Spardo:
ParkRoyal2100:
That airplane still looks futuristic today even though that must be 1969/70(?). It’s one of a handful of designs that IMO really deserve the adjective “timeless”.Indeed it did, but were you ever near it when it took off? I tipped once not far from its runway and the noise was brain scrambling. My excuse anyway.
Not Concorde but did go to quite a few airshows where a Vulcan did its thing.
Spardo:
ParkRoyal2100:
Buzzer:
BuzzerThat airplane still looks futuristic today even though that must be 1969/70(?). It’s one of a handful of designs that IMO really deserve the adjective “timeless”.
Indeed it did, but were you ever near it when it took off? I tipped once not far from its runway and the noise was brain scrambling. My excuse anyway.
Back in about 1981 I was parked in a lay-by on the A77 close to Prestwick airport having a break, nothing really happening but all of a sudden I could hear the roar of a jet engine getting louder as it was getting closer
then I could feel the rumble through the cab & then Concorde appeared over the banking almost directly over where I was parked, it almost felt if I could have reached out & touched her, she was that close but obviously
a very safe distance away, she has to be the most graceful plane I have ever seen taking off and fly into the distance.
Spardo:
ParkRoyal2100:
Buzzer:
BuzzerThat airplane still looks futuristic today even though that must be 1969/70(?). It’s one of a handful of designs that IMO really deserve the adjective “timeless”.
Indeed it did, but were you ever near it when it took off? I tipped once not far from its runway and the noise was brain scrambling. My excuse anyway.
Yes, thankfully.
Used to regularly (un)load rental cars during the early 90’s at the several sites on the runway side of the perimeter road right probably 100 yards from the runway itelf, to be up on the top deck of the wagon early evening when Concorde took off was an experience you don’t forget, the sound and vibrations would go right through you, once she’d disappeared all you could hear was car alarms going off as your hearing returned.
If time was nearly up we’d park a bit further down the perimeter road on some waste ground, up to half a dozen of us, and have a pint or three in the club for one of the airlines, not a busy club by any means they seemed glad of the extra income and yes we behaved impeccably cos grateful.
ParkRoyal2100:
Buzzer:
BuzzerThat airplane still looks futuristic today even though that must be 1969/70(?). It’s one of a handful of designs that IMO really deserve the adjective “timeless”.
Not quite as close as you Buzzer, but there’s one a stone’s throw from where I park my truck. 
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dave docwra:
Spardo:
ParkRoyal2100:
Buzzer:
BuzzerThat airplane still looks futuristic today even though that must be 1969/70(?). It’s one of a handful of designs that IMO really deserve the adjective “timeless”.
Indeed it did, but were you ever near it when it took off? I tipped once not far from its runway and the noise was brain scrambling. My excuse anyway.
Back in about 1981 I was parked in a lay-by on the A77 close to Prestwick airport having a break, nothing really happening but all of a sudden I could hear the roar of a jet engine getting louder as it was getting closer
then I could feel the rumble through the cab & then Concorde appeared over the banking almost directly over where I was parked, it almost felt if I could have reached out & touched her, she was that close but obviously
a very safe distance away, she has to be the most graceful plane I have ever seen taking off and fly into the distance.
And the loudest? It was a noisy plane…
Capacity tiny as well but it did take commercial aircraft to another level.There are 3 things I remember watching on TV in a mass primary school assembly. Inaugural Concorde flight, launch of QE2 and investiture of Charlie.
What a contrast between Concord ( or Concorde if you prefer } to the Neanderthal FG in the foreground. I remember watching it take off from Heathrow in the mid 70s with Brian Trubshaw at the controls .
I never came even close to flying on one of them , ( chance would have been a very fine thing indeed ), and I have no idea how many were manufactured , but a few years before my retirement, I was engaged in the operation of emptying the John Ryland’s library in Deansgate Manchester and taking all the books and Egyptian manuscripts etc. from there to storage facilities in those underground salt caverns near Northwich .
On one particular afternoon , as I was returning back to Manchester from Northwich along the A556 , I heard this tremendous roaring sound , and when I looked up , I saw this bloody girt plane , seemingly only a few hundred feet above me and flying parallel with the A556 at what appeared to me to be little more than the speed at which I was travelling , although I realise that ground speed compared with air speed is often an illusion when viewed from the ground .
Turns out it was one of the last Concords on its final flight into Ringway .
The plane is still there, in its own hangar for people to view . There’s another one that I know of at Charles de Gaulle just outside Paris, and there’ll be many more of them dotted about the place I’m sure , but these are the only ones that I’ve personally seen .
Reading all your comments on this picture, it looks only the plane seems worth interest. Would the tanker be a S18? Gardner powered then? Thanks!
