+planningto for Kai Tak it's probably not much a bad thing. seriously, almost 180° turn on final approach above dense habitation district with VERY LOW visual on what you're doing + high wind almost all year round... Next one : Sao Paulo Campinas
+Pierre Metral it's "only" a 47° turn, and what do you mean low visual? There was that huge orange checkerboard! ;-) But yeah, having to take that turn mere seconds before touchdown is pretty nuts.
I don't think most people quite grasp how difficult the Kai Tak approach is to pull off in a standard commercial airliner. In a Concorde, you are dealing with very high AoA, higher speed on landing AND all of the normal difficulties on top. I have great respect for these pilots. They were truly the best commercial airline pilots in the world. Awesome video :-)
@@sriramramamoorthy1589 seems to have been a flawed design , which ended up being relegated to delivering mail and then quickly retired within the USSR
Can you imagine how incredible that short final must’ve been for passengers? Condensation coming off the delta wings...apartments and clothes lines whizzing by...that must’ve been absolutely unforgettable.
I flew a corporate BAC 1-11 into Kai Tak a few times in the 80’s and it was both fun and scary as hell, all at the same time. So to watch that Concorde slip right in and grease it on, bravo. Sad to know both are now gone. At least I have the memories.
The Concorde does have flaps. They don't drop to the deep angles of subsonic or non-delta wing aircraft, so are not very noticeable in the video. The high angle of attack functions much as flaps do on non-delta wing aircraft.
During the Concord’s heyday we lived within 10 miles of Dulles airport and about 5 miles from the end of one of it’s runways. At that time our house had old storm windows. When the Concorde took off those windows would rattle and vibrate so much that we were sure they would break (they never did). Nevertheless we never got tired of the absolute thrill of every takeoff and landing, some of which came pretty close to the house. We would even sometimes get requests from out of town friends and relatives, to visit our backyard deck to see the Concorde on scheduled flight days.
Wait... they flew checkerboard approaches in Concorde? That is some seriously awesome flying skill right there. Concorde was hard enough to land as it was, let alone with that late turn on short final. Incredible.
@@beakerthemuppet2928 While on that time machine you'd better visit Kowloon Walled City. An amazing place demolished 1993, 3 years prior to my first trip to HongKong. I want a seat in your time machine!!!
You will never see a more elegant, beautiful and perfect landing as this....🇬🇧she will always be the most exquisite aircraft to ever take to the sky 🇬🇧
What the heck, I never thought the Concorde had such a great low speed maneuverability... Wonderful approach :) Two legends together - Kai Tak and Concorde.
Remember seeing a Concorde at the Detroit International Airport and falling in love with this plane, I added to a collection of my model planes and dreamed of having a chance to take a trip on one.
The degree of airmanship to land such a plane in Kay Tak is absolutely superb considering the low speed and angle necessary to make the 45 degree turn on the chekered VRP flying such a fast plane. The plane itself is a masterpiece. Nothing compares to this plane, nothing.
We are looking at something truly great and beautiful. I don't give a toss about it's cost (i contributed with my taxes), she was a international Icon, as well as a symbol of my country's technical ability.
Philip Croft Hoping BA will recommission their mothballed fleet at a future date. These birds have many air hours left in their airframe. They are perfectly designed for long distance, like London to the far east. I think a market could be developed what with China on the rise.
trespire With lots of care and maintenance, planes can fly forever. The Concorde was not perfectly designed for long distance or even for airline operations. The cabin was small and cramped, and the range was abysmal. It was designed for short transatlantic flights and didn't have the capability for flights much longer than 3,000nm. Furthermore, there were restrictions for flying overland. The fleet of Concordes flew for 27 years, an amazing feat for an airliner. There are remarkably few 25+ year old airplanes in regular commercial service. If she were still in service today, that would be an incredible 39 years of flying. Its just not going to happen!
trespire Im srry my friend but this will never happen. Airbus is now the owner of the Type Certificate and they have officially withdrawn it and will no longer support the airframe with their engineering efforts. The Concorde will never fly again. SSBJs will be the future for supersonic travel.
Lord, such a tricky plane to land, and such a difficult airport at which to land, yet that BA pilot makes it look like a piece of cake. So Kai Tak is long gone, and they took the top off the hill that made Teguchigalpa such a nightmare, so what is now the worst airport at which to land? I would nominate my own hometown Lindbergh Field, in San Diego, California. My uncle flew for United for decades, and he said he refused to fly to SDO as soon as he had enough seniority to do so.
What a bird ! perhaps the most exquisite we have ever seen .A real pleasure to see its take-off and landing .And operating in one of the diciest airports , Kaitak .
