Today marks ten years since a landmark event in aviation history, the last flight of the Aérospatiale-BAC Concorde. British aircraft enthusiast John Mason takes a look at the ground-breaking plane, her links to England’s West Country and her legacy.
Given the turbulent start to the Concorde programme and the magnitude and nature of the challenges to be met, it was remarkable that the aircraft ever got airborne!
Concorde’s commercial viability was affected by external circumstances and the coincidence of pure bad timing – not least because the aircraft was launched at the peak of a fuel crisis precipitated by conflict in the Middle East. Early in the project a vigorous sales campaign resulted in a number of airlines taking out options but these were not translated into orders and the anticipated number of aircraft sales did not materialize. Consequently, just 16 production aircraft were built. The first two went into storage and only the national airlines of the two participating nations – Air France and British Airways – took delivery of seven aircraft each and operated them commercially.
For the complete story by the Western Daily Press via The Bath (England) Chronicle, click here.