Concorde had livery restrictions; the majority of the surface had to be covered with a highly reflective white paint to avoid overheating the aluminium structure due to heating effects from supersonic flight at Mach 2. The white finish reduced the skin temperature by 6 to 11 degrees Celsius. In 1996, Air France briefly painted F-BTSD in a predominantly blue livery, with the exception of the wings, in a promotional deal with Pepsi. In this paint scheme, Air France were advised to remain at Mach 2 for no more than 20 minutes at a time, but there was no restriction at speeds under Mach 1.7

Hi TJ,

They all look lovely, but I do have a question about Concorde:

In service, Concorde carried a mostly-white livery to help with heat dissipation (well, absorption, I think, technically) - while there were some that carried a non-white livery, this actually affected service speed, if wiki is to be believed
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Would Concorde not carry an alternative livery?

Regards,
Adam

Hi Timothy,

Fair enough - I suppose "even" at Mach 1.7 it's still the fastest airliner in service by some margin! (plus, obviously, actual route would affect how significant that would be - the shorter the hop the less the pain compared to the all-white paint job. To casual inspection it would seem to fill a similar role to anti-flash white, I wonder what the actual similarities and differences are...)

Ad