twochai
It is wonderful that you have such fond flying memories of Concorde;in the pre-911 days there was a fairly liberal open door policy for flight deck visits (Although all passengers were made to feel really special, it is so great that the guys had you up front for so long on that flight. You just never lose those sort of memories, I know).
On descent over the U.K. and passing through 10K' abeam Southampton, as I remember it we got a yellow 'Radiation' caution
The Radiation Meter was an interesting addition to Concorde's collection of avionics kit. It was primarily designed to detect solar proton, as well as neutron radiation, (the detector element lived behind the fwd r/h wardrobe as I remember and was a total pain in the 'you know where' to get at). The indicator displayed the dose rate in millirems/hour, with amber and red triggers, triggering a master alarm. (The amber was a mere caution, whereas the red was a warning. I can't quite remember any figures, but a descent was required with a genuine red warning. I think I'm correct in saying that no such descent was ever required, at least in the UK). There was a huge amount of concern initially about crews long term exposure to radiation, after all there is a fairly linear relationship between solar radiation and altitude. In reality however Concorde crews received far less radiation than subsonic crews; although the dose rates may have been higher, the sector times were a fraction of a lot of the subsonic routes. (Even a subsonic LHR-JFK is WELL over twice the sector length). Nuisance ambers were not uncommon, a certain 'facility' in Berkshire would often register as the aircraft over-flew, as well as MANY years ago, Three Mile Island itself. I remember that there were long term plans to replace the radiation meter with a portable 'carry on' device that was being trialled. (Spares for the detector were becoming very difficult to obtain).
Dude 