As a kid I remember watching on TV as Concorde touched down in Sydney. I was fascinated with its speed, its sleek shape and the awe it cast over all whom saw her. Never ever did I think that I would ever see one. Today, I have touched it, walked around it, preflighted it, and sat in it. Here is the story.
I am in Surrey in London for a Christmas holiday with the family, flying QF9 from Melbourne to London via Singapore. My three year old has a fascination with aviation, something that I use to every advantage where I can. I jumped on a website called dayoutwiththekids.uk and found a local museum that had some aircraft, cars, buses and bikes, and thought I would take her there. Clicking on the website took me to a fascinating world of transport and history.
The Brooklands museum is a large indoor and outdoor hands on museum. When it comes to buses and aircraft, you touch it, you climb in it, you learn all about it by helpful and knowledgeable volunteers. It also was a production line for Concorde fuse components. It was a major site for the automotive industry, with a banked track and long straights for high speed testing.
The website for the museum is
http://www.brooklandsmuseum.com and will give you a greater history. It has a fantastic Grand Prix, motorbike, bus and engine museum as well as the flightline.
Taking two visits to the site, the aircraft on display is very large and covers a full range of middle age commercial, private and military. The full list is here (
http://www.brooklandsmuseum.com/inde...kpit-sections/) but some highlights include Vickers Viscount, Wellington, Hurricane, BAC One Eleven, Vanguard,Varsity,VC10 plus a Harrier and of course Concorde. There are other Concorde frames around, but this (I am told) is the only one globally you can touch, feel, and enter. In addition there is a fully functional static simulator which can be flown upon arrangement and cost.
G-BBDG was Concorde #3 of the UK line and used extensively as a testbed and flight training bed for some time. She was handed over to the museum some time ago, which included being cut into several sections and transported to the museum, then rebuilt.
Walking around this beauty gives you a strange sense. It is high off the ground, long, sleek but it just looks fast. From the massive reverse buckets to the long and slender main gear, and the manta ray type wing, it is truly a unique piece of aviation history.
An additional entry fee gives you a guide tour outside and onboard. The tour starts in a shuttle bus, talking about how it came to be, construction and other basics. It then takes you up an external stair to the rear starboard galley door, where the galley and rear luggage area is removed. You then go through a display with internal panels removed, various parts and pipes visible. There is a short video about the construction of Concorde, the demise and the donation of the frame to the museum, and the major works to relocate it to the museum. You then move forward into the main cabin with real seats and controls. Each seat costs the museum $3000 pound, so they have removed the ability to recline. After the video you move past the toilet and coat locker, forward to the cockpit door and the forward doors. The cockpit on this frame is nearly complete, but glassed off. The photos in the link below are from the simulator in the tour after the main aircraft walk through.
I have taken a few photos and placed them on my Fotki site
http://public.fotki.com/agb06/concorde/
The quality is average due to wrangling a 2 y/o, 3 y/o and an 8 year old, associated bags and a D90 with external flash.
If you do go to London, make sure you visit this museum.