this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2025
359 points (94.8% liked)

Today I Learned

24119 readers
1025 users here now

What did you learn today? Share it with us!

We learn something new every day. This is a community dedicated to informing each other and helping to spread knowledge.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must begin with TIL. Linking to a source of info is optional, but highly recommended as it helps to spark discussion.

** Posts must be about an actual fact that you have learned, but it doesn't matter if you learned it today. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.**



Rule 2- Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Posts and comments which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding non-TIL posts.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-TIL posts using the [META] tag on your post title.



Rule 7- You can't harass or disturb other members.

If you vocally harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.

For further explanation, clarification and feedback about this rule, you may follow this link.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.

Unless included in our Whitelist for Bots, your bot will not be allowed to participate in this community. To have your bot whitelisted, please contact the moderators for a short review.



Partnered Communities

You can view our partnered communities list by following this link. To partner with our community and be included, you are free to message the moderators or comment on a pinned post.

Community Moderation

For inquiry on becoming a moderator of this community, you may comment on the pinned post of the time, or simply shoot a message to the current moderators.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Why didn't it succeed?

Concorde flights came to a screeching halt after only 27 years of operation on October 24, 2003. The reason? Excessive cost, high fares, and loud noise. On a regular flight, Concordes consumed 6,771 gallons of fuel, which quickly exceeded the profit made from the flight. In addition to that, only a total of 20 Concordes were built and no airline ordered them except for Air France and British Airways, who had to as they were state-run airlines at the time.

Oh, and a 2000 crash that killed everyone on board (109 people) and four people on the ground.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Skua@kbin.earth 103 points 1 day ago (4 children)

A fun fact about Concorde: there is one aerial photo of one of them flying at supersonic speeds, and the fighter jet that the photo was taken from could barely keep up long enough to take it. Here's the pic.

The image was taken by Adrian Meredith who was flying a Royal Air Force (RAF) Tornado jet during a rendezvous with the Concorde over the Irish Sea in April 1985. Although the Tornado could match Concorde’s cruising speed it could only do so for a matter of minutes due to the enormous rate of fuel consumption. Several attempts were made to take the photo, and eventually the Concorde had to slow down from Mach 2 to Mach 1.5-1.6 so that the Tornado crew could get the shot. The Tornado was stripped of everything to get it up to that speed as long as possible.

https://theaviationgeekclub.com/heres-the-only-picture-of-concorde-flying-at-supersonic-speed/

[–] ParadoxSeahorse@lemmy.world 2 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

Supersonic temperature giving it that extra sexy length

[–] acockworkorange@mander.xyz 22 points 1 day ago

That is awesome.

[–] turtlesareneat@discuss.online 15 points 1 day ago

Slow down so I can take your picture

No

Don't make me use your middle name!

Sigh OK

[–] ChicoSuave@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Should have used an American F-15.

[–] Skua@kbin.earth 22 points 1 day ago

Probably would have had the same problem. Both the Tornado and the F-15 were capable of going fast enough, it's just going fast enough for an extended period that becomes a problem. The F-15 is a bit faster but needs to carry a bunch of external fuel tanks to match the Tornado's range. Neither of them is cruising the whole way across the Atlantic at more than mach 2 like Concorde could

[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 13 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (1 children)

IIRC the only fighters that can supercruise (go supersonic without gushing fuel out of afterburners) are super modern jets like the F22, and still not at Mach 2.

Some older specialized craft could go Mach 2 efficiently, like blackbird or the XB-70, but they’re all long retired.

Concorde was realistically the only plane that could do that.

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago)

The SR-71 Blackbird is the closest thing I've seen to evidence that we had alien technology in the 60s. That thing is fucking wild. It doesn't even look real in photos, it looks like mediocre cg