For my birthday in 2021 my folks and I took a trip to the fabulous Brooklands Museum in Weybridge, Surrey, England. It was the first time I had seen Concorde and what a sight it was! and thanks to a very kind member of staff from the Concorde Experience I got a free mini tour of inside the aircraft 🙂
The G-BBDG or ‘Delta Golf’ at Brooklands was the first British production Concorde and the very first aircraft to carry 100 passengers at Mach 2 – magnificent!
These afterburners burned an amazing two tonnes (4,400 lb) of fuel (almost 2% of the maximum fuel load) just taxiing to the runway – it was highly inefficient at low speeds which contributed to the enormously high cost of running Concorde
The Concorde’s big tyres are rated to a maximum speed on the runway of 250 mph (400 km/h) and the whole undercarriage had to be unusually strong and tall to allow for the angle of attack at low speed
The Rolls-Royce/SNECMA Olympus 593 engine’s of the Concorde (two under each wing), it can reach a max speed of Mach 2.04 (1,354 mph, 2,179 km/h)!
Information plaque about Concorde’s engine, the Rolls-Royce/SNECMA Olympus 593
The wing of the Concorde and a close up of engine nozzles. The nozzle consists of tilting cups that alter the air intake as the engines go between take-off, supersonic flight, landing and shut down
Only 20 of the iconic Concorde aircraft were built between 1965 and 1979, 6 of these were prototypes and used for test and development, the other 14 were split between British Airways and Air France, this plaque inside the aircraft lists where those 20 Concordes are today
The rear cabin that would usually hold 60 seats has been converted to a small museum with lot’s of information about Concorde
The foreward cabin holds 40 people. The unusually small windows of the aircraft were designed that way to reduce the rate of decompression in the event of a window breakage
Dining on the Concorde passengers experienced a ‘no expense is spared’ luxury menu and at around £5500 for a round-trip flight from London to New York (that would be around £9000 in 2020) you would expect no less!
According to my guide who was a ex Concorde flight attendant, Luciano Pavarotti had problems fitting into the compact toilet aboard this very Concorde!
Entering the complex cockpit of the Concorde (I was lucky and got to go right into the flightdeck as seen in the next photo!)
The mind-boggling flightdeck of the Concorde where three crew members operated – the pilot, the first officer & the flight engineer
The nose and visor of the Concorde which could change positions through the different stages of the flight
There she is – the most beautiful passenger aircraft ever made!
