Concorde once flew supersonic, now it’s on the slow boat to Brooklyn

Liftoff: Concorde is winched off the Hudson waterfront. Photo / Mary Altaffer, AP

The world’s first supersonic passenger plane used to arrive to New York at Mach 2. Yesterday, it was cruising closer to 2 knots.

The Concorde supersonic jet that has been parked along Manhattan’s west side since retiring from commercial air travel took a slow boat to Brooklyn on Wednesday for a facelift that will take several months.

When Concorde service ended in 2003, 75 air museums around the world put in bids for the 13 planes then in use. New York’s Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum got the British Airways Concorde that still holds the record for the fastest transatlantic crossing by a passenger aircraft — 2 hours, 52 minutes and 59 seconds from Heathrow to JFK.

After welcoming museum visitors for nearly two decades, the needle-nosed jet will once again be out of commission until the spring of 2024, the Intrepid said in a news release.

The only supersonic commercial jet that ever flew, the Concorde cruised at twice the speed of sound. A one-way ticket cost $10,000 in 2003.

A crane lifted the Intrepid’s Concorde onto a barge Wednesday for a very subsonic passage to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where it will be stripped down, sanded and repainted.

“We are stewards of some of the most important artifacts of the 20th and 21st centuries, and with that comes the responsibility to preserve, protect and perpetuate these icons for generations to come,” said Susan Marenoff-Zausner, president of the Intrepid Museum.

The restoration “will ultimately allow us to present this awe-inspiring technological marvel and continue to tell the stories behind it for the foreseeable future,” she said.

Boom Supersonic Overture aircraft in United Airlines colours. The supersonic jet will cruise at 60000ft using sustainable fuels picture supplied credit: Boomsupersonic https://boomsupersonic.com

A return to supersonic air travel?

Since the Concord was grounded, no airline has offered supersonic travel to customers for the past 20 years.

In 2021 United, the world’s largest airline and Star Alliance partner to Air New Zealand, annouced it was ordering 50 next generation supersonic planes.

The first airline customer for the supersonic Boom, a smaller version of the Concorde, United said it could be flying passengers past Mach 1 by the end of the decade.

It could halve flight times trans-Atlantic but sadly New Zealand is not in the mix for supersonic destinations.

The Boom is “going to be more of a New York to London, New York to Paris-type airplane,” Patrick Quayle VP of United’s international network told the Herald, earlier this year.

- AP with additional reporting