Posts about: "Captains" [Posts: 62 Pages: 4]

Thanks for clearing that one up!

I wondered if perhaps I was posting in the wrong place. Maybe there should be another thread for anyone who has memories that they would like to share, or links with Concorde which aren\x92t spanner related\x85..however, I do have a little story for today.


This concerns the type of traveller that we have all met\x85the ones who like to practise a little \x91one up-manship\x92.


It was a pea-souper of a day at LHR, and we were trying to get away on the early JFK, but our delay-due-fog was getting longer and longer. A businessman was getting himself into a right old state about the fog, and summoned me to his side. (This was taking place in the rear cabin, as a matter of interest.) He told me in no uncertain terms that this was Concorde, (full marks there for observation for a start), and not only could she fly in a bit of fog, but also in zero visibility. Furthermore, he would be having lunch with Lord King a week on Thursday, and have no doubt about it, he would be having words. (Lord King was our Life President for those who don\x92t know, and what a gentleman!) Now, would I please run along to the flight deck and tell the captain to stop b*ggering about and get the show on the road. I informed him that nothing would please me more, and went forward, but before I got to the flight deck I thought I would have a little chat with the passenger sitting at 1A. Lord King.

I told him that there was a passenger down the back who would be having lunch with him on Thursday of next week, and I felt it only fair to warn Lord King that his dining partner was not a happy chap. The lovely John King put his half-moon specs on the end of his nose and fished out his pocket diary, telling me that on Thursday week it would be his wife\x92s birthday, and there would be a family party. He stood up and asked me to take him to the gentleman in question, giving me a little wink.

We arrived at the seat of our disgruntled passenger, who was more than a little surprised to see Lord King standing in front of him. He began by saying how embarrassed he was that he had no mention in his diary of the impending lunch date, and slipped the gentleman his card, saying he should contact his P.A to re-arrange. As he began to walk back to his seat he paused, turned around and said,\x92 by the way, what is your name?\x92 at which several of the nearby passengers actually laughed out loud. Red-faced businessman troubled us no more.


Of course, not all SLF are problematic, but blimey, the ones that are cause us no end of grief!

Warm regards,

Landlady. (Supersonic tea-bag squeezer to the stars.)

Interesting & nostalgic thread. Nice to see this monumental aviation achievement still generates such passion...

In case it's of interest (and suitable health warning as the memory fades)...

The heat did evaporate water vapour in the airframe - reducing corrosion. I remember when the 5 BA aircraft were returned to service, after the post-accident mods, their weight and balance certificates were prepared and found to be out by (IIRC) more than a tonne. This represented water in the airframe present after a year on the ground, and was gone again after a couple hours of supercruise on return to service. Back to the weighbridge for new W&B Certificates....

Vortex lift caused buffet which felt very similar to a conventional wing's stall/low speed buffet. At landing weights (I hate the trend of using the term "mass": weight is a force, mass is not!) you felt the buffet start as you reduced speed (CAS: Vc) to about 250kts. It was handy as a reminder that you should select visor down / nose to five below 250kts (the recommendation was as you slowed through 270kts, but latterly we were in the habit of holding at 250kts nose/visor up - I think TCAS was quoted as a backup to the more limited visibility in that config). At takeoff weights, the buffet went at more like 270kts accelerating. So I'm pretty sure there was no vortex lift at AoA > 7 degrees (250kts at LW).

Recommended subsonic cruise at MTOW was F260 / M0.95 which was equal to Vmo of 400kts (CAS). It was best cruise because Vc=400kts was also min drag at MTOW. F280 meant a slightly more draggy speed of 384kts, but some preferred it because when cleared to climb & accelerate supersonic (the official expression was "go for it") it gave you a bit of slack against Vmo when eng put the reheats in. But we tended to ignore the overspeed warning anyway: it was supposed to go really really fast...

We never flew with visor down and nose up unless it was bust - that config was only used during pushback (except one captain who always thought it looked better visor up....). Visor down max Vc was 325kts/M0.8 so it would limit subsonic cruise, and besides it made a racket like that.

