Concorde and 747, Differing Destinies

1969 was an epoch making year in the world of aviation. As well as the successful flight of Apollo 11 in July (and Apollo 12 in November), it saw the first flights of two remarkable passenger aircraft, the Boeing 747 and Concorde.

Their first flights took place less than a month apart, February 9 for the 747 and March 2 for Concorde.  They represented bold new but strongly divergent directions for commercial aircraft.

The 747 was both the first wide bodied airliner and the first to use the new generation of turbofan engines.  These were much quieter and fuel efficient than earlier powerplants. But the really big thing about the 747 was that it was, well, really big. At a time when a standard international airliner had about 150 seats, the “Jumbo” could seat 450, a massive leap in capacity.  In one of those odd facts, the Wright Brothers original flight in 1903 could have comfortably occurred within the cabin of a 747.

Size didn’t matter for the Anglo French Concorde, it was all about speed.  It carried only about 120 passengers but flew at over twice the speed of sound. It offered the potential to cut flight times to an extraordinary degree.  A 747 takes about eight hours to fly from New York to Paris, but a Concorde could do it in less than four.

Both aircraft represented technical and financial challenges for their builders and airlines of almost Apollo Program proportions.  Boeing effectively bet the company on the success of the aircraft and not only had to build an entire new plant (in the largest building on the planet) but overcome a host of engineering issues.  Among these were designing an undercarriage to hold the 170 tonne behemoth and find a way to hang the four massive engines.

Concorde’s technical challenges were even greater given that it cruised at well over 2,000 kmh at 17 km above the earth. The aircraft was subjected to serious heating and the forces on it as it turned were staggering.  The engineers had to consider some particularly interesting safety questions such as what do you do when you lose an engine, or two, at those vast speeds.

These challenges were reflected in the time it took to prove the aircraft for airline service.  While their difference in first flights was measured in days, their entry into service were years apart. Pan Am were taking paying passengers on the Jumbo in 1970, just a year after the first flight while Concorde didn't become a commercial vehicle for another six years.

In that time the world had changed. This included an oil shock and the rise of the environmental movement. This meant that a quiet, fuel efficient aircraft with low seat per mile costs like the 747 was in a much better commercial position than a thirsty and noisy aircraft (including sonic booms), like Concorde, no matter how fast it flew.

In the end this meant that only 20 Concordes were ever built while over 1,400 747s have come out of that vast Seattle building and still more are on the way.  The 747 spawned a range of other wide bodies including the even more massive Airbus A380. Since the Concorde was withdrawn from service in 2003 there have been no other supersonic transports.

Two remarkable aircraft sharing a birth year with very different histories.

Matthew Flinders Rescue Mission

Matthew Flinders is one of the most celebrated explorers of Australia. He has so many things named after him plus plenty of statues in his honour dotted across the country. There are even a couple of statues of his faithful cat Trim.

Matthew Flinders

Most Australian students study his voyages with George Bass. These included his circumnavigation of Tasmania, proving it was an island and his successful mission in HMS Investigator to chart the coastline of Australia.

Less well known is a remarkable unplanned trip he made that would be much more celebrated if he hadn’t done so many other amazing things.

In 1803 Flinders was returning to England aboard HMS Porpoise with his charts and other important documents from his recent voyage. He was actually a passenger on the ship and Lieutenant John Fowler was Captain. They were accompanied by two other vessels, the Bridgewater and the Cato.

Unfortunately the three vessels were caught by a sandbank on what is today the northern end of Fraser Island and the Porpoise and the Cato were shipwrecked. Fortunately all but three people aboard were able to make it to a sandbank as the vessels broke apart. The Bridgewater managed to get through but strangely sailed on, even though they knew the other ships had foundered. They never attempted a rescue and later reported that all hands on the Porpoise and Cato were lost.

The party of 94 from the two vessels sat stranded on the sandbank for about nine days as they slowly realised they were not going to be rescued.  They had salvaged a couple of small ships cutters and began contemplating sending a group to raise the alarm. Brisbane is located about 400 kilometres from the shipwreck site, a difficult but possible journey in a small boat. The only problem was that in 1803 Brisbane didn't exist and wouldn’t for another thirty or so years.

The closest outpost of the Empire was their departure point of Sydney. This lay over 1,000 km to the south. Undaunted, Flinders and Fowler took the largest of ship's cutters, which they optimistically christened Hope, with twelve of the crew plus the intrepid Trim and set off to obtain a rescue party.

