1977 Air France Concorde "Le Chef-d'oeuvre" Advertisement

Page Dimensions

Approx. 13 3/8" x 10" (34cm x 25cm)

Story and Details

Twenty years after Chuck Yeager became the first man to enter the realm of supersonic flight, onlookers from the common man to famous musicians and movie stars, could now do the same. A true marvel of aeronautical engineering, Concorde took to the skies four months before man first stepped foot on the Moon in 1969. By 1977, the year this ad was published, Concorde was in full commercial service with British Airways and Air France, soaring at twice the speed of sound from London to New York in only three hours. No such plane came before it, nor has anything come close since. Not even the Soviet’s supersonic airliner, the Tupolev TU-144, which never saw commercial operation outside of the Soviet Union, leaving Concorde truly in a class of its own.

So what made Concorde, as Air France calls it in this ad, “le chef-d’œuvre”, or “the masterpiece”? 5000 hours of wind tunnel testing to perfect the shape of the double delta wings. Four engines derived from those of RAF bombers, allowing cruising speeds of Mach 2. And, a droop nose or “droop snoot” to allow better visibility for the pilots during landing. Through these innovations, Concorde took on its iconic form, which is on full display across two pages in this ad.

While Air France may call it “the masterpiece,” I believe a more appropriate title would be “the crowning achievement” of humanity’s conquest of the skies, cementing Concorde’s place in aviation history. With Concorde having been retired from the skies in 2003, through ads like this one, onlookers today can continue to marvel at the feat of human ingenuity that is Concorde.