This year in particular I have had the good fortune to meet a great bunch of people who have kindly let me have gos in their aircraft - from Magister to Tristar - but my most powerful memory isn't of a flight, but watching a single take off of a single jet.
Concorde. One of the very last commercial flights, taking off early evening, with the sun already below the horizon. Photos are no longer possible because it's so dark, and so for once I am not looking through a viewfinder but am just standing on the roadside along with hundreds if not thousands of others who have travelled god knows how far just to watch one airliner depart Heathrow.
The roar lets you know she's on the way, and the landing lights blaze down at the other end of the runway. Excited voices cry 'Here she comes' and variations thereof. Cars just stop on the dual carriageway. A thousand video cameras are pointed towards her. The nose comes up, the light from the reheats becomes visible for the first time and she pulls away from the runway. In less time than it takes to read this sentence the roar has elevated to such a volume that you can feel it in your bones; your ears hurt briefly as she thunders directly overhead balance on four intensely bright flames.
Pic of a previous evening's take off, doesn't do the spectacle justice
One kid shouts into the noise 'It's a dragon!" and he's dead right because Concorde in the dark with reheats blazing is about the most awesome and fiery sight there is - or was. As she recedes into the distance and the reheats finally wink out (damn you noise abatement!) you look at everybody else around you wearing the same spread of expressions - wonder, awe, sadness - and the occasional grin at the car alarm chorus. And then it's back to the car and a silent hour's drive home thinking how far we've come in 100 years, and how far back we jumped this last month.
