Concorde, was i think primarily “of its time”, and over the years came to symbolise the best in engineering and technical achievement.
I’m sure the youth of today, brought up with every conceivable electronic gadget and practically hooked to the web 24/7 wouldn’t see the attraction, but to me, growing up in South Oxfordshire, the 11 o’clock mid morning rumble served as a sort of informal reality check. It’s hard to believe these days, but back then we were probably quite isolated as children, with just a small group of local friends and the TV (somewhat rationed by parents worried we would get “googly” eyes!) to remind us of the rest of the world passing by outside.
So, we would often run outside, and watch, hands shading our eyes to try to spot the plane first, seeing it slice into view and carve overhead in a shallow north turning arc. We’d wonder who was on board? are the famous? would we recognize them? what were they going to do in the US that was so important they could afford to be transported by this amazing machine? (when we flew we just chugged around on tiny slow propeller planes!). The noise was incredible, visceral even. How could such a tiny thing, by that point often climbing up through and way above the cloud layer, make such a noise? Even when it was gone from sight the noise remained, echoing off and around us from all directions.
As a symbol it was unmatched, as an object it took on a personality all of its own, and for me, transcended its mere collection of mechanical and electrical parts. I suspect that this childhood wonder was at least partially responsible for my interest and subsequent career in Engineering.
When F-BTSC crashed at Gonesse in the summer of 2000, i was by then 26, but to this day remember feeling incredibly moved by the loss of the actual plane, and not just the 113 people killed. Wondering how a plane feels is, of course, completely illogical, but that is the feeling i had, such had been the draw of Concorde to us youngsters.
Like the Spitfire before it, Concorde stood for all that was new, high tech and futuristic and it eponymously demonstrated that two very different nations could work together to a common goal.
Sat here in 2013, its pure technical achievements have been surpassed, and commercial air transport has necessarily become a game of economics rather than just the application of technology. But back in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s Concorde WAS the future, a sum of far more than just its parts, an embodiment of the dedication put into the project by the men and women who developed it.
I never flew on it, but somehow i don’t regret that. We never called it “a Concorde”, to us it was simply “Concorde”, and our world would have been a poorer place without it.
