller

It is 2nd March, but 1969, forty years before today! The place, known to avionics veterans either as TLS or LFBO and located 6.7 km northwest of Toulouse just south of Blagnac is the Aéroport de Toulouse - Blagnac, better known to the outside world as the Toulouse Blagnac International Airport, in France, witnessed history in the making when an Anglo-French plane bearing registration number F-WTSS, designated 001, took off and hovered in the air for 27 minutes before its commander decided to bring it back to land!

Powered by four Olympus 593 engines, built jointly by the Bristol division of Rolls Royce and the French Snecma organisation, the Aérospatiale-BAC Concorde had for the first time "lifted off" ground amidst thundering applause from a battery of personnel, cameramen and journalists who had gathered to watch the maiden flight!

Eventually, only 20 of these super-birds were ever built and the supersonic carrier was withdrawn from service due to a host of problems ranging from finance to environmental impact! F-WTSS, 001 itself flew only 812 hours before being retired on 19 October 1973! It is currently on display at Musée de l'Air et de l'Espace (The Museum of Air and Space), Le Bourget, France.

The last concorde, G-BOAF 216, was retired on 26 November 2003 after 18257 hours in flight, thus bringing the concorde era to an end!

Footnotes:

Image Courtesy: The BBC
Other inputs: Wikipedia