It was quite nostalgic to see the GDN coverage last week of the 50th anniversary of Concorde’s first commercial passenger flight which was to Bahrain on January 21, 1976.
It brought back the many memories I have of Concorde over the years. Although I never had the honour of flying in it, I almost did. We had a flight booked from London Heathrow to New York but then discovered we were expecting a baby so decided to postpone till a more suitable time (sic).
I remember when we lived in West Oxfordshire and as we travelled to our village, Bampton, from the local town of Witney we crested a hill that looked straight down the runway of Brize Norton RAF base, one day as we came over the hill there was a great roar and Concorde could be seen powering up from the runway, that still remains the most beautiful sight in aviation.
We watched for a while as it flew around in loops doing a touch and go on the tarmac. Later an officer friend told us that several RAF pilots must be type rated on it for national security reasons and so that was part of their training.
While working in Hayes near Heathrow we could always tell when the 10am JFK flight was departing. The noise was loud but in a way, it was also lovely in the same way that the roar of a V8 at full chat brings a smile to every petrolhead.
But the noise was part of its downfall, that and overachieving accountants who had no concept of a loss leader to generate business in other areas.
My best memory of Concorde came a couple of year ago, it was July summer in Scotland, and, of course, it was raining.
I could not do the planned groundworks on the house I was renovating at the time, so I remembered that there was an aircraft museum somewhere near Edinburgh and as an aircraft nut I decided to spend the day there.
When I arrived, I entered the main building to be greeted by the Elegant Lady which brought a huge smile to my lips, but then I read the caption that it was G-BOAA and was the aircraft that made that historic flight to Bahrain, I had a wobble.
I brought out my CPR card and looked at the Bahrain flag on it and had one of the most intense bouts of homesickness I have ever experienced. Here I was in the country of my birth, a few miles away from the town I was raised in where most of my family still lived, and all I wanted to do was get back to my adopted home.
As soon as I got back to the house, I booked a flight back here.
The demise of Concorde was symptomatic of many things which we achieved in the 1960s and 1970s which were later abandoned as ‘too costly’. Things like the exploration of the moon, the space shuttle, maglev trains, fast breeder nuclear reactors and mega water desalination plants.
Almost all of these programmes would have developed into more efficient and ultimately more cost-effective benefits to society if they had been allowed to progress, but democratic society is ruled by bean counters and public opinion, and as we have seen in the past, that is not always the best way forward.
Jackie@JBeedie.com