-
June and July: During June and July the first discussions between The British Aircraft Corporation and Sud Aviation took
place in Weybridge (England) and Paris (France).
-
September: French President Charles de Gaulle made a plea for Britain and France to co-operate in building a civil aircraft to
concentrate on speed rather than increased passenger capacity, and he wanted this aircraft to fly at supersonic speed. The
aircraft would need to be built using both the countries aircraft industries as the building of such an aircraft would be too
expensive for Britain or France to fund alone.
-
October: An Anglo - French Mach 2.2 airliner specification was published.
-
29th November: British Minister of Aviation Julian Amery and French ambassador Jouffroy de Coursel signed a draft treaty for
collaboration in the building of a supersonic aircraft. The treaty stipulated that Great Britain and France "must in all aspects of
the project make an equal contribution regarding both the costs to be taken on and the work to be carried out, and to share
equally proceeds from sales". The building of this aircraft was entrusted to four companies, The British Aircraft Corporation
(Britain) and Sud Aviation (France) were to be responsible for building the airframe, and the Olympus 593 jet engines would be
manufactured by Bristol Siddeley (Britain) and SNECMA (France).
-
13th January: French President de Gaulle during a speech makes use of the word "Concorde" with reference to the Anglo -
French supersonic aircraft project.
-
3rd June: Pan American Airlines signed sales options to buy six of the aircraft. The company announced these options on 4th
June.
-
5th June: US President Kennedy announced he was to back the development of a US supersonic airliner.
-
24th October: In Bristol, British and French journalists were shown an experimental model of the Anglo - French "Concord" (no
"e").
-
1st March: No special company to build the aircraft had been formed. Instead a management structure had been created of
officials from the two governments, BAC and Aerospatiale (the two companies now to build the airframe), and Rolls Royce and
SNECMA (the two companies now to build the Olympus 593 jet engines). All these companies were now signing hundreds of
contracts with suppliers from British, French and US companies.
-
1st May: At Bristol the British Aircraft Corporation's experimental "mini concord", designated "BAC 221" made its first flight. Its
testing was carried out in the Bordeaux region in southern France as the weather was more suitable in this region than in
England, and the sparsely populated area would be more suited to the frequent sonic booms.
-
19th November: With Britain having had a general election, the new Labour government announced Britain's withdrawal from
the Concord project.
-
20th January: Britain's new Labour government announced that Britain would not, after all, withdraw from the Concord project.
-
April: The first metal was cut for the Concord prototypes.
-
May: The pre-production design was announced.
-
11th September: Work commenced on the airframe at the British Aircraft Corporation's division at Filton on Britain's 40% share
of the airframe, the other 60% being the responsibility of the French. Although the agreement was for a 50/50 share in the
production of the entire aircraft, Britain had a bigger share in production of the Olympus 593 jet engine than France.
-
March: A 16 ton centre fuselage and wing section was delivered to CEAT, Toulouse, France for static and thermal testing.
-
April: The final assembly of the French prototype 001 began at Toulouse.
-
June: The Concord flight simulator at Toulouse was commissioned, and a complete Olympus 593 engine and variable
geometry exhaust assembly was first testbed run at Melun-Villaroche, France.
-
August: The final assembly of the British prototype 002 began at Filton.
-
9th September: At Bristol, flight tests began using a RAF Vulcan bomber with the Rolls Royce / SNECMA Olympus 593 jet
engine attached to its underside. Due to the Vulcan's limitations the tests were limited to a speed of Mach 0.98.
-
October: The Olympus 593 engine, on test at Bristol achieved 35,190 lb. of thrust, which exceeded the 'Stage 1' brochure
requirements.
-
December: A 70-foot fuselage and nose section was delivered to the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough for fatigue
testing.
-
During 1967 the design for the pre-production (01 and 02) aircraft was revised to reduce drag, a new nose and visor were
designed and the rear fuselage was lengthened.
-
February: At Filton a full scale Concord interior mock-up was presented to customer airlines.
-
April: The first test run in a high altitude chamber, of a complete Olympus 593 engine took place at Saclay, France.
-
May: Concorde sales options reached a total of 74 aircraft from 16 airlines.
-
August: Concorde 001 underwent resonance testing at Toulouse.
