Onboard Concorde

Barbados is only one of a few places you can now see Concorde, and probably the best. Living in South Wales, UK., we would often see Concorde on test as the special Rolls Royce engines were made at Bristol. The wife had always wanted to go on it, but alas I'm not Simon Cowell!

Flying to Barbados prior to the Paris crash cost £4K return and afterwards £8K and that was one of the reasons that contributed to its downfall. You could leave the UK at 9am and arrive at Barbados 10 minutes before you took off!!! (time zone differences)

Here's some interesting facts:

In total, 20 Concordes were built and 14 flew commercially, 7 for France and 7 for Britain. Concorde travelled at more than twice the speed of sound (mach 2.0 or about 1520 mph). It was called  "Concord",  as the word means agreement between France and England and Tony Benn kept the 'e' at the end as it stood for excellence, Europe and England!

Concorde 001 (built in France) made its first test flight on March 2nd 1969. Concorde 002 (built in the UK) first flew on April 9th 1969. Concorde generally flew between 40-60k feet.

The only reason for the dipping nose was so the pilot could see the runway! The other fact I like is the plane stretched 7" in mach flight due to the heat friction!

Air France crashed at Paris Airport on July 25th 2000 after debris from a punctured tyre ruptured the fuel tank killing  113 people.

Concordes last flight was 17 November 2003 to Barbados where it is now on permanent display and is the best condition and could be flown again with the least maintenance.

The blip picture is of me and Mrs BB sat on Concorde. I was surprised by how compact the cabin is, I almost had to duck walking along!

Afterwards we went for a coastal drive and the extra pic is of a disused lighthouse on the East (Atlantic) coast.