Techsurvivors

Archives => 2003 => Topic started by: Highmac on October 24, 2003, 02:18:26 AM

Title: OT - Thinking of flying into Heathrow today?
Post by: Highmac on October 24, 2003, 02:18:26 AM

The last Concorde commercial flight is landing at Heathrow this afternoon (app 4pm UK time). In fact three will be coming in and official estimates are that upwards of 200,000 people will be jamming the motorways and other roads around the airport - most of us think that is far too conservative an estimate. The UK tour Concorde flew low over Coventry on Monday as it left Birmingham (Coventry is the home of Rolls Royce aero engines).  Great sound to hear... occasionally!

At the same time, you do wonder which dozy committee dreamed up the idea of landing them at Heathrow at the height of a Friday rush-hour   .

Sad to see it go - probably the last example of great British engineering (oh, all right, there was a leeeetle French involvement )

Title: OT - Thinking of flying into Heathrow today?
Post by: Bill on October 25, 2003, 01:46:26 AM

Saw on the tv that the concord line is no more.
Well?

Title: OT - Thinking of flying into Heathrow today?
Post by: krissel on October 25, 2003, 11:41:12 PM

Not everyone is sad to see it go.

QUOTE

For the 100,00 or so residents of southern Queens and part of Brooklyn, the memories are not nearly so grand.

The Concorde reached into their homes, teaching adults to glue their china to cabinet shelves, and into schools, teaching children the letters SST before ABC.

It was blamed for cracked ceilings, fuel sludge raining from the sky, shaken houses, rattling windows and sore eardrums, 8 a.m. weekend wake-up rumbles, infants wincing, trash can lids blowing off, car alarms...

goodbye Concord

Cheers

 

Title: OT - Thinking of flying into Heathrow today?
Post by: ejc on October 26, 2003, 07:27:59 PM

[SIZE=14]

Hi Highmac,

Interesting for me to learn that Coventry is now the home of R-R Aero Engines. I worked in Parkside 1949 to 1955. It was then Armstrong Siddeley Engines - later subsumed into R-R. It's not improbable you never heard of Armstrong Siddeley - I go back a long way.
It was my first industrial experience after graduating. Lots of fun, and hard work too. Still have an old buddy from these times in Coventry.

Now live and work for a company making recip. compressors in Switzerland.

Here mechanical engineers still enjoy some respect!

Regards

ejc

Title: OT - Thinking of flying into Heathrow today?
Post by: Highmac on October 27, 2003, 01:45:29 AM

Hi ejc - afraid I've been around for a while. My only link with the aerospace industry was working on the staff newspaper for Hawker Siddeley Dynamics back in the 60s,  so I didn't really get into the technical side of things. Oh and I worked for a press agency at Heathrow 1959-1961, so I remember the Comets, Britannias, 707s - and the Lockheed Constellation which I alway thought was one of the most elegantly shaped planes of its time when it was in the air.

Krissell has a fair point - if the noise factor could have been addressed, Concorde might have had greater popularity. I lived near Upper Heyford when it was still a USAF base and remember the roar produced by a gaggle of F-111s on the odd occasion they used afterburners for take off!!