Concorde in the Exeter area

[Sliding member]

Anybody know why Concorde was seen quite low (est below 5000') early on Friday evening? Just wondered.

[Wycombe]

Was an Engineering Test Flight, as far as I know, perhaps the last by a BA Conc.

Paid some courtesy calls at various South and South-westerly locations whilst on it's travels (including EXT and BOH I believe)

[055166k]

Bye Bye Fly-by

After a flight out over the pond and back GBOAE did a south coast flypast, and to our delight, that included the London Centre carpark at Swanwick. As the bird was accelerating westbound down the Bristol Channel we asked him for a rough estimate for when he would be in the area. "1835 " he says! Couple of hours later and within 15 seconds of the estimate this big beautiful [and still unique aircraft] flew over.

[Rudolph Hucker]

It seems that BA wanted to overfly some key places that had connections with Concorde - Exeter (any idea what that connection is?), Bournemouth (I think that's where one of the Conc charter agents is/were based), and the QE2 docked at Soton. Some quick thinking by certain people in AC Ops at Swanwick used the Jedi mind trick on BA to get them to add NERC to the list!

[Dufwer]

I was lucky enough to see Concorde in the Bournemouth area last night. First time I've ever seen Concorde. Doubt I will get to see her again What a truely magnificent machine!

D

[paulhn]

and the QE2 docked at Soton

They cocked that up then, she left for New York 3 days ago

[MerchantVenturer]

Rudolph H,

Only a guess but EXT's association with Concorde may be that the airport has been used for Concorde pleasure flights over the years, as have other UK regional airports. Perhaps Concorde is overflying those not covered by her final farewell week of flights to some of the bigger regional airports (well, some are bigger anyway).

Strangely, the only place not yet planned for a visit or even an overfly is the British city of her birth.

Perversely, although BRS is the busiest airport in the south west of England and south Wales it has one of the shortest runways in that region, not long enough for Concorde, so pleasure flights from the Bristol area have always been carried out from Filton.

Many in Bristol are still hoping that their city will be recognised in some way by BA as the British birthplace of Concorde, but we are not holding our breath.

[WOK]

We all hope to pay Filton a visit, but it doesn't appear to feature in the plans as yet. I guess that the 'good' news is that Filton MUST surely be top of the list the list to receive a Conc after October.

As written above, the idea of this flight was to tag a visit to the South coast onto the end of a handling airtest just to remind the world she's still out there. Lucky with the weather - more or less clear skies from Exeter Eastwards. As for the route: I don't think too much should be read into the choice of venues, it's just that South from Matim to Exeter then along the coast happens to fit the return Supersonic profile without adding excessive track miles.

I hope we were close enough to NERC: the first few miles in front of you are hidden by the nose so we just pointed at the bit of the river which looked as though it would give the right track as determined from the biro'd NERC on a 1:250 000. Very high-tech.

Thanks to all the (as ever) co-operative ATC units.

[booke23]

Anyone from NERC know what altitude the Concorde was actually flying at?

[Fraudsquads]

Exeter flyby

I was in the house as she passed overhead, didn't recognise the noise at first but thought there's plenty of noise and its not a fighter.

I went out the front door and looked towards Exmouth to see the bird heading that way, at the time I thought that doesn't half look like concorde (I was looking right up the business end)

At a rough guess I'd say she was at 6-7,000ft.

I thought what the hell is she doing passing EXT in that part of the sky when 26 was in use, strange route to start her approach.

Thanks for starting the thread, things make sense now.

If only I'd been at the cricket ground in Topsham, she would have gone right over the top.

Farewell ol' girl. We'll miss you in EXT.

FS

[booke23]

She was much lower than that over Swanwick......I'd say 2000-3000ft.

[Whispering Giant]

Exeter Flyby

Living just outside of Exmouth - i too heard a tremendous noise as i was sat outside having a BBQ and looked skward expecting to see a military jet and was Veyr Very surprised to see the wonderfull white bird flying over the top of my house at approx 4000ft !!!!!!!
What a fantstic sight it was too - unfurtunatly probably never to been seen again....

[055166k]

booke 23

In quarter of a century of controlling Concorde it has been operated to a standard and to a degree of professionalism that no other airline/aircraft combination can come close to. Don't quite know what you're inferring?......and before you ask....no, I have not had a flight on it, nor am I employed by the airline.

[booke23]

I am not inferring anything.

I was making a factual statement..............When I saw the aircraft it was lower than 6-7000ft that the previous poster had estimated over exeter.

I estimated 2-3000ft at Swanwick. However if you bother to read any of my previous posts I had enquired if anyone in NERC knew what altitude the aircraft was actually flying at......My estimate was just that, an estimate. I simply wanted to know what altitude it was actually flying at...........out of interest.

I'm not quite sure how you could interpret that as me questioning the accuracy of the flying.

[skysearch]

Switched the scanner on just in time to hear her talking to Exeter ATC - confirming at 3,500 feet over the city. Tracked her visually down the estuary to Exmouth where she turned and headed for Bournemouth, then I lost her going to the Needles.

Hope that this ties up any loose ends.
PS any more 'test flights' in the offing? I'll get my camera ready if theres a next time!

[booke23]

Thanks for that.............Sounds about right.