It was a beaut in x-winds - a total lack of yaw-roll couple meant you just straightened the 'plane up with rudder and carried on into the flare as normal. No roll to counteract, and the sideways "lift" created by the rudder deflection on the fin pretty much equalled the x-wind drift. Nice.

Wind limits were Crosswind 30kts (15kts contaminated or autoland), Headwind for autoland 25kts (or manual "reduced noise" approach: that's a technical way we used to reduce the noise footprint down to 800' by flying at 190kts then reducing to a target speed of Vref+7kts at that point). Tailwind 10kts. All these limits were, of course, subject to "on the day" performance limits calculated at the time. I seem to remember there was an over-arching limit of 6000' on r/w length, subject again to "on the day" performance limits. OK, I cheated on this paragraph and dug out FM Vol 2a.

There were loads of other limitations which were, by and large, more "esoteric" than a conventional airliner and which had to be learned for the conversion course. It really made the head hurt, and would have been impossible without a big loverrly picture of the beast on the wall chucking out yellow smoke and making noise. Even a static picture of her seemed to make noise...

No one who flew it could really believe their luck, but one thing for sure is "they don't build them like that any more"...

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh..........

Being from the far side of the pond, my opportunities to see Concorde have been few. But I was privileged to be at Oshkosh in 1985 when Concorde made the first of many appearances at the EAA airshow. After the 1000 mile trip in the back of a 172RG, my world view of aviation was not the most positive. However, Concorde, with the late Captain John Cook at the controls changed all that in an instant.

I remember his approach to Rwy 36 and how quiet the 100,000 or so crowd became. He landed then surprised the crowd will a full reheat touch and go, followed by the always spectacular and precise low level display.

The Concorde stayed parked there for the week with a several hour queue to get a look inside. As I recall they did at least one charter.

I happened to be near the end of the runway during a takeoff and Concorde flew right over me. I have an up-close and personal photo of nothing but the underside of the wing with the undercarriage retracting.

It would be nice if she was still in the air, but at least I get to regularly visit the Air France Concorde on display at IAD.

-Old Ag

i have managed to borrow the dvd`s for the BA concorde by ITVV (300 minutes worth) - and can totally recommend them if you want to see how the workforce `up front` do ther job within concorde - Captain Dave Rowlands , First Officer Les Brodey and FLight EngineerRoger Bricknell.

guided tour of concorde , and i did like the segments on just how much temperature effected performance - and the section (i think 20 minutes worth) explaining just how important the fuel system played in the flight `56.5 going aft` i do understand now

NICK THOMAS
It was perfectly safe to hand fly the aircraft even at Mach 2. There was at least one legendary captain who always believed in hand flying. The controls were not overly sensitive as the outer and middle elevons were partly stalled out due to shockwave formation at Mach 2. (The load law of the Artificial Feel Computers actually decreased above transonic speeds).
And Nick.... No clues
Dude

The Captain I believe you are thinking of, not only hand flew the aircraft for the entire sector, but also ate his meal, and talked to the passenger who visited the flightdeck whilst he was flying it

He was not unique,and many would hand fly it during climb/accel and for the descent but most pilots would engage the Autopliot especially for supersonic cruise

