A Fireflash by Air Terrainian stands on London Heathrow International Airport anno 2026
The Fireflash (french: Éclair-de-feu) was a pre-war hypersonic commercial airliner that was jointly developed and manufactured by Aérospatiale and the British Airspace Corporation (BAC) under an Anglo-French treaty, it was a brand new design based on the 20th century supersonic airplane, Concorde.
Design[]
Fireflash's nose cone contains landing sensors as well as radar and tracking systems. The main wings begin roughly halfway down the fuselage and sweep back to the very end of the plane. Each one contains a cocktail lounge with Cahelium Extract X strengthened windows that offer panoramic views. The wings have an aileron and a leading edge flap each, and when plane is landing, the ends fold down 90 degrees to deploy the nacelle undercarriage, and then, when it takes off and it is in the air, the undercart is closed and the end of each wing fold back up 90 degrees.
Technicalities[]
Profile of a Fireflash from a pre-war magazine.
- Flight Deck Crew: At least 1 pilot and 1 co-pilot
- Manufacturer: Aérospatiale and the British Airspace Corporation (BAC)
- Maximum Operating Altitude: 250,000 feet
- Length: 380 feet
- Passenger Deck Crew: At least 20
- Power Source: Atomic reactor powering six "Atomus" engines; three are in each tail fin
- Top Speed: Mach 6 (about 4,567 mph)
- Wingspan: 180 feet
- Weight: 1,806 tons
Trivia[]
- The Fireflash was originally used in the Gerry Anderson Sci-Fi puppet serial: Thunderbirds. The atomic-age retro-future setting of the show fits Fallout perfectly at times.
- The Fireflash was based on the Concorde airliners, which were supersonic jet-powered commercial jets that could travel from The United States to Europe in about three and a half hours rather than the regular eight hours of subsonic airliners. After a disaster in 2001 in which a Concorde crashed off the runway and into a hotel, miles away, they were discontinued.