Trip to Concorde

In Bristol we are very lucky to have excellent examples of engineering, the Great Britain, the Suspension Bridge, and Concorde.

We took the no. 75 bus north to Filton, and walked down to the BAWA Centre to wait for the tour coach, which would take us inside the secure site, owned by Airbus UK.

Photographs are not allowed inside the Airbus UK main factory (in case we steal engineering secrets!) but we were taken on a brief bus tour, with a talk by Alan, the tour guide. Many of the buildings are now listed (which means they cannot be altered or knocked down).

On the underside of Concorde we can see the logos of Rolls Royce and SNECMA.

This is the first group of PANSA (Polish Air Traffic controllers), plus Pedro, a Spanish pilot. The guides particularly enjoy having students from within the aviation industry visit Concorde.

The complicated hydraulics of the nose landing gear.

Since Concorde has four engines, each of the instruments is multiplied by four. Shige is asking, "Is it really necessary to have so many switches to fly this thing?"

You can just see the brim of a pilot's cap in the picture. During supersonic flight, Concorde expands lengthwise by 15cm. On its last flight the pilot took his cap off and left it in the space created, and accidentally forgot to remove it before the plane's speed became subsonic again. Now his cap is stuck there forever!



Concorde's last flight: On its arrival at Filton members of the crew signed the cockpit door (strengthened after the 9/11 attacks) with goodwill messages.

The WC on Concorde (very small!)

Here we can see Bernard and Ahmad (with Rayan peeking out behind him!)