One very long winded piece of personal nostalgia, I hope you\x92ll all bear with me:
In 1994 a Concorde (can\x92t remember the registration) flew out to Oshkosh Wisconsin (OKS) for the bi-annual EAA fly in. The aircraft was scheduled to fly from LHR to YYZ via MAN, where it would pick up 100 charter passengers in Manchester for a five day holiday in Toronto. The aircraft would then fly empty from YYZ to Oshkosh for the five day air show, before returning to YYZ to bring home the passengers to MAN. At Manchester another 100 charter passengers were then carried subsonically back to London. While the aircraft was in Canada and the US, it would be looked after by two American BA engineers who were based at JFK. At least that was the plan, but the best laid plans of mice and men\x85.
The aircraft was catered for the MAN-YYZ sector in London, and flew up to Manchester with just the three flight deck crew but no cabin crew (no passengers, so no need). At Manchester there would be a change of crew, plus a full complement of cabin crew for the on-going sector to Toronto (Plus of course 100 passengers). This is where things started to go rather wrong; when the aircraft landed at Manchester one of the bar trolleys , which had not been correctly secured by the catering twits, broke loose and flew through the open flight deck door (pre-911 the door was usually always open anyway). The trolley hit the back of the E/O\x92s chair and subsequently damaged a couple of fuel transfer switches on his panel. You can imagine what the three crew thought; they were just landing the aircraft when a high speed trolley decides to join them on the flight deck in an extremely noisy and spectacular entrance. (The language went something like \x91what the ***** was that!!). The two switches, although damaged still operated normally, and so the crew taking the aircraft to YYZ decided to accept the aircraft with just a couple of ADDs for the broken but still funtional switches.
So the aircraft, plus FOUR flight crew (an extra crew member, a captain in this case, was taken along to do the PR over the PA, as was usual on charter operations). Everything seemed to be going smoothly, or so it seemed, when there was a warning that the number 2 secondary nozzle \x91buckets\x92 had travelled towards reverse (the blue transit light was flashing) although the indicator on the E/O\x92s panel still apparently showed the nozzle at the correct zero degree position for supersonic flight. As always (at least with BA!!) the correct drill was applied, and a precautionary engine shut down was carried out. This now meant that the aircraft would have to decelerate to subsonic speed, and as a consequence would not be able to reach YYZ safely, and so a technical diversion to YQX (Gander NFLD) was carried out, the aircraft and passengers having an unscheduled night stop there. (This eating into the first night of the passengers stay in Toronto). The two JFK engineers who had been waiting patiently in YYZ had to quickly jump on a Lear Jet to Gander, and on arrival there got on the phone to London, that\x92s where I come in. The nozzle itself had not run away at all, it was merely an indication problem, but we all decided that the best course of action for now was to have the secondary nozzle physically locked at the intermediate position of 10 degrees as a performance ADD. This would still allow supersonic operation (although from YQX to YYZ there would be precious little of that), but with a fuel penalty of at least 1.5 tonnes per supersonic sector, plus of course no reverser operation on that engine. I still had concerns about the aircraft being able to return on the YYZ to MAN sector with a bucket locked out, but at least the passengers could now start their delayed holiday in Toronto, and the aircraft could happily fly on to the wilds of Wisconsin.
