@@raccoon874 At that time,only U.K. and France would fly Concordes,but if Airbus will sale brandnew Concordes,I don't think there will be few countries will buy brandnew Concordes.It's a kind of very different flight in Concordes.
The only commercial jet to turn heads. I remember back in the 90's as we were waiting in line to take off. Our pilot says on the loud speakers "if you look to the right you'll see the Concorde taking off." It's like an exotic car driving down the road or a space rocket launch guaranteed head turns.
Absolutely nothing will ever replace this majestic aircraft. Both rich and poor could fly on it, being the latter. It makes me weep that it is still not air worthy, which it should have been.
I remember working at LHR for 3 years, and every day around 11am it used to depart for NYC. Literally most of the airport stopped to watch it take off, and you'll probably never see again the same numbers of "bird watchers" around the perimeter road and surrounding car parks at this time. I lived locally too, and at around 7pm it used to come in to land and you could hear the reverse thrusts about 2 miles away :) What an aircraft; but the pinnacle was going on a trip around the Bay of Biscay in her, what an experience and like seeing the most famous musicians in concert that are no longer with us, I'm so glad I got to experience it's magic while it was still around!
Concorde flew into Sydney for the first time on June 17, 1972. A crowd of 20,000 at the airport and around its perimeter watched the end of the historic flight from Britain.
concorde used to stop all ground traffic at YVR when they came in or departed - we skipped a bit of class one day (aircraft mechanics) to watch it depart - instructor understood.
I've never seen Concorde take such a long run to take -off. And no afterburner's. I guess that was because it was flying out over an area of low buildings ( or none) and it saved fuel.
Memories! I was driving along the road directly behind when she took off (worked at one of the airport hotels at the time). Thanks for posting. A beautiful aircraft.
I wish I knew the rego as that is a very good question. Actually the aircraft was parked at Sydney for a couple of days and I had the opportunity to walk right around it including under it (much less security in 1999). Regrettably the doors were shut so I did not have the chance to go inside. It was such a beautiful aircraft - I am glad I shot the video
Yeah remember seeing Concorde on couple occasions over Sydney Northern Beaches as it came in and the only reason I caught it was the indescribable roar coming from the sky. It's like what could make that noise? Is it a fighter jet? Then you spot the sleek bird and it all makes sense. I also lived in south London for some years and Concorde would fly over and nothing else on earth sounds like it, the roar fills the entire sky
I worked in London and lived in Chertsey (SW of London, almost due south of LHR) in the '80s and the thrill of the sight and sound of a Concorde leaving LHR never waned. Many years later in 1999, I'm living in Bundeena (a small town south of Shitney) and one day I'm on the beach when I hear this tearing roar off the extended 16 from Mascot and I'm thinking "what the hell is *that*?" Seconds later, sure enough it's Concorde. There is nothing - nothing at all - that looks, sounds and flies like it.
I was recording an album with the London Philharmonic Orchestra in October 1978. We had to stop the recording for several minutes because the noise from Concorde was picked-up by the microphones in St Giles Cripplegate Church, Barbican.
Registration of this Concorde was F-BVFC. It was the last Air France Concorde to perform supersonic flight and was retired in 2003 (so definately not the crashed one!).
Gosh, all those employess just standing there and watching, instead of working! If I was their boss.... .... .... I would stand there together with them and watch in amazement.... ;)
You lucky son of a gun.... ;) I never had the privilege to watch it in action. Once or twice I saw it parking at the gates of Paris CDG when it was still in active service. And after that I only saw it in Germany in the Sinsheim museum.... It must have been amazing to hear those engines scream and roar during takeoff....
Air France and British Airways used to send them down to Sydney a couple of times a year when they were on special round-the-world charters. They were not part of any regular, scheduled service.
The one route it was built to fly it sadly never did. Sydney to London in 12 hours instead of 24+. Concorde could do one thing no other machine ever could. It could buy you time.
