Concorde 002

[Passenger 99]

Today 9/4/2019 marks the 50th anniversary of the first test flight of the British Prototype Concorde.

[Wander00]

Late 89 or early 70 I production controlled assemblies for two Concorde visor and nose sets at Marshall of Cambridge, which they had also designed. Anyone know which airframes these would have gone onto, my guess is 02 and 03 perhaps

[OUAQUKGF Ops]

I remember driving down from Luton on a glorious spring morning to watch the arrival of 002 at Fairford. By today's standards of razzle-dazzle the event was delightfully low key with a small area near the end of the runway dedicated to spectators. On our arrival we were given this modest scrap of paper.
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/2000x1399/img_0001_192f9db749b4919229bf5e3f560420e465b6ed5a.jpg

[India Four Two]

Nice map! I was at Lyneham on the day, waiting for a flight deck ride in a Britannia to Cyprus, courtesy of my boss at UBAS, who knew a Britannia captain. We all went out onto the pan to watch 002 fly by, accompanied by a Meteor chase aircraft. Spectacular sight. I vaguely remember that the gear was down.

[R6915]

On 002 Day I was visiting an electronics manufacturer at Cheney Manor Trading Estate. The company Buyer had a first floor office overlooking the road outside. Somepne put their head around the door and said Concorde is coming. Looking out of the window we saw some of the factory units had the staff running out and standing on the roads and pavement. I did follow the rush out with buyer and we just stood, watched and listened and the aircraft flew over followed by the chase aircraft (Canberra?). The crowd of possibly several hundreds was near silent for a couple of minutes.

The impression was that we had seen history being made.

[Wander00]

I thought the chase aeroplane was that other Queen of the Skies, a Canberra........

[India Four Two]

Yes, failing memory on my part - it was a Canberra flying on 002's left, which makes sense since I expect there was an observer filming from the right seat.