@Bellerophon:
Interesting info - cheers!
As a sort-of tangent, as an aviation-mad nipper I watched and recorded the 1988 BBC Concorde Special, and pretty much wore the VHS tape out. The skipper on that flight was Hutch (who also just-so-happened to be a BBC aviation correspondent on the side). The reason I bring it up was that the FO was Chris Norris, who mentioned that he was just about to be made Captain - and regretfully that meant he'd be leaving the Concorde flight deck, most likely for a subsonic short-haul type (he reckoned it'd be the B757).
As I recall, I think I remember reading that Capt. Norris did end up returning to Concorde as a captain before the type was retired - so I'm guessing that previous experience as FO did count when making the bid. Was that the case?