The Only US Airline to go Supersonic: Braniff Concordes

[RStretton]

Braniff did some crazy stuff at the end of the 70s. Harding Lawrence was convinced that deregulation would be a disaster and end up with a return to regulation (as it had in the 1930s) so he went all out for marketshare attempting to grab as much as he could before the window closed. This crazy expansion would be the end of Braniff but the craziest thing they ever did was start Concorde operations on transcontinental routes across the USA.

Its a magnificent story and is told really well here: http://www.concordesst.com/history/events/braniff.html

None of the nine concordes Braniff owned (they were transferred to BN ownership for the Braniff portion of the flights) ever operated in their colours however as you can see in the article there were several official artist renderings of how the SSt would have looked. It is this scheme which adorns the recent Gemini offering I acquired. It looks great and its a shame that it was never a reality. However like my Pan Am Concorde it has a shade of reality associated with it that doesn't make it a pure fantasy model.

The real Braniff Concorde ops were sadly a financial disaster and were another nail in the coffin of Braniff.

[fleetlordatvar]

Crazy, i thought they were all fantasy & no idea that a U.S. company did the Concorde.

[foundation]

My understanding is that the concorde was not allowed to operate at supersonic speeds over land in the US. There was a discussion that braniff pilots were trained at supersonic speeds with the implication that they didn't use that training. So was the wash dc-DFW segment flown subsonic? that really does make it crazy

[RStretton]

My understanding is that the concorde was not allowed to operate at supersonic speeds over land in the US. There was a discussion that braniff pilots were trained at supersonic speeds with the implication that they didn't use that training. So was the wash dc-DFW segment flown subsonic? that really does make it crazy

That is my understanding also.

[RStretton]

This thread has been added to my website as a new blog entry with more photos:

http://yesterdaysairlines.weebly.com/airline-history-blog/supersonic-in-the-usa-braniff-concordes

[JAL1628]

An ambitious airplane representative of the Space Age. Absolutely fascinating.

I only saw one (1) in operation at JFK, maybe 1990 or thereabouts.. In the late 1980s I was visiting Mexico City and I vividly recall my hosts talking about Concorde and the tremendous noise/vibration.

When I was a kid growing up in the South Bay of Los Angeles County the region was full of aerospace workers. Many of my neighbors had literally met Howard Hughes; many more were involved in the Space Program & various defense projects. The adults would often gather around barbecues to talk airplanes, up to and including Concorde. The consensus then was Concorde fell victim to politics, and nothing more. The airplane was understood to be well ahead of its time by everyone in-the-know.

It’s interesting to speculate what more & successful US Concorde operations may have looked like. I can think of a half dozen routes worthy of discussion..

[RStretton]

There was definitely a major element of jealousy in the USA which created maliciousness towards the Concorde which would never have happened if it were American. This resulted in a whole host of bans and no doubt a good number of the orders being cancelled. Very poor behaviour but the USA as much as I like and admire it has a history of being an extremely poor loser and is quite willing to do whatever it takes to 'win'.

Can't blame the US totally though - the oil crisis really killed it. The way of the future was widebodies and not supersonic jets.

[JAL1628]

There was definitely a major element of jealousy in the USA which created maliciousness towards the Concorde which would never have happened if it were American.

Absolutely.

[eugenevh]

Absolutely.

I recall a recent order for new tankers which was initially awarded to Airbus (with arguably a newer design) being overturned in favour of a Boeing order.