My memories of home! The Concorde and the Broadmoor siren. Could set your watch by them. I never fully appreciated the Concorde while it was still flying.
We used to see it alot when it was testing at Fairford, always with it's little escort plane alongside. CONCORDE SST :Early Flight Testing
My eyes still miss seeing her at just before 11am most mornings banking off to the southwest, but my ears do not miss her at all.
Depressing stuff. A leading symbol of technical progress & the bleeding edge of human innovation, scrapped without replacement. Used to love seeing one. Despite being unlikely to ever afford a flight, it meant something. We went backwards, and it still saddens me.
Dreadful noisy dirty things. The ultimate manner for the rich to pour unburned kerosene over the hoi-polloi below. They still do it of course but more discretely. Thank goodness we have been spared the sight of climate activists flying from one conference to another on a Concorde.
I remember that Boeing put up their Boeing SST to compete with the British /French alliance of Concorde but their envisaged project came to nought.There was even a dinky toy of the Boeing model which I bought for one of my sons. Then the US found reason to ban Concorde flying to JFK when it achieved commercial operation on account of noise.Consequently until an agreement was established, Concorde's main route was into Bahrain. I remember being on an autumn holiday in 1996 on Normoutier in the Vendee sitting out in very good weather,hearing the faint noise of a jet engined aircraft. Looking up, in a cloudless sky was Concorde flying in a easterly direction,presumably en route to CDG. Concorde testing and working up to commercial operation had links to the Second World War for Brian Trubshaw,the lead test pilot served in the RAF during the war.Postwar he was involved in testing new commercial aircraft as well as the ill fated Valiant. Brian Trubshaw The problem with the Concorde was that the fuel consumption was adverse,maintenance was expensive and the limited passenger capacity made it unattractive for commercial airlines....hence no reduction in capital cost from increased demand.Orders were confined to only two airlines,both as a national brand and both parent countries bore the cost of development. Nevertheless as advanced technology,valuable information on SST transport must have been accumulated
I do recall a supersonic test over England possibly late 60s by English Electric Lightnings. Does anyone have any further info.
Soviets too. Audio says that the Russian pulled up abruptly to avoid a Mirage flying nearby. That's not correct. The Mirage was well above. The Russian pilot was showing off.
The Russian test pilot took the aircraft beyond it's safe flying envelope. A tragic account of what can go wrong if an aircraft is handled outside of its specification. In some aircraft during the war,there were structural failures in flight when the aircraft was being flown within the safe flying envelope.....cumulative wear and tear stresses which which had not been appreciated..... no maintenance techniques such as NTD...no appreciation of adverse stresses being built up from previous flights......if a weakening was not visual,then it was deemed to be structurally safe to fly.
I remember being surprised while driving near our airport in the mid-nineties when the Concorde flew in front of me on final approach. An impressive aircraft.
When landing at Heathrow, Concord flew directly over my house, the only aircraft to rattle my windows.
I remember being in a plane taxiing behind a Concorde. As it took off our pilot announced "He'll be in New York before we reach Spain".
As today is 25 years since we went on honeymoon to USA we have our album out. 2 pages of it shows Concorde at Heathrow. No we didnt go on it , we flew to Boston on a BA Jumbo called "City of Manchester" .
