Canadian Xpress April Fly-In – Concorde
45 years ago, on March 2, 1967 Concorde made its first test flight. It took thousands of hours of testing with 2 prototype models and 7 years to gain type certification of the Concorde.
On April 10th 1976, Air France made its first commercial passenger flight with Concorde. That first flight took passengers from Paris to Rio via the Azores which later changing to Dakar. The stop in the Azores was needed so that Concorde could refuel. The aircraft used an astonishing 2 tons of fuel just to taxi to the runway (2% of its total fuel load) in Paris. Normal operations called for the two inboard engines to be shut down as the aircraft exited the runway after landing, to help save on fuel cost. In 2003 BA and Air France both announced they would stop flying the Concorde after 27 years of service. Lots of reason still float around today as to why it was retired. But truth be told, it was simply due to cost. The Concorde was able to achieve a fuel rating of 15.8pm/g, which means the energy in one gallon of fuel would move one passenger 15.6 miles. Where a 747 has a 46.4pm/g fuel rating. So it’s easy to see, it cost a lot less flying a 747 than a Concorde, sure it’s at a third of the speed, but you’re carrying 4½ times the passengers.
Canadian Xpress® would like to invite all pilots to join us on Saturday, April 19th at 20h00edt (24h00z) for our April 2014 fly-in where we are going to pay tribute to the fasted commercial aircraft ever built and fly the first leg of Air France’s first commercial route that started 38 years ago, this month and fly from Paris Charles DeGaule (LFPG) to Santa Maria (LPAZ).
This is an open invitation to all pilots no matter what your flying experience to attend this Canadian Xpress® sponsored event that will be flown on the VATSIM network.
More information regarding this event including operational details, charts, optional add-on scenery and the Canadian Xpress® Model Sets can be viewed by visiting http://canadianxpress.ca/ or by directly downloading our Fly-In document here.
See you all on Saturday the 19th!
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