-
11th December: In Toulouse, with over 1,100 guests present, the first prototype Concorde (French spelling) was ceremonially
rolled out. The aircraft was called Concorde 001. With the British Concord prototype almost complete, British technology
minister Anthony Wedgwood Benn announced at Toulouse that from now on the British aircraft would also be called Concorde.
The "e", he said, stood for "excellence, England, Europe and entente". It was said the overall shape, aerodynamics, flight
controls, propulsion and auxiliary systems made Concorde a generation ahead of any other form of civil transport.
-
January: The Vulcan flying testbed logged 100 hours, and the variable geometry exhaust assembly for the Olympus 593
engine was cleared at Melun-Villaroche for flight in the Concorde prototypes.
-
February: The British government announced the provision of £125 million loan to launch the production of Concorde aircraft
and engines.
-
March: Concorde 001 underwent preliminary engine testing at Toulouse.
-
August: Concorde 001 underwent taxi trials at Toulouse.
-
19th September: Registered as G-BSST, Concorde 002 (the first aircraft assembled in Britain) was rolled out from the
so-called Brabazon hangar at the British Aircraft Corporation's plant at Filton, Bristol. The aircraft was fully painted and could
possibly fly within the next few weeks. Also visible in the Brabazon hangar, nearing completion was the first pre-production
aircraft Concorde 01. Registered as G-AXDN the aircraft incorporated modifications from the prototype aircraft, these being a
new "droop-snoot" nose, a fully transparent visor and a lengthened fuselage from the original 184 feet to 193 feet, although
the production type aircraft would be lengthened still to 204 feet.
-
December: The Olympus 593 engine ground testing reached 5,000 hours.
-
31st December: The first supersonic airliner to fly, the Tupolev Tu-144 took off for the first time from a runway to the side of
the factory where it was built in Zhukovski, USSR. Due to its resemblance to Concorde it was nicknamed "Concordski" by the
West.
-
March: Government authority was given for 9 Concorde airframes to be built; 2 prototypes; 2 pre-production types; 2 ground
test airframes; and 3 production type aircraft.
-
2nd March: Concorde prototype 001, registered as F-WTSS, was now packed with ten tons of test instruments. Its first flight
from Toulouse had been delayed for several days due to bad weather. At 15:40 hrs, captained by chief test pilot Andre Turcat,
Concorde 001 started its first take off run, with afterburners lit, the four Olympus 593 engines briskly accelerated the aircraft,
and after 4,700 feet of runway and at a speed of 205 knots captain Turcat, flying manually throughout, rotated 001. The
aircraft climbed steeply away accompanied by two chase aircraft, one taking film and the other to serve the calibration of
Concorde's airspeed indication systems. For this historic flight the landing gear was left in the down position and the
"droop-snoot" nose left lowered. Accompanying Andre Turcat that day was copilot Jaques Guignard, and engineer observers
Henri Perrier and Michel Retif. At 16:08 hrs Concorde 001 made a perfect landing.
-
9th April: Concorde 002 (G-BSST) made its first flight from Filton. Concorde 002's crew for that flight was chief test pilot for
commercial aircraft BAC, Brian Trubshaw; copilot John Cochrane; and Brian Watts the engineer observer. After carrying out
the specified test items G-BSST made its approach to RAF Fairford that had been equipped as the main Concorde flight test
centre. With both radar altimeters failed, and the crew being 35 feet above the landing gear, Brian Trubshaw made an
impeccable landing.
-
29th May: Before going on display at the Paris air show, Concorde 001 (F-WTSS) made a low level flight over the city.
-
June: At the Paris air show both prototype aircraft (001(F-WTSS) and 002(G-BSST)) made their first public appearance
together.
-
July: The annular combustion system design, to remove exhaust smoke for all subsequent aircraft was specified.
-
1st October: Concorde 001 (F-WTSS) on its 45th test flight exceeded Mach 1 for the first time. At an altitude of 36,000 feet
and 75 miles from Toulouse it held Mach 1.05 for 9 minutes from 11:29 hrs. From now on both Concorde prototypes were to
proceed up the Mach scale during flight tests.
-
8th November: Pilots from BOAC, Air France, Pan Am and TWA took turns at the controls of Concorde 001 (F-WTSS).
-
12th November: Concorde made its first night time landing.
-
December: Government authority was given for 3 more production type aircraft (204, 205, 206).
