BAC Concorde Die Cast Metal Aircraft 1:350 Scale Model On Desk Display Stand

Back in 1968, when I was young, my parents' friends' son tried to impress me by showing me his aerospace engineer father's desk model airplane collection: "This is the plane of tomorrow," he sonorously intoned, pointing at a Boeing 747 scheduled to fly in 1969, "And this is the plane of the future," he said pompously, pointing at a Concorde. Awed, I asked when the Concorde might fly. "Oh, about ten years," came the answer.I can still remember the first time I saw the Concorde flying overhead, in 1976; it's sleek lines were amazingly beautiful, it's black jet exhaust much less so: the engines were less than efficient at subsonic speeds, and the Concorde wasn't allowed to break the sound barrier over the U.S. landmass. When they did go supersonic, they cruised at Mach 2. Due to atmospheric friction the plane had expansion joints that allowed for a two-inch differential. The plane was about 200 feet long with a wingspan of 84 feet, and stood 40 feet high on its landing gear.Although the Concorde cut the flight time from New York to London to three hours, making it possible for a London-to-New York passenger to, by the clock, land before he took off, the Concorde never supplanted conventional jets. Only 20 ever entered service. Concordes were horribly expensive to fly and seated only a limited number of passengers (about 100) who paid through the nose for a one-way ticket. If you were much over six feet tall it was hard to sit comfortably inside the Concorde without having your knees against your sternum and your head bonking the six foot five inch cabintop. In the event, Concordes became the province of wealthy passengers, high-level corporate passengers, and the occasional tourist taking a novelty flight. As the European economies slowed down in the late 1990s, the United Kingdom and France, who subsidized the Concorde for their national carriers, British Airways and Air France, decided to discontinue the Concorde, and it flew it's last in 2003.This 1/350 scale desk model is not a toy. It is small, but detailed. It is wearing the livery of British Airways, and is displayed in "in flight" mode, albeit wheels down (earthbound Concordes had a drooped nose, to aid in taxiing; in flight, the nose was lifted into position to maximize aerodynamic efficiency). The visual effect of the model is pure speed.There is still very much a place for the Supersonic Transport in modern life, and though the Concorde is honorably retired, a new SST is expected to enter service in 2015. It's time to go back to the future.