I was one of the eyewitnesses when Concorde made the first landing in Hong Kong as the manufacturer launched a worldwide Concorde flight demonstration(commercial flights had not in services yet).
Beautiful aircraft.....Concorde and the 747 both magnificent aircrafts to watch.By the way...that aircraft G-BOAD was the one that had the Singapore Airlines livery painted on one side when it operated the LHR-BAH SIN flights back in 1977.
absolutely spectacular, sheer brilliance. It reminds me of a Bald Eagle with its talons fully outstretched right at the beginning. Does anyone know the final approach airspeed of the Concorde? It looked like it was zipping along pretty quick.
Brilliant video! :D Its very sad that both the plane and the airport are no longer in service :( Like many other you-tuber's said we will always have the museum Concorde's (my nearest is G-BOAC at manchester uk). although it wont be the same as flying on one :(
+Surojit Bhattacharjee In the museum ? I wish the Last Concorde to fly was. It's been sat out on the airfield perimitor at Filton, Bristol , ( where it was made) in all weathers, slowly rotting away--for 13 years. A BLOODY DISGRACE TO THE BASTARD CITY COUNCIL. At last, they have been shamed into finding the funds , and have started building a purpose made Museum---
Philip Croft - it truly sucks that there's a Concorde rotting in an airfield, but some Concorde's did find their way into Transport Museums. There's an Air France Concorde in the Smithsonian. It reminds me of the QE2 rotting in Dubai or the SS United States rotting in Philadelphia. It's truly a horrible thing to think about.
Cta2006 ikr, with the modern technology we have, some one could redesign the sst project, for an up to date airliner. I don’t care what some people says about it, but i would take my money to pay a ticket, just to fly on a sst like the concorde, flying at match 2 or beyond is priceless!
The Concorde was a prestige project of BA and Air France. A testament to what design engineers could achieve back then with drawing boards, scale models and calculators (and a significant budget).
Saw Concorde often & it never failed to capture my attention. A thing of beauty. Friend told me it was like being on a roller coaster, because of steep ascent I guess.
@@Gez492- The Russians were not able to duplicate the complex shape of the wing. That was a major reason that the TU-144 could not supercruise, having instead to run afterburners throughout supersonic flight. The canards were added to overcome stability problems from the wing shapes.
It was a combination of reasons, some spurious. Politics was big among them. the French kicked up about increaing costs, so cut corner's, and shoddy maintenance , which was revealed in a very hard hitting TV documentary 3 years ago. The legal contract between France and Britain, stated that, if any one of the two ducked out of the deal, at ANY stage, the other wouldn't continue alone. Concordes engines MUST be started and run on a regular programme, otherwise they become junk. Every Olympus engine from a Concorde, is now scrap.
@@MrDaiseymay that's one side of it. The other side is that it was a hell of a lot more profitable for BA to fly the same passengers in first on normal aircraft while it was on hiatus, that when BA resumed operations they didn't resume with a timetable that made a New York London return possible on the same day (which made it pointless for a fair chunk of its ridership) and, of course, the effect of 9/11 on air travel.
In the 1960's, during all the early tests and design changes, the costs soared, there was constant talk of abandoning the project, Satyrical Magazine,' Private Eye', had a brilliant Cartoon, showing Concorde, like a huge Bird, ON a NEST, made of Bank Notes, with notes stuffed in her 'beak'. It was very well done.
@@MrDaiseymay LMAO!!!! NOW! Onto my *4 YEAR OLD* comment that you’re replying to.... I’m right, you’re wrong. Educate yourself and read Brian Trubshaw’s book. P.S. BTW, I read 2 sentences of your comment and ignored the rest. You probably spent about 45 minutes replying to me. Me, I just spent 2 minutes typing this and you read it all. LOL priorities.
@@bobalobaliePLEASE ALLOW ME TO EDUCATE YOU FURTHER. CONCORD (E) IS A FRENCH WORD, MEANING HARMONY. CHOSEN, AND AGREED TO, BY BOTH COUNTRY'S. MOST APT, AS BOTH COUNTRIES APPLIED ALL THEIR SKILLS KNOW-HOW, AND IMMENSE COST, TO ACHEIVE WHAT APPOLLO ASTRONAUT , GORDON COOPER CALLED, THE GREATEST TECHNICAL ACHEIVEMENT OF THE 20TH CENTURY, EVEN MORE THAN THE APOLLO MOON PROGRAMME. GOOD ENOUGH.
