Originally Posted by
cyflyer
Thats an absurd claim. Where did you get this info from ?
A long tale, but it's common knowledge in the Concorde world.
Jean Franchi, one of the French Concorde test pilots, did it repeatedly, until it was spotted by a journalist, who had the common sense of phoning Aerospatiale before publishing his 'scoop''.
As it happened, he was put through directly to André Turcat, then director of Concorde flight test, who, at the time, more or less said "You must have mistaken a Mirage (delta-wing plane) for Concorde. You should know one doesn't roll an aircraft the size of Concorde." Hence the story was never published.
History has never recounted what passed between Turcat and Franchi.... but it was probably in the same style of the original 707 meeting... "I know you've done it. I know it can be done. I know you'll do it again. But please, do it outside the view of nosey journalists."
And yes, Jean did it again....
There
is a video of Brian Walpole (BA) where he confirms doing the same kind of barrel roll with Jean Franchi (
Organfreak posted the link).
And during a fairly recent conference, Turcat himself also confirmed it. I was there, and I still remember his remark.... "One of the things I most regret was never having done it myself....".
And, slightly O/T, maybe you remember the Concorde "Airport" movie? With the daft looping, and Alain Delon opening the DV window at Mach 2 and firing flares? All the low-altitude flying over the "Alps" (in reality the Pyrénées) in that movie is
real, and it was Jean Franchi the pilot. It was before the days of CGI.
Jean Franchi suggested doing a barrel roll in front of the LearJet, instead of the loopy 'looping', but somehow it never happened.
Or maybe one is still on film somewhere, now hidden in an archive....
CJ