I've just watched the final 3 Concorde flights land.
For the past week the wind has been the way I usually like it (east to west) which means that I'm not living under the Heathrow incoming flight path. However, just recently I've kinda liked being under it, because I sometimes get to see Concorde coming in. Oh, and hear it. (If the winds reverses I don't see or hear it taking off, beacuse it turns west soon after Heathrow. This is probably a good thing).
However, overnight the wind changed back. This also means that I can just see the incoming planes from outside work before they drop below the trees. So I went outside at 3:50, and soon after a Concorde came in. About 60 seconds later the second came in. And about 2 minutes afterwards the third came in. An impressive show. But a swansong, nonetheless
Au revoir Concorde
A fantastic achievement of visionaries, who created what is the most beautiful aeroplane every created. Okay things didn't quite pan out the way one would hope, but it did lead to the formation of Airbus, which makes less beautiful, but far more practical and profitable aeroplanes. In the end the bean counters that always hated Concorde did it in before it's time, okay it didn't have that much longer to fly before it would have been economically impossible to keep it flying, but a few more years of flight were possible.
Re:Visionaries and bean counters
nicholas on 2003-10-24T15:38:54
I always like to think of Concorde as "let's build a plane that flys really fast. Bugger the cost, bugger the fuel economy, bugger the noise polution, JFDI".
Loud, envionmentally unsound, uneconomic. But utterly decadent.
:-)
