Yorkieabroad

Is he from the Ukraine?

Pulaski

FIFY

civilservant

Quite

SultanOfSwing

Very true.

Same as the VC-10. They used to come in over my town into RAF Aldergrove from time to time and the noise they made was biblical.

Old British planes. Brilliant

civilservant

The sad thing is that she has not even been considered in a heritage capacity. The airframes are owned by BA, who refuse to co-operate, and EADS (Airbus - former Aerospatiale) refused to even consider handing over what spares/blueprints they still have.

I realise she will never hold passengers again, but if they can bring the Vulcan into service, you would think that Concorde could be so.

Indeed, if you look at some of the airframes still on display now they are in a dire state - they haven't been cared for at all

SultanOfSwing

I agree. There should be at least two kept airworthy (one in the UK and one in France in BA and Air France liveries respectively) for airshows, displays, state occasions, jubilees, that kind of thing.

Imagine if the Queen makes it to 70 years on the throne. What better way to celebrate that than a Red Arrows/Concorde flyby over London?

Nutek

I suspect the Queen is cramped as well.

Pulaski

I can't say I've ever previously given that question any thought. Now I wish I hadn't.

Nutek

Jerseygirl

Just asked hubby about his experience on Concorde. As others have said it was cramped and noisy. He said during the first flight he spent the entire 3 hours wondering what famous people had sat in his seat.

He was given several complimentary items...leather folder, garment bag etc. He still has them...including his first ticket stub.

After the journey he went straight to the Windsor Castle Hotel...dropped his complementary Concorde garment bag and walked across the road to McDonalds...because the food in Concorde wasn't filling.

The date of his first flight was Sunday 17th November, 1996.

civilservant

I also have all these items, purchased from eBay - including one of the wooden models sold on board (still in its box of course) that sit within my aviation memorabilia/models collection.

Jerseygirl

He kept the items because it was his first flight on Concorde. I don't know what happened to the items from subsequent flights...I probably threw them out. .

Jerseygirl

The first and only female BA. Concorde pilot. She left school aged 15 to become a hairdresser. Scroll down to Feb 2011 to read about her.

http://concordesst.com/latestnews.html

Steve_

Yes, in 1982, LHR to Dulles.

Pretty much like any other aircraft really, although it was only four seats with the aisle down the middle and there was a mach meter on the bulkhead.

The difference was looking out the window, which is not something I will ever forget, you could see the curvature of the Earth and you were so high up the sky was black and you looked down at the Earth.

Also it was quite novel arriving before you left as the time difference was five hours but the flight time was only three hours.

I've just had a look at my old photos, one of me in the cockpit with the crew who had some seriously dodgy haircuts.

Steve_

Oooh, are the leather luggage tags they gave me worth something then? I used one of them for ages and it is all mangled but the other one is still in the wrapper.