Concorde
Concorde, the world’s first (and so far, only) supersonic airliner, was retired two decades ago in real life. However, in the skies of VATSIM, she lives on in the hands of some nostalgic pilots. Keflavik (BIKF) in particular was an occasional charter destination for Concorde in real life, and indeed, one may occasionally still find virtual pilots flying virtual Concordes into BIKF on VATSIM.
For the most part, controlling Concorde is not unlike controlling any other civilian IFR aircraft. However, because of Concorde’s unique design and high-altitude, high-speed regime of flight, some unique considerations should be taken into account.
Flight Planning and Clearance Delivery
Below is a typical example of a Concorde flight plan routing from BIKF to EGLL:
RIMUM/M200F430 DCT C/61N020W/M200F450F600 DCT 5230N01500W LULOX/N0566F350 DCT TACQI DCT BAPHU DCT OCTIZ DCT SIRIC
Some waypoints are prefixed with “C/," and have two sets of flight levels listed for said waypoint. This indicates that Concorde will perform “cruise climb” at those waypoints within the levels listed, which means that its autopilot will automatically perform gentle climbs and descents in order to achieve the most optimum cruise level for the aircraft.
E.g., "C/6120N/M200F450F600" means the aircraft will cruise climb beginning at 6120N at Mach 2, between FL450-600.
As Euroscope’s MACH field only allows Mach numbers of up to 1.00, DEL controllers should input the highest possible number in the MACH field, and note the flight's actual Mach number (for Concorde, always 2.00) on the scratchpad.