Sad but true ...

This week marks the 40th anniversary of the maiden flight of Concorde 002 (the first British Concorde) from Filton, Bristol in April 1969. In the intervening years Concorde flew thousands of business travellers at supersonic speeds to close multi-million pound deals and in a style and comfort previously unknown in aviation. Concorde scorched passengers to New York in just 3.5 hours from Heathrow and won the hearts of all who loved design, imagination and technological advancement. It was a true icon of it’s time.

How sad it is then that Concorde, which was permanently grounded in 2002, was the last great hope for ground breaking science in aviation. In the first sixty years of the last century we saw advancements taking us from the first powered flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina to our first steps on the moon. In the subsequent 40 years we have only seen retrograde steps and boring, slow aircraft.

RIP manufacturing, RIP innovation, RIP Concorde.

Gareth