This would be some trip today but to undertake it successfully in 1803 was remarkable. It certainly helped to have one of the world’s greatest navigators aboard because this was a feat of considerable navigation as well as seamanship.

The journey to Sydney took them almost two weeks. We can only wonder what conditions aboard were like as they arrived in port but these were hardy people. Three ships were dispatched on the rescue mission which was a complete success with all those on the sandbank found safe and sound. You can imagine their faces when they finally saw the sails of the rescue vessels appear.

While the other two rescue ships returned to Sydney, Flinders took command of the Cumberland to complete his return to England but he probably shouldn’t have. Perhaps following the idea that no good deed goes unpunished, Flinders trip home would take him six and a half years. By the time he returned he was a broken man and he had also lost the wonderful Trim. But that is another story. Still his remarkable rescue mission in the cutter Hope deserves to be celebrated for the achievement it was.

Unusual Formula 1 Results

Strangely the official results of Formula One show that there are three Grands Prix where two drivers shared the victory. This is unusual given that F1 cars are single seaters and there has never been a dead heat in the over 60 years of races.


 It occurred through a quirk of the rules in the 1950s that permitted drivers to swap cars during a race.Usually this happened if the car of a leading driver broke down and they could call in a team mate to take over their car and continue in the race. Both drivers would then be credited with the result and share any points.

 It was still something of an achievement to be able to actually win under those circumstances and so it is no surprise that the drivers to do this where a couple of racing greats, Stirling Moss and Juan Manuel Fangio.  Moss did it at the 1957 British Grand Prix when he took over Tony Brooks' Vanwall, making them jointly the first British drivers to win the British Grand Prix in a British car.


The remarkable Argentinean Fangio did it twice. The first time was when he took over Luigi Fagioli’s Alfa Romeo at the 1951 French Grand Prix and the second was at his home Grand Prix in 1956 when he took Luigi Musso’s car. For both Luigis this represented the pinnacle of their racing careers as these were the only F1 races they ever won. Of course they were actually watching the race from the side of the track when their cars took the chequered flag. Brooks however went on to win five more races in his own right, narrowly missing becoming World Champion.

The 1956 Argentine Grand Prix where Musso handed over his car to Fangio was the first of the season but the last race of that year in Italy would involve a dramatic shared result for second place. This included the same two drivers plus their other team mate Peter Collins.  Fangio and Collins in their Ferraris were both hoping to win the World Championship that day, against of course Stirling Moss.  Musso had no chance as his only points that year had come from the shared win with Fangio.

During the race Fangio suffered a broken steering arm and was forced to retire. The team called Musso in to hand his car over to Fangio so he could claim his third world championship in a row. However this time Musso refused to comply. In one of the great sporting gestures of all time, Collins gave up his chance at the Championship and handed his car over to Fangio at his pit stop. Fangio managed to bring home the car in second place behind Moss giving him enough points to secure the title. In a further twist, Musso retired during the race so his car would have been no good to Fangio.

While Collins was magnanimous towards Fangio, he and Musso shared a deep rivalry and probably wouldn’t have shared so much as a sandwich. Sadly they would share tragic deaths under near identical circumstances two years later during the 1958 season. A few races apart they were chasing down the race leader but went too wide at a corner, hit a ditch, somersaulted  and suffered head injuries that would claim their lives later that night.

On a lighter note, while two drivers above shared second place in the 1956 Italian Grand Prix, no one officially finished second at the 1983 Brazilian Grand Prix.  The Flying Finn and reigning World Champion, Keke Rosberg, finished second on the road but was subsequently disqualified for an illegal push start at his pit stop. He needed the push start due to a flash fire igniting while his car was being refueled. This understandably made him evacuate the cockpit at a very rapid rate, but he also stalled the car in the process.


He got back in the car and stormed to a fantastic second place only to fall foul of the officials. This saw him excluded from the results, which seems a harsh penalty under the circumstances. Normally the disqualification would have simply elevated the lower finishing drivers up a place.  Perhaps recognising a degree of injustice, second place was left vacant pending Rosberg's appeal. The appeal ultimately failed but third place Niki Lauda was never elevated, thus leaving us with the only Grand Prix in history where no one finished second.  A wonderful statistical anomaly for those who enjoy that sort of thing.