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André Turcat: Test pilot who broke air speed record and went on to lead the crew on Concorde’s inaugural test flight

Turcat played a pivotal part in this most ambitious Anglo-French project

Martin Childs
Sunday 17 January 2016 14:49 GMT
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Turcat at the controls of a Concorde flight simulator in 1968
Turcat at the controls of a Concorde flight simulator in 1968

The French test pilot André Turcat commanded the four-man crew on Concorde 001’s inaugural test flight, and he became the first to break the sound barrier a few weeks later, piloting the supersonic jet to Mach 2, twice the speed of sound. As one of two senior pilots in charge of the flight test programme, the other being his British counterpart Brian Trubshaw, Turcat played a pivotal part in this most ambitious Anglo-French project.

Cameras captured the moment Turcat piloted the futuristic 001 prototype out of its hangar and along the Toulouse runway on 2 March 1969. The 27-minute test flight was uneventful, the jet’s distinctive droop-nose and landing gear remaining down throughout.

As Concorde took off, Raymond Baxter, broadcasting for the BBC live from the airfield, exclaimed, “She flies. Concorde flies at last, driving into a sunlit sky... building the speed up to about 220-230 knots... Now for the first time, André Turcat gets the feel of this great aeroplane in his hands.”

Afterwards, Turcat stood before the crowd and announced that the first flight was “not an achievement” but only the beginning of a lot of hard work. He predicted that it would take years before passengers would be able to fly at supersonic speeds. Indeed, Concorde was only certified late in 1975 after years of testing, dramatic cost overruns and dwindling customer interest.

As the test programme for 001 gathered impetus, Turcat invited Trubshaw to accompany him on the fifth flight, providing valuable information for Trubshaw before he flew Concorde 002 from its base at Filton, near Bristol, on its first flight, on 9 April. In 1971 both pilots, who became good friends, received the Ivan C Kincheloe Award from the Society of Experimental Test Pilots for their work.

Turcat, who was always embarrassed by the attention he received as the first Concorde pilot, believing it took the spotlight away from the thousands of others behind the scenes who played equally vital roles, was proud of the aircraft and the team behind it, from senior management down. His enthusiasm for the aircraft never waned and he staunchly defended it even after an Air France Concorde bound for New York crashed on 25 July 2000 taking off from Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport, killing 113, an accident which seems to have sounded the death knell for commercial supersonic travel.

In March 1976, at the age of 54, after more than 1,000 hours on Concorde flight simulators, 740 hours flying Concorde and 6,500 hours in total on 110 different aircraft types, France’s best-known pilot left Aérospatiale and took early retirement. Scheduled Concorde flights had begun a few months earlier, in January. Turcat never piloted another aircraft again.

Born in Marseille in 1921, he came from the family of one of the France’s first car manufacturers, Turcat-Méry. In 1942 he graduated from the prestigious École Polytechnique in Paris, but as his grades limited his options, he “accidentally” decided on a career in the military, joining the Free French Air Force during the Second World War; he trained as a pilot and obtained his wings in 1947.

Soon after, he was flying Dakota C-47 transporters during the Indochina War. He was noticed for his abilities and demonstrated exceptional skills in handling a number of emergencies, earning a transfer to EPNER, France’s test pilot school near Istres, north-west of Marseille. After graduating in 1951 he took over the test programme for one of the world’s first ramjet-powered aircraft, the Nord 1500 Griffon.

During testing he took the Griffon to Mach 2.19, the first European to fly faster than Mach 2, a feat that earned him the prestigious Harmon Trophy in 1958, awarded annually to the year’s outstanding aviator, which was presented to him by President Richard Nixon. On 25 February 1959 he broke the world speed record over 100 kilometres with the Griffon, at an average speed of 1,021mph (1,643kph).

Following the Griffon experiments, Turcat left the military and joined the state-owned aircraft manufacturer Sud Aviation just as it was embarking on the Concorde programme. He was swiftly appointed Concorde’s chief test pilot and Sud Aviation’s director of flight testing, appointments he held until 1976.

The idea of a supersonic transport, or SST, was first conceived in the late 1950s and led to an Anglo-French agreement to develop an airliner. The Concorde prototype was assembled in Toulouse but Turcat later acknowledged that not everything had been run perfectly during the run-up to the first flight: “Sadly, the lack of thought and industrial organisation between the French and British aircraft manufacturers when the 1962 inter-governmental agreement was signed, in my view, lost us three years in getting the aircraft into operation.”

He also admitted possible failings on his own part, admitting that “in the name of safety, I did perhaps make too many demands, thereby increasing certain costs. With hindsight, I’m not sure that I was right. But everything went well and that was what we were responsible for, conscious that an accident or serious incident would compromise the whole programme.”

His career spanned the rise and fall of the celebrated airliner. He admitted shedding a tear on board the Air France Concorde retirement flight as it landed back at Sud Aviation’s airfield in Toulouse on 27 June 2003. He turned to politics, continuing as deputy mayor of Toulouse from 1971 to 1977 and later becoming a member of the European Parliament, from 1980 to 1981.

In 1983 he founded the Académie Nationale de l’Air et de l’Espace (National Air and Space Academy). In retirement, he returned to university and in 1990 completed a doctorate in Christian art.

He wrote a number of books, including Concorde essais et batailles (1977) and Pilote d’essais: Mémoires (2005). In 2005 he was appointed a Grand Officier of the Order of the Légion d’honneur.

André Turcat, pilot and politician: born Marseille 23 October 1921; Grand Officier, Order of the Légion d’honneur 2005; married (three children); died Aix-en-Provence 4 January 2016.

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