+ ON TOUR: Concorde by Mike Bannister

Piloted by André Turcat, Concorde (singular) first flew from Toulouse 2 March 1969, 54 years ago and made its final sortie 26 November 2003 from Heathrow to Bristol Filton.  

In total 20 were built and one sadly lost.  Pulsating, environmentally unfriendly, its withdrawal from service was inevitable, if perhaps slightly premature. But quoting Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon (same year but a bit later – 20 July 1969), at a London pilots’ gathering, he had this to say. “From a technical perspective, Concorde was as big a challenge as putting a man on the moon, a different kind of challenge certainly, but in terms of innovation in aerospace technology, it was an equivalent challenge.”

Published late last year, in time for the Christmas reading market, with the inevitable simple title ‘Concorde’, the book landed on my desk as a family present and has taken time to read, but well worth the effort says TNU Editor in Chief Malcom Ginsberg, and a sometime Concorde passenger.  

Written by British Airways’ (BA) final Concorde chief pilot Mike Bannister, rather like the aircraft, it is open to criticism.  If you are not a flight deck person, you will find some of it heavy going, the 450-page tome much a social statement of transatlantic flying in the 1980s and 1990s as a supersonic jet manual.  Bannister’s banter on the aircraft’s human side borders on the hilarious.  Who can recall the late Bill Weaver (see below)?  And there is the case on ‘Finals’ of Princess Margaret pointing out that her sister was at home, the Royal Standard flying over Windsor Castle.

Similar books normally begin with a thank you to those who have helped with its publication, although Bannister’s wife Chris does feature on Page 1. It is really a fine book, but you should start your go-through with Page 438, Mike Badrocke’s dramatic cutaway, and if not a well briefed pilot, keep an eye on “Deeper Insight” for technical details Page 420.  

The acknowledgements do feature but are at the finale and certainly did not catch the eye of this reviewer.  Read the end papers first.  No mention of the team at Michael Joseph, the publisher, who presumably helped to put the book together, although unsolicited names are given for those Bannister called upon during its production.  

The ‘Prologue’ opens with the Bannister family about to board QE2 at Southampton on 25 July 2000.  An emergency call from BA meant a quick off-load.  It was also in the middle of the Farnborough Air Show.  Air France Concorde F-BTSC had crashed shortly after take-off from Paris Charles de Gaulle International Airport, 109 people on board dying plus four on the ground.
 
The book takes you from the original legal agreement between Britain and France in 1962 to 29 July 2012 when a Versailles Court overturned a previous decision back in 2010 which had blamed the crash entirely on Continental Airlines and a titanium wear strip 45cm long, 3cm wide and 3mm thick dropped from a departing DC10. Completely discredited is the French legal system and the Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses (BEA) the French air accident investigation authority. The Air France operational standards are called into question.    

Mike Bannister briefly describes the design of the aircraft and the difficulties surrounding the British and French attitudes towards the whole project.  There is a mention of the Sud Aviation Super Caravelle concept which formed the nucleus of the design, and not enough credit is given to Vickers at Brooklands, now a wonderful transport heritage site, eventually to produce about one third of the actual aircraft.  The 21st century custodians of the vintage British engineering brand now have the last laugh with the only complete Concorde simulator together with the original Bristol-assembled prototype.  

Bannister, now in his mid-seventies, and in many ways a BA historian, joined the BOAC/BEA Hamble pilot training school in 1967, a long-haul pilot when the two airlines merged in 1974 creating British Airways and finally retiring in 2004 at 55, at that time the end of the road for BA aviators. Well described is the machinations the airline’s pilot recruitment and training programme. The internal politics of crewing is discussed too. On the New York Concorde service the crew would overnight in a 5-star hotel (with a bonus), it being a three-hour-plus sector and  even with a four hour wait at JFK within permitted duty hours for a standard turnaround.  But any delay would have meant disruption. Concorde operated on time. A new team was ready to board once the aircraft was on the stand.  

Highly technical in places the book takes the reader through 27 years of BA/Air France service life, with many an amusing anecdote but also covers the internal BA ‘war’, those in favour of the aircraft, mostly in the ascendancy, and others opposed, for a variety of reasons.

Rather like its contemporary, the Vickers/BAe Harrier, people stopped to look at Concorde on take-off, landing and flying at low level.  It was this ‘whoosh’ factor that was to ultimately exonerate the aircraft when the final scene was played out in a Paris courtroom.

‘Concorde’ could make for a wonderful film highlighting the Tribunal, not the crash, the final sequence, a French finale.  It would with ‘Sully’ but without a heroic completion.  Who will play the Bannister role? Tom Hanks is probably too old.  Hugh Jackman has been suggested.  


A CONCORDE TALE

Bill Weaver was a test pilot who survived the breaking up of a Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance aircraft at 78,000ft and Mach 3.18, and welcomed into a Concorde cockpit (Mach 2 and 60,000ft) by the captain without telling the crew who he was.  “You have control,” he said, the bemused other two in the team looking on, and returned to sit in the jump seat for the landing.  He signed off with a social beer offer, the captain suggesting meeting up later at the Crown just outside the airport perimeter.  It was then revealed just who he was! He had gone a lot quicker than Concorde.


SPECIAL PLEA

British Airways, which will be 50 years old in March 2024, does have a little-known heritage centre at Waterside.  Brooklands would be a much more accessible home for its history, together with the resident Viking, Viscount, VC10, Vanguard and BAC 1-11, all of which would need to be in the correct colour scheme by this time next year.  The alternative is to build a museum around the BA Concorde G-BOAB grounded at Heathrow.  And replace “First Class” with Concorde Class” on the airline’s fleet.  Same product but better name.

www.heritageconcorde.com/g-boab-208

www.brooklandsmuseum.com

THESE WERE ADDED POST PUBLICATION

www.uwl.ac.uk/study/hospitality-tourism/heathrow-exhibition

www.britishairways.com/en-gb/information/about-ba/history-and-heritage

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READERS' COMMENT

All comments are filtered to exclude any excesses but the Editor does not have to agree with what is being said. 200 words maximum

Malcolm Ginsberg, Edgware

Since writing this article I have been made aware of the University of West London Heathrow museum in remote Ealing. Together with the British Airways heritage collection it does make sense in joining the two together, just by Concorde. https://www.uwl.ac.uk/study/hospitality-tourism/heathrow-exhibition https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/information/about-ba/history-and-heritage

Phil Smith, Uxbridge

I have flown the Bristol/Brookland simulator and must congratulate Captain Bannister in leading the team that put it together. Something needs to be done about G-BOAB at Heathrow. Does it pay rent?. A new managing director at the airport might want the space for something else and break it up!

James Rider, Windsor

Whilst I rather like the idea of the BA memorabilia finding a home at Brooklands, it is really a hardware exhibition. And whilst the idea of repainting the Oman VC10 is not daft, I think it is cheating a little. Hatton Cross by Concorde is much better and would become a plane spotters paradise. In my youth I went up to the roof terrace in T2.