Category: Blog

G-BOAC was always going to be a bit special for me..

Not only was Concorde 204 the flagship of the British Airways fleet, is was the Concorde I flew back from New York to London in May 2003. Alpha Charlie is displayed at the Manchester Runway Visitor Park in a small purpose built Hangar. Alpha Charlie is not the most accessible of the retired Concordes as it is operated as a Conference and Wedding Venue – Yes Really !  As a Result you need to book one of the tours which includes a visit to the aircraft to get inside the hangar and take a look around.

The Tours are recommended however, I did the “Technical Tour” which was interesting; but is still aimed at “normal people” rather than real AvGeeks such as myself (modest I know!) This tour includes a walk from nose to tail of the aircraft where various aspects of the design are explained, a chance to sit in the front cabin still in it’s final BA blue Connolly leather interior and a cockpit tour.

The short cockpit tour is well worth the admission, as you get to sit in the Captains seat and admire close up the very best of 1960’s engineering.A aircraft retired for nearly 13 years does not have the same sense of excitement or anticipation as a living machine, so even though I sat in 6D once again, it did not really bring back the emotions of that amazing trip 2003.

I enjoyed  talking to some of the team looking after Alpha Charlie which arrived  in Manchester October 2003, like all of the British Airways operated Concordes it is still owned by the Airline and maintenance is their responsibility  – so a broken windscreen in front of the First Officers seat remains broken until someone from Heathrow can come to fix it.. I would guess the last BA licensed Concorde engineer has retired !

A National Science Foundation meeting at George Mason University this week, provided the opportunity to visit my favourite aviation Museum, the quite brilliant Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum and Concorde F-BVFA.

I’m have often thought it surprising that Foxtrot Alpha ended up in Washington, as it was in many ways the Air France flagship airframe operating the initial services to Rio de Janeiro, Washington, and New York. Foxtrot Alpha also flew more than any other Air France Concorde achieving 17,824 hours by it’s final flight to Washington in June 2003.

This flight itself is interesting in that it was captured on video from a boat below the flightpath across the atlantic which features the distinctive double boom produced by Concorde flying supersonically.

My local Concorde I suppose, although the Concorde at Heathrow G-BOAB is actually closer (more of the scandal of Alpha Bravo later!).

Delta Golf is perhaps the most accessible Concorde for people living in London and I think the one of the best presented. For £5 on top of the Brooklands Museum admission you can take the ‘Concorde Experience” which includes a guided tour of the Aircraft and a great AV presentation onboard in the front cabin… It’s as close as anyone is going to get to flying in Concorde today anyway.

Delta Golf had a brief, if interesting life, the British development airframe which achieved the type certification and unlike modern development aircraft never entered airline service. Flying for the first time in 1974 and retiring from flight in 1981 after only 1282 hours, it then became a source of spares for the British Airways fleet stored at Filton. In 2004 Delta Golf was acquired by Brooklands and finally put on display in 2006.

Of course it would be amiss not to mention the urban myth that Delta Golf was used by the Ministry of Defence to test UK Air Defences, simulating Russian Backfire and Blackjack bombers, and demonstrating the vulnerability of the RAF in the process…

Update April 2019

Following on from the example set at Duxford, the volunteers at Brooklands have reinstated the nose drop mechanism, demonstrated here on the 50th Anniversary event in April 2019.