Hands on
As so many have already said: what a wonderful thread. Please please keep it going.
Given the high quality of expertise and experience here, please accept my apologies for any ill informed inaccuracies. I never flew in Concorde, but I did 'fly' her thanks to the late John Cook.
In the late 1970s I was in the RAF section of the school CCF with his son Richard (tragically later killed in the Mull of Kintyre accident) and John (one of the first BA Concorde pilots) arranged for a minibus load of us to go to Filton on what I wish I'd realised at the time was an exceptionally privileged visit. Passage of time blurs the memory, but it still sticks in my mind as an extraordinary day.
The first 'Concorde' we saw was the full scale marketing mock up, essentially the left side of an external Concorde attached to a hangar wall, with a full interior cabin. I still remember being surprised how small it was - the windows especially - and the mix of different seats and trims inside, presumably to show options to potential buyers.
Next stop was the simulator and - in the analogue days of the 70's - the enormous, detailed 3D model of Heathrow and what looked like the surrounding 10 miles, mounted vertically on a wall. A huge gantry on rails ran back and forth, up and down, so a camera with tiny periscope lens could take off, fly around and land as per the simulated flight, with the resulting pictures projected for the pilots in the sim. The size of the thing - and the attention to detail of the model - was incredible. Off to one side was a large rectangular shallow dish painted light blue. It's sides were raised - like a saucer - and edged with fluffed cotton wool. We were told that once the flight in the sim reached a certain height, it would 'go into cloud' (fade to white) while the camera trundled across to the blue dish. The flight would then 'emerge' from the 'cloud' and the camera went round and round in circles, giving a very plausible impression of high altitude flight until it was time to reverse the procedure and descend, back to 'Heathrow'.
Incredibly, they let us fly the sim, two at a time up front, for a few minutes each. It was simply too much to take in and was over far, far, far too soon. But I can claim a (very poor) approach to Heathrow before the instructors called us off - apparently a crash landing didn't do the camera any favours as the lens would plough into the model. I can see why they were nervous.
(Is this the sim cockpit - without the model I presume - that is now at Brooklands, by the way?)
Final stop was a gantry overlooking one of the hangers where a solitary Concorde nestled amongst (what fuzzy memory recalls as) three VC10s being converted to tankers for the RAF. The Concorde seemed tiny by comparison, but also startling in that it was still largely in green primer, access panels were open and inspection hatches missing and vulnerable areas were covered in what looked like flattened cardboard boxes for protection. Presumably this was one of the 'unsold' numbers before BA took it on (?). Nose down, it looked very sad.
We weren't. I suspect we were insufferable for weeks afterwards.
What I'd give for a time machine to revisit that afternoon...
Last edited by Don'ttouchthat!; 29th Mar 2016 at 15:18.