Every day during the EAA fly in, Concorde would do some charter flying, and the JFK guys would be on the phone every day letting us know how things were going. It seemed now that the secondary nozzle defect had \x91cleared up\x92 on it\x92s own, and the guys had decided to reinstate the secondary nozzle air motor to its normal position. We were all very apprehensive about this, and started to think about what the possible cause of the original defect was and maybe see about provisioning a spare part if necessary. On the final day of the EAA event, the aircraft was taxying out when another warning light for the number 2 bucket illuminated. The aircraft returned to the ramp where the JFK engineers again locked out the air motor at 10 degrees before leaving on its charter. We had discussions over the phone as to what the symptoms were, and it looked like the culprit was the switch pack that lived underneath the bucket assembly. I spent several hours getting spare parts shipped via MAINTROL to YYZ, the idea being that the bits could be flown out to Toronto on the next scheduled subsonic flight. It was generally agreed that the aircraft could not fly the YYZ-MAN sector with a bucket locked out due to performance considerations and so a fix was essential. (The spare parts included by the way the two switches that had been broken on the first landing into Manchester).
I was at the airport until quite late that night making sure that from the information that we\x92d been given the correct course of action had been chosen, and I only got about four hours of sleep before I had to head back to Heathrow the following morning. I had a feeling that I\x92d be possibly be asked to fly out to Toronto (the JFK guys requested this also) , so I took my passport, a change of clothes etc. with me just in case. Sure enough before I knew it I was on the 10:30 BA001 Concorde to JFK, a Limo taking me immediately across town from JFK to La Guardia. From there I was put on an Air Canada A320 to Toronto, arriving there at about 14:30 local time. (19:30 \x91my\x92 time, I was knackered already). When I got to our Concorde the JFK guys told me that the bits I\x92d sent the previous evening were stuck in Canadian Customs, and it took another hour or so to get our hands on them. We proceeded to get her \x91fixed up\x92 between us, and by about 20:00 local we were serviceable. I phoned the crew at the hotel, telling them of the good news, and was told that as soon as I\x92d checked in and had a shower, we were all going out to dinner (my body clock was now at 02:00). Now the flight crew and cabin crew are well [FONT='Calibri','sans-serif']acclimatised, having been in Canada and the States for FIVE days, but I am now a total wreck, (more so than usual), and w hen I finally got to bed it was around midnight Toronto time (05:00 London time). Now no one (including me) expected to see me for the 07:30 pick up from the hotel in the morning, but somehow I miraculously made it. Because one passenger had gone home to Manchester early, there was a seat available for me on the aircraft (I\x92d expected to have had to fly home subsonic, due to the only other available seat being the flip down flight deck aisle seat; to have sat there for over four hours would have been less than pleasant). So all I now wanted to do was get on the aircraft, collapse into my seat and SLEEP, but I had to wait until all passengers had boarded before I was allocated my seat; 26B right at the back of the aircraft. So here I go, getting onto the aircraft in what I thought was total anonymity when as I get on board the purser in the fwd. galley announces that \x91this is Mr Dude who flew out yesterday from London especially to make sure we don\x92t have to divert again\x92. I just wanted to die as I have to walk the gauntlet of 99 passengers all clapping and cheering all the way to the back of the aircraft, my face as red as a beetroot, and when I finally get to my seat I find that I am sat next to this really lovely elderly lady who wanted a blow by blow account of what had gone on, as well as a running commentary on the flight itself. (Of course alll I wanted to do was sleep, I was totally exhausted, but this old lady was absolutely delightful). About an hour after take-off one of the stewardesses informs me that the crew want me up front urgently, so here I go again walking the length of the cabin up to the flight deck. As I go in the guys said \x91I thought you\x92d fixed the *** ing thing.\x92 \x91I did\x92 replies yours truly, and I took a look at the flight deck panels and everything is normal. The four guys are killing themselves laughing, \x91fooled you\x92 , the flight engineer chirps up with (everything was fine, the joke was on me yet again). I once more stagger back to my seat, and for the rest of the flight I keep my lady passenger friend entertained with Concorde stories all the way back to Manchester. At Manchester there is another few hours wait before we FINALLY fly back down to Heathrow, with yet another load of passengers and I finally go home to bed. In all of my Concorde years I\x92d had many exhausting episodes, but Toronto \x9294 really took the biscuit.

