Retired Concorde lands in museum

NEW YORK -- After 27 years as the soaring star of international travel, earning five-star reviews from the Hollywood crowd but little applause elsewhere, one of the supersonic Concordes is taking on travelers in a more down-to-earth setting.

The slender, needle-nosed airplane that British Airways designated Alpha Delta has been opened to public tours at the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum, on the Hudson River on Manhattan's West Side.

Even among Concordes, Alpha Delta is special, holding a trans-Atlantic commercial speed record for a flight between London Heathrow and John F. Kennedy International Airport: 2 hours, 53 minutes and 59 seconds.

People who could never afford British Airways' $6,000 London-New York fare on the Concorde may now see some of what the high rollers enjoyed at 60,000 feet.

Where jet-setters sipped Piper Heidsieck and dined on duck, families can now walk through the cabin and see the flight deck -- itself a mini-museum of 1960s aviation technology, a far cry from today's digital cockpits.

Veterans of more up-to-date air travel may be struck by the cramped, 100-seat passenger cabin and the tiny, extra-thick windows that were required by the extreme pressure differential at the high altitudes where the Concordes flew at twice the speed of sound.

When the Concordes were retired last year, some 75 museums around the world put in bids; all 13 planes -- seven British and six French -- are now spoken for.

The Intrepid's Concorde is the third in the United States. The Smithsonian Institution's new National Air and Space Museum outside Washington features an Air France model, and another British Airways Concorde is at Seattle's Museum of Flight.

Capt. Mike Bannister, who became chief pilot of the British Airways Concorde fleet in 1995, said New York was the right place for Alpha Delta.

"This plane has done so much," said Bannister, 55, who flew it on that record-setting flight in 1997. "It's a world record holder, it traveled to the edge of space, it traveled at 1,350 miles an hour so you literally arrived before you left."

"That chapter of its life is closed, but a wonderful new one opens because she is now an exhibit that hopefully will be seen by thousands, maybe millions of people."

The Concordes were state-of-the-art when introduced in 1976, but they never turned a profit. Airlines shunned supersonic technology in favor of planes that could carry more passengers at half the Concorde's cost.

Although service was one-class, one-price, the biggest celebrities generally sat up front -- Elizabeth Taylor and Madonna demanded seat 1A, where Queen Elizabeth II also presided.

Some critics thought the Concordes couldn't become museum pieces soon enough. The roar of their huge engines accelerating at takeoff rattled nerves and china cabinets near major airports. Because of the sonic booms generated by their supersonic flight, they were barred from flying at cruising speed over populated areas.

The Concordes' accident-free record ended in 2000, when an Air France plane crashed after taking off from Paris, killing 113 people.

After a yearlong grounding of the Concordes, Air France briefly resumed service before retiring its surviving planes in May 2003. British Airways followed suit in October.

Will there ever be another Concorde? "Eventually," said Bannister. "The circumstances will come together to make another SST a reality -- maybe not in the short term but in the medium term. The human race never takes backward steps for very long."

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On the Net:

Intrepid Museum: http://www.intrepidmuseum.org/

National Air and Space Museum: http://www.nasm.si.edu/

Seattle Museum of Flight: http://www.museumofflight.org/