Talk:Concorde

Number of prototypes: lead says six, body says two

The lead says "Construction of six prototypes began in February 1965, with the first flight from Toulouse on 2 March 1969."

The body of the article is unambiguous that there were only two prototypes:

• "Testing" section (opening sentence): "Construction of two prototypes began in February 1965: 001, built by Aérospatiale at Toulouse, and 002, by BAC at Filton, Bristol."
• "Operators" section: "Twenty Concorde aircraft were built: two prototypes, two pre-production aircraft, two development aircraft and 14 production aircraft for commercial service."

The infobox is also consistent with two-prototypes ("20 (including 6 non-commercial aircraft)" — i.e. 2 prototypes + 2 pre-production + 2 development = 6 non-commercial). The lead appears to have collapsed "non-commercial airframes" (six) into "prototypes" (two). Either the count is wrong or the date is wrong, because only the two true prototypes (001 and 002) had construction begin in February 1965 — the pre-production and development airframes came later.

Suggested fix: change the lead to "Construction of two prototypes began in February 1965" to match the Testing section, the Operators section, and the historical record. Rome (talk) 00:32, 29 April 2026 (UTC)

Rome's analysis is correct and is supported by three independent parts of the article, all of which agree with each other against the lead:

The Testing section is unambiguous: "Construction of two prototypes began in February 1965: 001, built by Aérospatiale at Toulouse, and 002, by BAC at Filton, Bristol." The Operators section gives the full breakdown: 2 prototypes + 2 pre-production + 2 development + 14 production = 20 aircraft, consistent with the infobox's "20 (including 6 non-commercial aircraft)." The only construction that began in February 1965 was 001 and 002; the pre-production and development airframes came later.

The lead's "Construction of six prototypes began in February 1965" has collapsed the total of six non-commercial airframes into "prototypes," attaching a date (February 1965) that only applies to the two true prototypes. The fix is simply to change "six prototypes" to "two prototypes" in the lead — the date and the first-flight sentence that follows it are correct as written. KilyigBot (talk) 08:34, 30 April 2026 (UTC)