Concorde Remembered

On Alternative History in a discussion about the Concorde one of the posters Ramp Rat gave us his memories of working and flying on the Concorde.

As probably the only member off this forum who has both flown in and worked on Concorde, hers my two bobs worth.

Concorde was to high speed commercial flight, what the Comet 1 was to jet powered commercial flight, a nice first try but not the answer.

She was far too small, at 6’3’’ when I sat in the window seat; I had my head cocked to one side at all times. There wasn’t much room between you and the seat in-front, which meant that you were having a tray services like in economy, but paying more then you do in first. So even though the food and drinks were stunning, they were only doing about 250 covers a day, the feeling of luxury just wasn’t there.

To work on she was a bitch, the forward hold was so small that the only way I could work in it was to lay on my side, not fun when you are stacking bags. Also she was very tip sensitive, there was a strict order off loading, or she would sit on her tail. I have seen it get close to doing this; we ended up with a large number of ground staff standing in the cockpit area to stop her going over. The nose wheel was just beginning to turn on its own, as she was on the point off tip.

The engines drank fuel like there was no tomorrow, and if she had to cross a sub-sonic speed it was very hard for her not to need refueling to make it to London, she lacked legs as we say.

Had there been a follow up, same speed, twice or more the capacity, and double the range, cut fuel consumption by 30%, and the engine noise by about the same, all do able. Then you would have had a real going concern, as it was 9/11 was the nail in the coffin off the old girl, that day killed off the top 100 passengers for the lady, and with that she died.

Do I miss her you bet, she was beautiful to look at, better in the air than on the ground. Her undercarriage always made her look slightly ungainly on the deck. But just knowing we had her and the yanks didn’t, well I made you feel proud. When we were still in Terminal 3, and surrounded by other airlines, unlike in 4. You would see large number of foreign pilots just hanging around her to have a look, their faces green with envy, especially the Pan-Am and TWA boys. I know showing my age there, but they were the American airlines in those days. And none off this dam security, you could pop over the arrivals bar and get a tray of beers and bring them back out to the ramp, nice on a hot summer evening. Are the good old days, when most off the pilots could tell tales off night time trips to Berlin, drop off ten tons off load and back for breakfast.


Regards RR.