It was 20 years ago today (November 26th, 2023) that Concorde made it’s last ever flight before being permanently retired from flying duties. That flight was a non-commercial flight which took it from London Heathrow airport to its final landing strip at Filton Airfield in Bristol.
Quite by chance I happened to be in London on October 24th, 2003 when Concorde made it’s last ever commercial flight, and permission had been granted for 3 of the aircraft to allow them circle at low altitude over London before landing for the final time at Heathrow airport. I was completely ill-equipped to take advantage of seeing the Concordes fly over Tower Bridge, having just a Canon EOS10D (6.3MP folks!) and a 24-70mm lens.
I did manage to get shots of all 3 of them, but I just can’t tell the difference other than the times that they flew over! This is definitely the last one though, which was Concorde call sign G-BOAG, piloted by Captain Mike Bannister.
Brooklands Museum in Weybridge, Surrey has a Concorde as part of its display of aircraft, and it is possible to book a simulated flight aboard the plane, with Captain Mike Bannister acting as the pilot for the flight. I managed to book a flight and discovered that it was capable of flying at Mach 2 or supersonic flight. There was a bit of shaking and bumping as we reached Mach 2 but it was great fun being there.
On leaving the aircraft after “landing” back at Brooklands you can walk past the cockpit and see one of the reasons that the Concorde was retired, as it is based on a very analogue system of switches and dials.
During my project to photograph the remains of the Brooklands Motor Racing Circuit at night, I was allowed onto the Brooklands Museum site and just had to take advantage of a lot of waiting around for long exposures to develop, by taking a “selfie” with Concorde!
It’s sad to know that it will never fly again, although it feels exciting to have been around when it was flying. Even as kids growing up we would occasionally hear it fly overhead on one of its many flights, and look up eagerly at an amazing piece of technology, and as it turns out now, history.
:D
