Any aircraft experts?

Back in the day I used to go out for a smoke around 4pm each day and there came that sound, it was unmistakeable, a few minutes out of Heathrow headding east.

 

I remember it visited Edinburgh Airport. I worked 5 miles away but could clearly hear it taking off after its visit.

 

I've only ever seen Concord in flight once, and that was at an air show when I was a kid. It was clearly very memorable, because I clearly remember that, but not much else about that day.

 

I used to work at Filton, BAC as it was then. We used to watch it come and go on a regular basis and it was always impressive. 216 (production number) is the one we got which is now housed in the aircraft museum here. I must admit I was fairly choked up when it landed for the last time (I’d worked on it many years before). In a way, it was like it had come home. It was something of a white elephant, but there was nothing like it.

 

It was only a White Elephant because of some resistance from certain quarters @Freddy , it could have been improved upon but the risistance shut it down from the early days.

 

I suppose we can only speculate as to what might have happened had the US anti-brigade not got involved, but it certainly didn’t help. I remember the phrase “the sky will be lack with them (Concord)”. As it was, only 14 entered service (France 7-GB 7). Over the years, I’ve worked on several different aircraft, nothing comes near the exacting standards set for Concord, probably why it cost so much to produce, plus the fact it wasn’t really set up for a ‘proper’ production run. I think I’m right in saying that the bill eventually came to £1 Billion, a lot of money back then.