Concorde

[clarkkentsglasses]

Off for a Concorde experience this week for half term.

Has anyone here flown on Concorde?

Yes they new supersonics are due to be in use before the end of the decade. It's concord 2.0

Never been on it but I'd love to. I live under the Heathrow flight path and I can remember seeing it come in every evening at around 6pm. I always knew it was approaching a good minute or so before it appeared because it made a completely different noise to all the other planes. When my DM used to visit,she was obsessed with watching it go past,and would always tell me to let her know when it was approaching. It used to take off directly over my house in the morning,the noise was off the scale!

Not flown but as a child we were able to tour with our parents/grandparents who all work for what was BAC.
My grandad was part of the testing team of the prototype and apparently I saw its first flight from France - UK (Filton), I was also on the airfield on its last ever flight into Filton.
I was never a big deal as we saw it everyday - still did until I moved, could see it from my bedroom window as its parked at the end of the disused airfield.

I flew on Concorde once on a short flight from the UK to Lisbon. It was one of the ultimate quality experiences of my entire life. Taking off was so effortless! I was very sad when the Concordes were taken out of service but I have no doubt they will be back in some form eventually. Some things are too wonderful to be discarded.

Bizarrely I was on a plane about to take off from Heathrow yesterday and was looking out of the window and saw what I thought must have been a model of Concorde by the runway as it looked really small, although now I’m thinking maybe that was an old Concorde?

My parents flew on Concorde. It was just a flight out over the sea and then back again, the flight lasted a few hours, they were given champagne on the fligth and my mum was terribly air sick unfortunately.

No, but I grew up very close to the runway at Filton, Bristol where it was built. I remember it would rattle the windows of our house. As a small child I met Brian Trubshaw, the test pilot.

Not a model, unless it’s been moved recently there was one parked up at the BA main Maintenance base towards the south East corner of the airport (near Hatton Cross tube station). If you departed from the southerly runway on a westerly departure i. e. off 27 left, you would have taxied quite close to it…

(edit to add that you can see it on Google earth)

And yes it was small, certainly in terms of fuselage diameter …especially compared with modern long haul types…that was a consequence of the required aerodynamics.

I flew on Concorde, New York to Heathrow. My husband and I were returning from our honeymoon and were invited into the pilot's cockpit. I only found out at luggage collection in Heathrow that another passenger was Hugh Grant (just after Four Weddings was a hit). I wish I had noticed him earlier!

My late Father was an engineer and he made the hydraulics for raising/ lowering the nose cone and funnily enough the toilet door locks!

His factory was under the flight path and on the Inaugural flight from Heathrow (I might be mistaken about this..I was only 6!) we as children stood on the roof and could almost touch it as it went over..(obviously not but it felt like it!) I remember the excitement, the roar, the engine blasts and the heat!

We went as a family to a huge party to celebrate that first flight. My grandma got drunk and stole an ashtray..(My step grandad worked at Heathrow).

My younger brother won the raffle and was taken on a tour of the plane and was allowed to walk on the wing..

Clearing my Dad's house recently I found 3 unused luggage labels.
All in all Concorde played a big part in my childhood and my Dad was always proud of the role he played.

People older than you.might actually have flown in it.

I didn't but remember hearing the boom when it flew over my parents' house.

Never flew on it, but also saw it reasonably often in the skies. I did watch its final journey up the Thames on the back of boat. Was quite sad to see.

I've been in the one in Brooklands Museum quite a few times. It's such a small space inside!

I saw them take off and land quite a few times from Heathrow, the sound was like nothing else.

I was flying BA out from Terminal 3 - I know no more than that! It was in the corner by the end of the runway 😂

This

https://www.brooklandsmuseum.com/explore/exhibitions/Concorde-Experience

Remember the sonic boom? It rattled our windows many a time...

Hope this helps….

We also used to run out every evening and see it fly past around teatime.

My Nana loved Concord and she and my Mum went on a trip to Canada, it sounded like an amazing experience. My Mum gave me the Stationery pack she was given onboard, beautiful notepaper and envelopes and it was too nice to use! That started my love of stationery.

Photo of Concorde returning to Filton for the final time. The housing estate above the nose cone is where I grew up.

My dad used to fly on it every fortnight for a few years in the 1980s. They used to get amazing freebies - diaries, pens, desk blotters etc and I have a collection of them up in my loft! All in calfskin. I also have drinks stirrers, menus etc. He often sat next to famous people: Elton John, Joan Collins, politicians, Duran Duran, all sorts. I used to love having updates as to who he had been speaking to!

One of my friends and ex-colleague used to work as Cabin Crew on the aircraft…she’s about 5 foot nothing in flats so was probably a perfect fit for the job…😉

She’s in one of the images in this website…which also gives a bit of info about the Cabin Crew side of the aircraft..

https://www.heritageconcorde.com/ba-concorde-cabin-crew--stories

I bunked off work to go and watch Concorde land at Edinburgh Airport for the last time. No idea why, I'm not that interested really. But it seemed like a cool thing to do and work was not very interesting.

I then saw the one that is at East Fortune near Edinburgh being transported by road through my friend's village in the dark. And I've been inside that one a couple of times. Small but perfectly formed. I'm sorry I never got to fly in it.

I read it was quite noisy when you were flying? Is that true?

It was noisy taking off and landing. The only other planes that came into Filton that made a similar amount of noise were the Red Arrows.

The 1:4 model that was outside Terminal 4 is now outside Brooklands. Near Lidl and the bike park. Makes me smile everyone I see it. I lived under the flightpath, I remember my school teachers stopping mid sentence every day at 11am while it went over. I also remember seeing it parked up at Heathrow through the window of the business class lounge as an adult and thinking that was the closest I'd been to something I'd seen twice a day for my entire life.

My father also worked on some software for it.