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On January 21, 1976, Air France and British Airways marked a pivotal moment in the advancement of commercial aviation. With television cameras broadcasting to millions of viewers, Air France launched its Concorde supersonic transport (SST) service between Paris and Rio de Janeiro. With one refueling stop in Dakar, the flight required just seven hours. A nonstop flight on a subsonic Boeing 747 during this time required more than eleven hours. On the same day, British Airways launched its much-anticipated Concorde service from London’s Heathrow Airport to the Kingdom of Bahrain. This flight lasted just over four hours. The same route required more than six hours in a subsonic airliner. Learn more about the Concorde in “Supersonic Time Machine: Documenting the Concorde,” on display pre-security in the Aviation Museum and Library and online at: https://bit.ly/3UB8Q6L This image was posted on April 28, 2023.

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