The race to Mach 2.0 at scale | Nickolas Means | #LeadDevAustin

When Chuck Yeager became the first pilot to fly faster than the speed of sound, he set off a race around the world to do the same with a plane full of paying passengers. The United States, Russia, the UK, and France all wanted a piece of the inevitable fortune to be made building aircraft to cross oceans faster than sound itself.

In the end, though, only one design ever flew passengers in significant numbers, the Anglo-French Concorde. Why? What set the work of British and French engineers apart from competing efforts and allowed them to succeed where other nations failed? Let’s see what we can learn about constraints and compromise from this remarkable story.

About Nickolas Means
Nickolas Means loves nothing more than a story of engineering triumph (except maybe a story of engineering disaster). When he's not stuck in a Wikipedia loop reading about plane crashes, he spends his days as a Senior Engineering Manager at GitHub. He works remotely from Austin, TX, and spends most of his spare time hanging out with his wife and kids, going for a run, or trying to brew the perfect cup of coffee.

Lead Dev is a community for technical leaders. We have a series of conferences and meetups designed with the needs and pain points of technical team leads in mind. We programme each conference around our three key themes of Team, Tech & Tools. The talks are designed to help very practically with common problems in these areas. To find out more about us, visit:

[alfonshomac]

yo I've been listening to this guy talk about planes for like 3 hours now ad I can't stop...

[danremenyi]

This guy, Nikolas Means appears to be talking about technical things in the three videos I watched but he is actually talking about something much more important. He deserves an Oscar. Thank you very much. Excellent work.

[alewis]

It starts out as an engineering-based discussion about aviation. And ends as a motivational speech. I applaud you, Nickolas Means.

[nuwintimidates]

My latest obsession is watching talks by Nicholas.
Not only are his topics fascinating, his execution is spell bounding.

[dil]

I could listen to this guy talk about aviation stories and innovations all day long.

[Jewclaw]

This guy has the best presentations. Keep em coming!

[Phos]

In regards to not raising the landing gear on the Tu-144's first flight, that's a common practice with experimental planes.

[Dhairyasd]

This guy is an excellent speaker, I can listen to him all day, any day.

[TheDbc]

Nickolas Means is a consummate professional speaker, he is fact professional in his presentation on all his speeches. I have listened to all of his presentations, I sit glued to my screen in awe of this man.

[EthanVandal]

I like the way you present with fact after fact and zero speculation, zero rhetoric and zero digression. Maximum information conveyed in the least amount of time possible.

[ntyham]

This is a great series. As a retired senior systems analyst programmer with 30 years of experience, I've encountered almost all the scenarios he speaks about. I've worked as a full-time employee and as a contractor, and have worked for a wide range of commercial and government projects. This fellow has a wealth of great information. Good show!

[adityachakraborti]

Came for the airplane talk, left with great life advice.

[madcavemantd]

The first flight of the SR71, which is 92% titanium, took place on 22, Dec. 1964. And was built by Lockheed Martin Skunk Works headed by Kelly Johnson. I also realize that this was a top secret project, and I don't think any company could afford the money or the time to develop the manufacturing process and the tools to machine titanium, except a government. The funny thing is that the titanium to build the SR71 came from Russia! I really enjoy your talks very much and thanks for posting them. Would love to see more nuclear related topics like the Chernobyl talk. That was stellar!

[jimmbbo]

Another excellent video!
For clarification the controlability problems at high subsonic speeds are a result of the airflow reaching Mach 1 over the wing and the controls becoming less effective in the disturbed flow behind the local shock wave. Chuck Yeager experienced this problem with pitch control in the Bell X-1 and the horizontal stabilizer was redesigned from fixed to moveable to allow trimming of the stabilizer ahead of the local shock waves

[TheBavaNeche]

I watched from afar the contest between the dealers of the flying sound barrier breakers. It was very exciting and fun! I'm American and have decades in the aeronautical industry. As a whole -- we Humans should be together --- VERY PROUD of the Concorde advances in technologies. Who cares if it didn't carry 600 passengers and burn a pint of beer to do it! We in the industry -- Love the Concorde! It was very much a success! It made millions of people the world over -- Very Happy! It gave us ALL -- Hope to do better! The Concorde made us in the World -- A much better Family of Human!

[parkbench]

I love this guy, he's like a mash up of VSauce and Tom Segura in all the best ways. Keep rocking Mr. Means!

[Ice_Karma]

relevant right now. Nickolas Means is amazing!

[Ikbeneengeit]

More time has been spent obsessing about the Concord than has been saved traveling in the Concord

[estouch]

I always enjoy Nicks talks. All informative, great content. Allot of deep research. Hope to see more of nick soon.

[antonymcmanus]

Watched one of your talks earlier, I'm now on my third back-to-back. Very interesting, informative and brilliantly presented