I can think of no other design in the world, before or since, civil or military, where a supersonic engine/intake marriage gave such incredidable levels of performance, stability and predictability.
I think Dude's above statement more or less characterises the Concorde design and therefore this entire thread - which I have read, avidly, since post #1. However, since Dude made the statement most specifically about the synergy of the whole intake, engine and nozzles, it is worth reiterating that Concorde's only real peer in her occupation of the very highest and fastest regimes of wing borne flight - the SR71 - initially at least, had a lethal gene. Asymmetric 'Unstart' caused by intake instability.
Without proper scheduling, disturbances inside the inlet could result
in the shock wave being expelled forward--a phenomenon known as an
"inlet unstart." That causes an instantaneous loss of engine thrust,
explosive banging noises and violent yawing of the aircraft--like
being in a train wreck. Unstarts were not uncommon at that time in
the SR-71's development,
This quote is from a much longer article quoted in this thread, about a test flight by Bill Weaver, a Lockheed development pilot, in which Weaver was, quite literally torn out of the aeroplane at Mach 3.2, as was his back seater who, sadly, did not survive the incident.
Basically, a relatively small failure within the intake/spike structure of the SR71 engine, was enough to simply tear the airframe apart within seconds of onset. The scale of forces within these structures therefore, must be almost beyond imagination and yet the Concorde design was such that she did not suffer such destructive failures.
My admiration for everyone who worked on her is endless.