Dude

Can't remember a lot of my 20,000 hrs. as pilot but will never forget paxing on Concorde 20 years ago between Washington and Heathrow. Spent the last 2 hours of the flight standing in the flight deck behind the jumpseat ( occupied by an ATCO on famil.). Captain allowed me to remain in situ for the landing, I'm grateful to have experienced an era in aviation where we could share our work environment with colleagues and passengers alike.

arearadar

...As an ATCO we had very specific instructions about how to deal with a Concord(e) radiation overdose. We were told that it would have to make an emergency descent and how to integrate it with other traffic as it descended and what the priorities were...

The display, on the radiation meter, was divided into three, coloured, sections.

\x95 GREEN .....00\x9610 millirems/hour....No action required.

\x95 AMBER ....11\x9650 millirems/hour....Alert ATC, prepare for possible descent.

\x95 RED ........51+....millirems/hour.....Descend out of high dosage flight levels.

If the "Red" level on the radiation meter was reached, this would also trigger the central M aster W arning S ystem to display a Red MWS RADN light, and also to sound the MWS gong.


The procedure to be followed was simply an Abnormal Procedure rather than an Emergency Drill .

\x95 AMBER .....Advise ATC that a descent might shortly be required.

\x95 RED .........Alert ATC, obtain clearance, and then descend.

So, even with an instantaneous radiation level in excess of 50 millrems/hour indicating, this was not thought to justify the risk of an emergency, uncleared, descent through flights levels possibly occupied by underflying aircraft, and, in fact, if the warning remained RED below 47,000 ft, the warning was deemed suspect, and the descent could be stopped.

It was of some concern that the sort of radiation levels that would trigger the radiation alarm might very well also be playing havoc with radio communications, particularly HF communications. The possibility of being unable to communicate with ATC was one that had to be considered, and so it was only under these circumstances, with both a Red MWS RADN warning and an ATC communications failure, that the Captain was permitted, at his discretion, to perform an uncleared descent.

It's comforting to know that you were prepared to deal with us if required, but unlikely, I would have thought, that your services would have been called upon in practice.


...Has any Concord crew ever had to do this?...

I not aware of any such descent incident, although obviously I can\x92t state definitely that one never occurred.

It wasn't unknown for the radiation alarm to go off, I\x92ve had it, briefly, twice, both times at lowish level over the sea on departure from JFK. On one occasion there was nothing at all to indicate what might have caused it, on the other, we had just overflown a rather large waste barge being towed somewhere!


Best Regards

Bellerophon

Zimmerfly
I have to echo Landlady's comments. This has really been done to death in various forums (yawn!) , and people forget (or perhaps never knew in the first place) just how much vital work the captain in question did for the whole Concorde operation. (Including for example, personally negotianing with HMG regarding BA taking over the Concorde support costs etc, and forming and heading up the division that saw Concorde transformed from a loss making burden into a major profit centre for the airline). Also he was GM Concorde Division and not Chief Pilot.
To answer Steve's original TECHNICAL question; you must remember that using fuel for trimming was to offset long term changes in the centre of lift and not any short term stabilty shifts during landing. (The combination of pilots and elevons coped with that quite admirably ). And around four tonnes WAS transfered into tank 9 after landing, in order to aid ground stability, particularly during disembarkation.
landlady
I hope you are having a great time sunning yourself ('aint jealous, honest ) and have a rum punch or two for me.

V1...Oops
This site you mentioned is definately worth a visit; there are some great images there.

Dude

No disrespect was meant for Captain Brian Walpole .

A quick Google search will reveal many interesting articles about him and his involvement with Concorde.

I went searching for Brian Walpole to read about the out-of-fuel incident and found this video. I don't suppose anyone has any footage of a barrel roll do they? Anyway, some excellent footage on the clip: YouTube - Concorde Captain talks about Barrel Roll

I've just started reading Genesis of the Jet , by John Golley again - for the third time. I'm sure you know it's about Sir Frank Whittle and the birth of the jet engine. In the introduction there is an account of a Concorde flight to Washington, that carried Sir Frank at the age of about 76. It concludes;

'After they landed at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, Captain Monty Burton addressed his passengers;
"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Washington on this fine afternoon. We have covered the 3900 miles from London to Washington in 3 hours 37 minutes, giving us an average speed of well over 1000 miles per hour. The maximum speed we achieved was 1340 miles per hour and our maximum height was 60,000ft, eleven miles above the surface of the Earth.

Today we have the great hour of carrying Sir Frank Whittle who invented the jet engine which made all this possible." There was a great round of applause and a bit of cheering, which was most unusual from Concorde passengers. When Monty Burton left the aircraft, an American passenger came up to him and said; "You know Captain, you've really put the icing on the cake for me. To travel on Concorde as a fellow passenger with Sir Frank Whittle is something I can relate to my grandchildren!"

Great book by the way.

Roger.

Hello again chaps and chapesses,

Having consumed enough rum punch to ensure that the guys at the Mount Gay distillery in Barbados stay in business for a long while yet, I was very pleased to return from holiday to see the thread still going and of course, still very interesting.

The photos from pax-man, (thank you!), brought back my own memories of AC, for that was the Concorde on which I did a round-the-world trip in 1988 with the lovely Captain Jeremy Rendell at the controls.

