In 1973, a solar eclipse, predicted as the longest for 1,000 years, was observed by British, French and American scientists aboard the French prototype Concorde 001 supersonic aircraft on a flight from Las Palmas, Canaries to Fort Lamy, Chad. The path of totality crossed the Atlantic, the Sahara Desert and East Africa. The moon’s shadow travelled at over 3,000 km per hour. Flying at 55,000 feet, the jet’s speed made possible a continuous view of the solar eclipse for 74 minutes, ten times longer than could be seen by an observer on the ground. Four months later, Concorde 001, the first prototype to fly, was retired on 19 Oct 1973, to the French Air Museum at Le Bourget Airport. It had made 225 supersonic flights in a total of 397.«