Old memories
Great to see the first flight footage. Caught a quick glimpse of my father at the aircraft steps with Trubshaw. He was 32 and the avionics systems lead for the prototype commissioning. I was 3 but I'm assured I watched the takeoff ! My father had worked with Trubshaw for some years on the VC10 flight test program at Wisley. By the way the aircraft was damaged the night before the first flight when a worker damaged the angle of attack probe with a moving staircase. My father had to rig a piece of wire around the stall warning breaker to stop it going off constantly. To avoid any complications with the CAA, the mod was done with Trubshaw's authority as Captain just after the airworthiness certifcate was issued. But Dad said Trubshaw was more upset about the failure of the radio altimeters prior to landing at Fairford -
Before the flight they had felt the need to compute the likely clearance over the perimeter fence at Fairford given the steep angle of approach on Concorde.