They also reminded me - since she is at Manchester - of taking her up to Ringway a few times when BA would surprise shuttle pax by putting a Concorde on the route as a last minute a/c change.... sheer delight and 100 Concorde grins every time! I sat on the f/d a couple of times going in to Manchester as I am a northern lass and began my flying career there, so the place holds a lot of fond memories for me. On the approach, you could see cars parked everywhere, all the roads and motorways jammed with spectators. It seemed like the whole of the north of England were there to welcome her in.

I realise that I did promise - a while ago now - a bit more information with regard to the RTW trips, so I am off to dig out some old diaries in the hope that I can relate some yarns for you all.

Whilst in BGI I was offered the opportunity to see Connie in the special hanger which they have for her over there, but I simply didn't have time this trip. Maybe I am putting it off... I know that it will be a very emotional experience to touch the galley tops again.... I am back in Barbados again next March, so I will go then..... although I know I will be crying when I have to say goodbye to her.

Happy to be back on line (I don't go in for all this keeping up with forums/facebook/e-mails whilst on holiday!) and happy to answer any cabin-related questions you may have.

Warm regards,
LL x

All due respect but this is the CONCORDE thread and it would be really nice if it could stay as such. If you wish to debate wing technology of other aeroplanes then please I would suggest a new thread be started on that subject. I daresay it would also make for an interesting discussion.
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LandLady said in a post many moons ago that there was a pool of some 240 "Concorde Ambassadors" (sorry but CC and FAs don't sound right for this aeroplane) for Her. What was the numbers of Captains, First Officers and the all important Flight Engineers (sucking up to M2 with that one )

Does anyone know how long did it take to fly from NZ (AKL if I remember correctly) to SYD (very early 90s I think). It is about the same distance at John O Groats to Lands End so I am guessing the 20 to 25 minute mark and how did the 2mt piece of rudder parting company with the fuselage at Mach 2.04 over the Tasman Sea affect or effect the handling characteristics? I remember the papers saying it was hardly a noticable event but I suspect the BA publicity department had a hand with that information.

I looked at the photos posted by a thoughtful member in an earlier post and wonder how former crew felt looking at them. The photos give the impression that you could kick the tyres and light the fires and they would be once again gracing the skies. Obviously they are unairworthy BUT the photos project a different image.

Final one for this post. If She was still flying, do you still think that BA (sorry but going to ignore AF on this one) would have sufficient patronage to keep Her as a going and profitable concern?

I would say that the SR-71, and the Tu-144, are in a way honorary members of the Concorde family, so I don't mind if they fly into the discussion every now and then.

The full list of names (up to 2002) for both BA and AF can be found in "The Concorde Story" by Chris Orlebar. For BA, a quick count shows about 170 names. That book also mentions, that the maximum number of crews qualified at any one time was 28, in 1980, and that the average was about 20 crews.

Photos can lie.... or rather, they are rarely close-up enough to show clearly where corrosion has set in.

As an example, F-BVFC at Toulouse, which was the last one to remain at least taxyable, now has some patches of corrosion starting to show, when you know where to look. Not to mention the nasty smell of damp and mould in the cockpit which bodes no good for what's going on underneath the floor.

And even F-BTSD, kept "live" to some extent at Le Bourget, leaks some hydraulic fluid (like all Concordes did on the ground), so it's easy to imagine the dried-out hydraulic and fuel seals on the other museum aircraft.




And yes, that's kitty litter...
The composite material of the floor and the hydraulic fluid don't agree too well.

I'll leave M2dude to answer that one.

CJ

Nick Thomas

... Am I right in assuming that TLA stands for throttle lever angle? ...

Yes. TLA was a TLA for throttle lever angle.


... did setting the throttles to a certain angle then give a known thrust setting? ...

Yes, the calculated thrust required at the noise abatement point. The TLA was calculated by the NHP (as part of the take-off performance calculations) and later cross-checked by the Captain and F/E.

