The planes soar at 18,288m -- over 18km high -- on the edge of outer space.
Despite the height and speed, passengers sit in regular street clothes, dining on such dishes as smoked salmon fish cakes, breast of guinea fowl and lobster truffle salad. Dom Perignon and Krug champagne flow as liberally as passengers wait for a digital screen near the front of the plane to indicate that the sound barrier has been broken.
Even today, 26 years after he first piloted a Concorde, Captain Bannister gets visibly excited describing the experience.
"We can see the curvature of the Earth, and the sky darkens and you see the edge of space," he said.
"We are traveling faster than a rifle bullet, faster than the Earth rotates."
The sun had already set when Captain Bannister and his crew left London last Wednesday night. They then flew to Boston so quickly that they arrived in time to watch the sun set again.
That, perhaps more than anything else, is the legacy of the Concorde, a plane that, after this month, will never fly again.
The plane facts
-- It cruised at around 2,173kph at an altitude of up to 18,288m.
-- A crossing from Europe to New York took less than three-and-a-half hours -- less than half the normal flying time for other jets.
-- The record crossing stands at two hours, 52 minutes, 59 seconds
-- Traveling westwards the five-hour time difference meant Concorde landed before local arrival time caught up with the local departure time
-- Concorde was born out of separate French and British projects which joined forces in 1962
-- Concorde carried 100 passengers
-- Range: 6,880km
-- Speed: Mach Two (2,150kph)
-- The partnership led to the British Aircraft Corporation (later British Aerospace) and Aerospatiale of France to build 20 Concordes
-- The first prototype plane (001) was rolled out of its hangar at Toulouse in France in 1967
-- Its first flight took place on March 2, 1969, from Toulouse
-- 1969: Concorde successfully completed its first supersonic flight on Oct. 1
-- 1974: The aircraft completes its first double transatlantic journey in one day on June 17
-- The first commercial flights took place on 21 January 1976 when British Airways flew from London Heathrow to Bahrain and Air France from Paris to Rio
Source: BBC
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