On Fri, 28 Nov 2003 at 14:15:47 in message
, Paul Sengupta
wrote:

As I said in another post, I went to see it take off, didn't go to see it
land.
A sad day. Did you see it? Filton weren't allowing arrivals at all on the
day and there was a NOTAM with a 7 mile 4000ft restriction.

Yes we saw it, I posted separately.

Must have been great when it first started flying. All the hopes and dreams
of the future. It was a year before I was born. My "defining moment" as
far as Concorde was concerned was when Blue Peter (children's TV
programme for those reading outside the UK) had live (?) coverage of
when the BA and Air France Concordes flew transatlantic and met
nose to nose...1977?

Yes it was but the oil crisis which sent fuel prices soaring and the
activities of the anti people, here and in the USA and that no country
would allow supersonic flight over its land meant that it would never
sell enough to recoup its costs.

What was Brian like as a person? I've read his autobiography and would
have loved to have been able to sit and listen to his stories in person.

He was great and very kind, however he was not very talkative. If you
met him in the street you might well think he was a successful farmer
rather than a test pilot. I knew him best when he was General manager
at Filton and I did a similar job in the weapons division.
I've
met Bob Hoover, now I want to meet Neville Duke, Chuck Yeager, and
maybe Neil Amstrong :-) ... just to say I've met them. Read Bob Hoover
and Chuck Yeager's autobiographies, in the middle of reading Neville Duke's.
One chap I work with occasionally at Brooklands Museum is Spud, who
was Barnes Wallace's assistant. He's now 86 (? Something like that) and
he's been working on the site since he was 14!

I have a friend in Philadelphia who is an ex test pilot, flight
instructor and Commercial pilot. He knew Chuck Yeager. Many years ago I
went to a talk in London by Chuck Yeager. I can't remember all the
details but at one point he said (referring to a flight when the
aircraft tumbled at high altitude), "After I uncaged my eyeballs!"

In the summer I visited the Neil Armstrong Space Museum at Wapakaneta in
Ohio which is his home town, quite a small town but he was born there
and I believe still lives there. The Museum is quite good.

If you want to see a few pictures and read some pdf files about my
Concorde ride and my short 'flight' in the Concorde simulator go to my
rather amateur web site at

http://www.dclf.demon.co.uk/
--
David CL Francis