Eddie Heaton:
What a contrast between Concord ( or Concorde if you prefer } to the Neanderthal FG in the foreground. I remember watching it take off from Heathrow in the mid 70s with Brian Trubshaw at the controls .
I never came even close to flying on one of them , ( chance would have been a very fine thing indeed ), and I have no idea how many were manufactured , but a few years before my retirement, I was engaged in the operation of emptying the John Ryland’s library in Deansgate Manchester and taking all the books and Egyptian manuscripts etc. from there to storage facilities in those underground salt caverns near Northwich .
On one particular afternoon , as I was returning back to Manchester from Northwich along the A556 , I heard this tremendous roaring sound , and when I looked up , I saw this bloody girt plane , seemingly only a few hundred feet above me and flying parallel with the A556 at what appeared to me to be little more than the speed at which I was travelling , although I realise that ground speed compared with air speed is often an illusion when viewed from the ground .
Turns out it was one of the last Concords on its final flight into Ringway .
The plane is still there, in its own hangar for people to view . There’s another one that I know of at Charles de Gaulle just outside Paris, and there’ll be many more of them dotted about the place I’m sure , but these are the only ones that I’ve personally seen .
I saw a low pass by a Concorde at Hurn (Bournemouth) airfield. It had left Heathrow and was off to the USA, but did a visit to the airshow there. I`m sure that commercial flights are not allowed to do that sort of thing today.
Beautiful plane.
Apparently only 20 were built, and 6 of those were never used commercially, so a very small operating fleet. A very different type of aircraft, but there have been over 1,500 747s built.
We did a job at Heathrow in concords hanger whilst was driving for Shanks, amazing up that close to them, travesty that they are no longer flying, nothing like it before and nothing like it since.
This Austin van of McAlpines is stuck off Gathurst Hill in February 1962 during the building of
Gathurst Viaduct above the M6 Motorway just North of what is now M6 Junction 26.
The second picture is near the same location in more recent days.
Buzzer:
Buzzer
That little AEC Mercury, what a beautiful looking thing that is, I’d love to be able to put a shift in with it.
grumpy old man:
Buzzer:
BuzzerThat little AEC Mercury, what a beautiful looking thing that is, I’d love to be able to put a shift in with it.
Hi Grumps, I agree with you, I would like to have a crack in that AEC. 
Cheers, Ray.
grumpy old man:
Buzzer:
BuzzerThat little AEC Mercury, what a beautiful looking thing that is, I’d love to be able to put a shift in with it.
It would certainly bring back some memories GOM, at Shaw’s I drove an 8 wheeler with that exact same cab and, coincidentally, the same livery of red and maroon. The regular driver, known as Big Billy (there was a smaller one in the team 
) was near the end of his career. To my young eyes he appeared ancient rather than old, but after I had left and moved on I saw him again driving for another firm elsewhere in the country.
There were what appeared to be 3 generations of drivers at that small firm. The smaller Billy was called Billy Plop, because his teeth fell down as he spoke and he was constantly sucking them back in again with a plop. 
Then the driver of an Octopus completed the elderly lineup. 2 middle aged drivers had the green Dodge artics (the colours of C.E.Dormer of Leytonstone who had just bought the company) and then me with my blue 4 wheeler Albion of indeterminate parentage but was very long and thought to be a coach chassis originally. My mate George Milner with whom I had joined from Wimpeys when we were rained off the M1 construction, and Johnny Hancock. He later moved elsewhere to deliver one-armed bandits whereas George and I were later at Stirlands where he finished his career.
I warned you it would trigger memories. But that’s what the thread’s all about, isn’t it? 
My love of AEC’s started with the Mk 3 MM’s at Harrisons of Dewsbury (I just rode in them, I was only a van lad at the time) but then a few years later I got, brand new, the love of my life (in motoring terms ) Fred Chappell gave me 5177 WY as my regular motor, 6 wheel AEC Marshal tipper, Hendrickson double drive rubber bogie, 7.7 engine. I spent many happy hours in it.
First trip out I got pulled at the top of Alnwick Bank, Northumberland, a young police officer decided it was smoking an bit. “Pull in over there driver”. anyway after he’d tried to make it smoke (and failed) it was “on your way driver”
I had 2 smokey pulls. Once with Maurice Braddock’s 6 wheel Dodge tipper (K not LAD) near Leicester on the M1. He didn’t book me but told me to take it straight beck to the yard near Derby, no stops, no diversions.
The other was in my own little Ford van heading to France with a full load of stuff for the house. Going up that bank near Canterbury I couldn’t see him coming up from behind for all the smoke, but when he stopped me he said nothing about that, ‘just wanted to see what all that stuff was I can see through the back window mate, off you go’
