The wonderful Concorde aircraft first flew over 25 years ago, and yet it remains the pinnacle of civil aviation development for one reason - high speed. The Concorde is the only aircraft in the world operating scheduled passenger flights at supersonic high speed.

An engineering masterpiece, the Concorde aircraft was the result of a collaborative venture between the aviation industries of great  Britain and France. It dates back to design work for a supersonic airliner carried out by engineer Sud Aviation and Bristol, their respective Super Caravel and Bristol 233 excellent designs being remarkably similar in configuration to each other. The forecast high costs of any SST program and the similarities in the infra designs led to a 1962 government agreement between France and Britain which resulted in the British Aircraft Corporation joining to design and develop such an aircraft.