The Sud Aviation Super-Caravelle was an early design for a supersonic transport. Unlike most competing designs which envisioned larger trans-Atlantic aircraft and led to the likes of the Boeing 2707, the Super-Caravelle was a much smaller, shorter range design intended to replace Sud Aviation's earlier and successful Caravelle. Design work started in 1960 and was announced in 1961 at the

Paris Air Show The Paris Air Show (, ''Salon du Bourget'') is a trade fair and air show held in odd years at Paris–Le Bourget Airport in France. Organized by the French aerospace industry's primary representative body, the ''Groupement des industries frança ...

, but was later merged with similar work at the

British Aircraft Corporation The British Aircraft Corporation (BAC) was a British aircraft manufacturer formed from the government-pressured merger of English Electric, English Electric Aviation Ltd., Vickers-Armstrongs, Vickers-Armstrongs (Aircraft), the Bristol Aeroplane ...

(originally the Bristol 223) to create the

Concorde Concorde () is a retired Anglo-French supersonic airliner jointly developed and manufactured by Sud Aviation and the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC). Studies started in 1954, and France and the United Kingdom signed a treaty establishin ...

project in November 1962. After work had begun on designing Concorde, the Super Caravelle name was instead used on a lengthened version of the original Caravelle design, the SE-210B.

Design

The Super-Caravelle looks very much like a smaller version of Concorde. It used Concorde's unique ogive wing planform, and was otherwise similar in shape and layout with the exception of the nose area, which was more conventional and only the outermost section over the

radar Radar is a system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), direction ( azimuth and elevation angles), and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It is a radiodetermination method used to detect and track ...

"drooped" for visibility on takeoff and landing. In normal use it was designed to carry up to 109 passengers between at about Mach 2. The size and range requirements were set to make the Super-Caravelle "perfect" for

Air France Air France (; legally ''Société Air France, S.A.''), stylised as AIRFRANCE, is the flag carrier of France, and is headquartered in Tremblay-en-France. The airline is a subsidiary of the Air France-KLM Group and is one of the founding members ...

's European and African routes. Concorde was originally to be delivered in two versions, a longer-range transatlantic version similar to the Bristol 223 that was eventually delivered as Concorde, and a smaller version for shorter range routes similar to the Super-Caravelle. After consultations with prospective customers, the smaller design was dropped.

Specifications

References

{{Supersonic transport Abandoned civil aircraft projects Concorde 1960s French airliners Quadjets Super Caravelle Supersonic transports Tailless delta-wing aircraft

Design

Specifications

See also

Further reading

References