I don\x92t know whether it is audible on the DVD, but the checklist question was \x93Clock and TLA bugs\x94 .

If not already set, the Captain and F/O would set the noise abatement time on their respective (countdown) clocks and the F/E would cross-checked them, and, if not already set, the F/E would set the TLA bugs (on an engraved scale on either side of the throttle quadrant) to the noise abatement setting and the Captain and F/O would cross-check him.

The checklist response was \x94Set\x94 .


Best Regards

Bellerophon

Nick Thomas
Jeepers Nick, I must have about a million, but I'd like to share a few here. (Some of them I have prattled on about before in this thread, so I apologise for any repetitions).I suppose my very FIRST Concorde image would have to be in Swindon in 1970, when I was this young RAF 'erk' at nearby RAF Lyneham; I heard this loud roar in the sky over what is now Debenhams, and looked up and saw for the very first time Concorde 002, along with her attendant Canberra chase plane.
My next memorable image was at Fairford in the summer 1974. (No longer a young RAF erk, but a still fairly young lad now working for BAC). I'd seen quite a few spectacular take-offs in my short time at BAC, but A/C 101 (G-AXDN) was being flown by a French DGAC pilot (I forget the gentleman's name I'm afraid) and did the most amazing of take-offs. It was the clearest of blue summer skies, and this guy rotated 101 and just climbed steeply into the Gloucestershire sky, and climbed and climbed until she was virtually out of view; truly memorable.
Another image that I will never forget is the view of Concorde taking off from JFK RW31L, viewed from the right side of the runway sat in a truck (I did this dozens of times and never tired of watching the spectacle). It always amazed me how ANY airliner could turn and climb that amazing fashion, and would try and keep her in view as she did an almost complete circuit around JFK. (But I found the view from the aircraft, when seated in the supernumerary seat just behind the captain even more amazing. You'd looked out of the rear L/H window and see nothing but the water of Jamaica Bay going by, very fast and VERY close).
Another GREAT image was in 1995; on a special test flight on-board G-BOAD out of LHR. I was sat on the flight deck with the three guys (just us four on the whole aeroplane) and we were positioned just aft and to the left of the BA189 Concorde service to IAD. We started the supersonic acceleration together, but as we peeled off south for our extensive test flight, the BA189 (can't remember for the life of me the registration) just seemed to streak ahead just like the Starship Enterprise, and was out of sight completely quite soon after that.
And I shall never forget the very sad view of the last ever Concorde take-off, watching from the side of Heathrow RW 27R in November 2003. OAF took off with all her usual grace, but symbolically just disappeared into the overcast, dark and gloomy sky. My own final personal image after 33 years of watching Concorde is that the aviation world, just like that November sky, is a far gloomier place without her.

Best regards
Dude

Nick Thomas
It really was totally amazing Nick, both when viewed from the ground and ESPECIALLY from the 'jump seat'. (We are talking pre-9/11 here of course). The problem was, the likes of my friend EXWOK made it look far too easy at first sight, but when you looked at the event more closely you realised that it was really a combination of a superbly manoeuvrable aeroplane and some superb, highly co-ordinated and disciplined flying by the three guys up front. (After experiencing my very first '31L' in the early 90s, after the turns and throttling were complete I remember saying to the captain 'can we do that again Chris, CAN we? ).
It used to be quite interesting at JFK, comparing the take-offs of Concorde and the 'blunties', as EXWOK affectionately refers to the subsonics. You always asked yourself 'if Concorde can do that why can't the rest? But again, as EXWOK said, 'it's just not the same'.

Best Regards
Dude

We wish!

L&B was done by the flt crew on charters; if the flight had a PR flt crew member on board it was his job, otherwise it was the NHP's. (Unless the Captain was the NHP when it became the SFO's job.....)

At some BA stations arrangements might be made to get a L&B through company, but generally for charter flights we operated the way charter companies did!

Edit: Actually, I now recall we did sometimes get a dispatcher sent to UK stations occasionally. No big deal, either way - you just got on with it.