Concorde by Jonathan Glancey

Author:Jonathan Glancey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atlantic Books Ltd

SEVEN

UNPREMEDITATED ART

CONCORDE was a singularly beautiful airliner. Concorde was a ravishingly beautiful machine. Concorde was, as so many people have said from all walks of life and around the globe, as much a work of art as it was a triumph, in its own right, of science, technology, design and manufacturing. The wonder of it is that its beauty, much like that of Reginald Mitchell’s captivating Spitfire, was not the work of an artist, but of the artistry of aerodynamics. The subtle curvature of Concorde’s wings is alone a study in elegant design and functional beauty, and a thing of beauty is truly a joy forever.

While Mitchell dismissed talk of artistry in the design of aircraft, like other gifted engineers he was able to produce designs of extraordinary beauty. And yet, one must be careful. Mitchell’s record includes the ungainly and unsuccessful Supermarine Type 224 prototype fighter, which made its debut just a year before the superb Spitfire, and such competent but ugly-ducking machines as the Supermarine Walrus amphibian of 1933. When sheer speed and performance were what mattered most, then he produced both the Schneider Trophy-winning Supermarine S.6B of 1931 and the Spitfire. It was the forms of such aircraft, and especially the design of their wings, and the maths involved in shaping them, that led to their beauty. So theirs was neither a formally composed nor accidental beauty, but one that emerged through aerodynamic necessity.

The lightweight sports and racing cars of Colin Chapman, the powerful steam railway locomotives of Sir Nigel Gresley, many of them named after racehorses or fast birds, or the lithe grace of clippers and ocean liners in the heydays of sail and steam turbines, were very much of the same breed. Chapman, though, could produce ugly cars as well as very beautiful ones. His first single-seat racer, the Lotus 12, was a bulbous affair, and unsuccessful. Gresley’s effective O1 class 2-8-0 heavy goods locomotive of 1914 and his N1 0-6-2 tank engine of 1920 were not exactly Flying Scotsman or Mallard in terms of looks. Grace of line came with speed and, in all cases, with a growing understanding of aerodynamics. And the beauty of a Lotus Elite or Gresley A3 Pacific, the fastest liners or Spitfire and Concorde is as timeless as that of seagulls and birds of prey.

Concorde has been out of service for more than a decade, and yet it still looks more modern and certainly more graceful than any Airbus or Boeing. In some ways, it was a glimpse of a future that has already slipped into history. It shot across the sky, like a bolt of Olympian lightning accompanied by a thunderous roar.

Concorde moved hearts and minds. Of course, to environmentalists the supersonic airliner was darkness visible, a ring of all too many decibels, a stench of polluting kerosene smoke, destroyer of the ozone layer. Surely, it was the devil’s own work, and especially if it was spawned in foul Filton and tainted Toulouse rather than shining Seattle. But

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