The Concorde Project - A Technical Engineering Triumph but a Commercial Disaster

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Caselet 01

On 5th November 1956, the Supersonic Transport Aircraft Committee (STAC) was established. The committee was made up of representatives of Britain's aircraft and engine manufacturers, as well as government officials and personnel from the Royal Aircraft Establishment (at Farnborough, England), to study the possibility of building a supersonic airliner.

On 9th march 1959, STAC recommended design studies for two supersonic airliners, one to fly at a speed of Mach 1.2 and the other at Mach 2.0. In 1962, the French President Charles de Gaulle requested Britain and France to cooperate in building a civil aircraft that would fly at supersonic speed. Both the countries aircraft industries would have to be involved in this project as the building of such an aircraft would be too expensive for Britain or France to fund alone.

The British Minister of Aviation, Julian Amery and the French ambassador, Jouffroy de Coursel, signed a draft treaty for collaborating on the construction of a supersonic aircraft. The treaty stipulated that Great Britain and France "must in all aspects of the project make an equal contribution in both the costs to be taken on and the work to be carried out, and to share proceeds from sales equally."...

Please note:

This case study was compiled from published sources, and is intended to be used as a basis for class discussion. It is not intended to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of a management situation. Nor is it a primary information source.