same_difference | Concorde G-BOAF

Today I got to see the last flight of Concorde as it landed at Filton, never to fly again. I do feel privileged to have had the chance to experience that particular moment of history, or the end of that bit of history. The atmosphere at the time reflected this you could tell everyone there were glad they got to see it, and sad to see it grounded.

Actually seeing it in the flesh, so to speak, watching it fly around and then land was spectacular. There something so indescribably elegant about the way it moves, especially watching it come into land. It glided down as if it belonged in the air, was absolutely weightless and touched down perfectly.

After it had landed and eventually made its way back across the runaway it made a tour of the crowd with the pilot raising and lowering its nose on a regular basis to please the crowd. Almost everyone had camera's (I justify the almost, stupid tired Dom never thought about bringing a camera with him this morning) including the policemen watching the crowd and the guys from railtrack watching the railway.

The also had a Spitfire there entertaining the crowd while they waited for Concorde to come in. It was also very cool watching it do barrel roles and loop-the-loops (or however you spell it?). Whoever the pilot was he was very good. It flew back and forth across the airfield several times, and even made an effort to get some attention while Concorde was taxiing around, though most people barely paid it any attention that time.

As AlmostHonest pointed out its says a lot that while there grounding Concorde, spitfires still fly. Though I'm glad they do its, nice to see them still in the air. They're definitely a good looking aircraft as is concorde (yes I do believe that things line planes and cars can look good).

Then at the end there was some uninteresting but with speeches and a minor royal being made to hold things. Meh, though them trying to roll out the red carpet made an impressive bit of slapstick.

All in all an event I'm glad to be a part of something to tell the grandchildren/nieces and nephews about. Now I get to look forward to some time next year when I should be able to wander around inside it.

This is month four at airbus now and I'm glad I came here. I've be in a test plane, seen concorde land and now I need to wrangle some trips to Europe out of it.