In spite of the financial loses for Concorde, and the noise/speed issues, somehow I feel aviation as a whole regressed when the Concorde was retired for good. What an elegant aerodynamic curves/designed compared to the fatter/slower 747 on the taxiway. I only got to see it taking off once, but never got to ride in it. :( Those airplanes have more flight hours supersonic that most jet fighter of all major countries combined. Bummer is gone..
company was just looking for an excuse to get them out of the sky .... the paris disaster is well known was NOT a concorde problem, but a piece of shit that a old dc30 left on the runway ... do you think a 737 just happened the same would be place out of service ??? they need an excuse and found a perfect one ... the record of the concorde is by far superior to most of the airplanes ...
eloyex It was a concorde problem still. A risky design in the first place. Engineers knew that placing two engines side by side multiplies the catastrophe of an exploding blade ring. They also knew that rectangular cowlings are potentially weaker compared to cylindrical ones. Last but not least: it sucked in it's own tire, punctured by an object smaller the 10 centimeters. Foreign object on the runway are common and most planes get away with more or less minor damages when hit. This plane had the catastrophe built into it, just waiting to happen. For me this is not so much of a plane but a prestige object,it's not about flying but about bragging. I hate prestige! Plus it looks ugly on the ground. Plane on stilts...
LawsForever You must not know at all about what happened to the Concorde that went down. Seriously-Look it up here on youtube, there is a full episode of Mayday Air Disasters on it where they explain exactly what happened to the Concorde. It Ran over a Chunk of metal from the engine cowling of a DC-10 that had taken off 5 minutes before hand, causing the tire to explode sending fragments of rubber up and into the wing, which was completely full of fuel, the shockwave of that caused the tank to rupture, fuel streamed out of the aircraft and into the path of the engines, the engines afterburner caught the fuel on fire, the fire went up into the wing and burned the wing bad enough that a full structural failure happened and it crashed. Nothing went wrong with the engines or the cowling or even a blade ring... i havent even a clue where you started getting that information
Oatmealism - Actually the No. 1 & 2 engines surged after the fire and the first officer shut down the No. 2 engine. But then the No. 1 engine surged again and lost thrust. That's what caused the crash. Although the left aft wing was burning, it did not burn long enough to cause a loss of lift and did not cause the crash.
@@HomerSimpson-iv3ly YEAH, PITTY THEY DIDN'T PREDICT THE FAKE BULLSHIT CAMPAIGN, TO INVENT NOISE ABATEMENT LEVELS AND THE GREEN IDIOT BRIGADE , WHO WANTED THE WORLD TO RETURN TO HORES DRAWN TRANSPORT ETC ETC .THEN THE OIL PRICE RISES (YET AGAIN) 9/11. WHY ,ANYONE WOULD THINK THERE WAS A DELIBERATE CAMPAIGN TO SNUFF CONCORDE OUT, ESPECIALLY IN THE USA, OF COURSE, THEIR ATTEMPTS WERE SCRUBBED OUT FOR MANY REASONS--- STRANGE THAT BA WERE MAKING 25%NET, OF ALL THEIR ANNUAL PROFITS---VIA THEIR CONCORDE SERVICE, ALONE.
WeMuckAround I thought the same thing when it came into Cleveland Hopkins as I was on my way to work. Came in like a giant raptor, screamin' for vengance! Couldn't get the day off to take the family on the tour...
I know - I met a lady who was an engineer on the project and she had to deal with complex differentiation and integration formulas without the benefit of huge supercomputers.
Flew a Concorde in a simulator and I must say it’s very challenging to fly when you flare and enter Glide Slope. Now to do the Kai Tak approach as well in real life??? Insanity. Amazing video!
The dream of any pilot to fly the FERRARI of the skies........has gone and for ever there's not any machine to replace this beautiful and amazing aircraft on the world.
I used to live in Hong Kong near the airport. It is amazing to see planes doing a 90 degrees turn around plane queuing for landing during the early evenings.
Saw this beautiful bird at Manchester airport museum, my son treated me to this awesome magnificent flying time machine. Salute and respect to the pilots who flew it.
I remember the boom as this plane made two daily flights into JFK when it was in service. Saw a few parked with the nose pointing down between flights. What a sight to see it fly. Boarded one in a museum, 4 seats across very narrow.
+HighAway They'd still have been retired by now. Accident or not, they were at a stage where they would have required increased maintenance to keep them airworthy. That may have kept them going another 10 years, but by now they'd have exceeded their life expectancy.
It wasn't just that metal strip that ended this jet, which by some accounts cast doubt that it brought down this plane. There were many factors. Some of which were, the plane was old, thirty plus years, it used four times the fuel of a conventional jet to go the same distance, first class tickets, the only tickets sold on this plane was priced about 20% higher than first class in conventional jets and Airbus, the successor to Aeropostiale who built it no longer wanted to support the plane with spare parts. Lastly, and probably the one that put the proverbial nail in the coffin was 9/11. This one incident killed about 30 regular Concorde passengers.