A few years ago my nephew and I visited the U.S. aircraft carrier Intrepid in New York. On the pier next to it was an SR71 Blackbird and a Concorde. You could see some similarities in the Concorde that it picked up from the Blackbird. Both futuristic and extremely fast looking aircraft!
We got there when it opened and they had to ask us to leave at closing, we got so caught up in everything to see. The Intrepid has a great history and is the first carrier I have ever seen and it looked big to me. Then I thought about the modern day mega carriers and this one would look like a toy next to them!
152,320.00 pounds of raw thrust this baby blast out of it's engines at takeoff !! Please bring back the Concorde!!! Richard Branson maybe??? We are flying at the same speeds that we were flying some 50 years ago or longer.
Concorde ALWAYS took off with afterburners on, was its design..just to bright to see them glowing is all, yet you can see the smoke trail and indeed know they were alight..
What month in 1999 was it? I have records on just about all of the late 1999s charter flights, and can probably tell you which one she was, if you can give me an approximate date.
It was all down to Cost: The Airlines were not making back the money spent on the safety modifications and other upgrades, with some other big costs coming up (tens of millions, before any life extension programme), BA need to write off £84M now rather than £150M in 3 or 4 years. Air France wrote off a large sum of money too. With the premium first class market non-existant post 9/11, there was no hope of paying back the modification cost to start with, forgetting about any further investment that was required to keep the aircraft in the air. Day to day the aircraft still broke even, but could no longer pay back any big expenditure items, so its days were numbered. It is a sad time, but the inevitable really only came forward a few years from the ends of its technical lifespan. We should celebrate what Concorde was and still is, the only profit making Supersonic passenger Jet ever to go into service - the Americans could not even do - that's how far ahead of its time it was...and still is!
Firstly, was this the AirFrance aircraft which was butched on July 25th, 2000? I wonder what was the destination, Mauritius or Los Angeles or Vancouver? Anyway, the very top people who took these planes don't need it anymore, they use the deep underground magnetic levitation ThyssenKrupp trains globally with a Mach+2/3 minimum spead, as an example Al Bielek who worked in Montauk Long Island in the 80s, took every day home this train. Apparently it's only one way.
It was actually air France's decision to retire concorde as it wasn't profitable for them. It was for BA mostly. Once Air France retired her, Airbus decided to no longer provide manufacturer support and without that she couldn't get a certificate of airworthiness. That was concorde death-nell.
@jackmnsadler Not true again. The last two years of Concorde were its most profitable while with BA. BA canceled because after AF pulled out, Airbus (who'd inherited Concorde's mtx support) didn't feel that a single airline could justify the cost of that support program alone, vis-a-vis the benefit of writing it off. So once Airbus revoked support, BA had no choice but to end the service after a few months.
@@DarthVaderEmpire sorry, just saw your message 4 years after I wrote this comment. I love aviation too , and I was lucky to see the concorde up close. 👍
@Henkwich Its a crying shame that some will grow up never knowing what a Supersonic Airliner sounded like. Everything stopped when it was heard approaching - and every car alarm in the neighbourhood would be going off when Concorde took off. Nothing comes close. There are some great night time take off's on RU-vid - with the afterburners very evident!
BA & AF should have sent the plane on a world tour before grounding it for good. But who knows maybe someday in the future we will catch up to it and it will come back to grace the sky.
@george385 Yeah. I'm hoping we'll get supersonic airlines again some day in the future though. I don't care much for flying coach (which is the only thing I've ever done) since I got older and you know, taller ^^, but I always loved going on an airplane as a kid. Just having seen one of these in action would've been fine though but.. nevermind I'm rambling. Watched a few night-time take off videos. Very impressive indeed :)
@MKoh51 Why "should" they have... who'd be expected to pay for that? The market was still depressed in late 2003, and shareholders would've likely raised hell over such an expensive showcase-- with no revenue potential in return.
neither do, it breaches noise regulations at airports, wastes fuel, and would be extremely dangerous coming out of runway 16R/L because of the road behind it.
