Concorde becomes an endangered species

Scarcely a French cabinet meeting passed in the 1960s without President de Gaulle asking: "What's going on with the Concorde?"

Mr Tony Benn, a British Labour cabinet minister of the time, said the "e" on "Concorde" stood for entente cordiale and "excellence".

Thirty years after its first test flight, the world's most expensive civilian aircraft is still a triumph of French aerodynamics and British engine technology.

Commercially, the Concorde was a 17 billion franc (£2 billion) white elephant, whose cost was paid by French and British taxpayers. Yet it laid the foundations for Airbus, the four-nation European aircraft consortium that now rivals Boeing. It proved that any rich man or woman could fly at twice the speed of sound, and gave the aeronautics industry electric controls, computer-run machine tools, extremely light and heat-resistant titanium alloys and other innovations that live on in the Airbus line.

Mr Michel Polacco, the French author of Concorde, said the idea of making a horrifically expensive but exquisite object was quintessentially French. "I am sentimental about it," he admitted. "It's beautiful, it has a beautiful shape. And it has a history. It has been hated, loved, criticised, praised. It unleashed all kinds of passions, so of course there are feelings."

The fuel-guzzling Concorde was a victim of the first oil crisis in 1973, and of anti-noise, anti-pollution lobbies. The French and British governments virtually gave the only 20 Concordes ever made to British Aerospace and Air France. Thirteen are still flying.

The aircraft crosses the Atlantic in 31/2 hours, less than half the time taken by a conventional jet. Next December 31st Concorde's supersonic speed will enable 200 people to celebrate the arrival of the year 2000 twice. For a 50,000 franc ticket, they will leave Paris after midnight on January 1st and arrive in New York in time to celebrate midnight a second time.

Frequent Concorde flyers include the cellist Mstislav Rostropovitch, the fashion designer Calvin Klein and the model Claudia Schiffer. Ironically, Concorde is slightly less comfortable than first class on a normal flight. Because of the pencil-like fuselage, the seats are narrow.

Although the Concorde could in theory continue flying much longer, experts expect it to go to the elephants' graveyard around 2007. By that time, its electronics will be too old-fashioned.

Neither Boeing nor Airbus, the only two companies with the means to produce a supersonic successor, intends to do so at present, so the jet-setters will have to slow down.