Rare footage shows crazy speed of Concorde flying London to New York in less than three hours

Footage captured by a passenger shows a glimpse of what it would have been like to travel from London to New York on Concorde.

The iconic plane was one of two operational supersonic passenger jets, with the other being the Soviet Tupolev Tu-144, and was capable of flying from London to New York in less than three hours.

Dennis Toeppen captured the entire flight from London to New York including boarding the Concorde and the view of the cabin during the flight.

One notable thing is that it was rather loud, but given the speed of the plane, I guess that's to be expected.

But what about the Concorde's signature, its speed?

Well, the video shows that this was displayed prominently for passengers to see as they sped across the Atlantic.

A series of screens showed passengers the aircraft's altitude, the temperature outside, and two dials for the speed.

But why two for speed?

That's because one was for the speed in miles per hour, while the other was the speed in mach, or relative to the speed of sound.

REMY DE LA MAUVINIERE/AFP via Getty Images

This meant that passengers could know exactly when the aircraft was about to break the sound barrier, producing the signature sonic boom.

The loud sonic boom also meant that the aircraft had to wait until it wasn't over a populated area to make the jump to supersonic speed.

Concorde's excessively high running costs and low number of passengers meant that it was marketed as an expensive luxury travel option.

A round trip between London could cost you as much as $12,000, a pretty steep price.

The huge amount of fuel per passenger made this necessary, otherwise the plane simply would not be financially viable for airlines.

But let's be clear, that meant some serious luxury. We're talking a frankly insane selection of champagne on board including Dom Perignon 1992, Pol Roger, and Taittinger.

And, of course, nearly all the red wines available were expensive Grand Crus. Not a bad cellar for a plane.

As for food, depending on when you were flying you could expect steaks, lobster salads, caviar, and foie gras.

One historic British Airways menu even included cigars. How times change!

Toeppen's video was shot just a few months before Concorde was retired for good.

A combination of a catastrophic accident killing everyone on board and the plane's eye-watering running costs eventually led airlines to retire Concorde.