Fly Past

24 FLYPAST April 2018

MUSEUMS AEROSPACE BRISTOL

Speedbird

Showcase

Steve Beebee visits the recently opened

Aerospace Bristol – home to the last Concorde

and much more

I

f asked for memories of

Concorde – as new museum

Aerospace Bristol did in one of

its interactive projects – I would

gleefully recall the first time I

glimpsed the aircraft, at Coventry

Airshow in 1982. I remember

standing there as a child with

my dad watching this marvel

of engineering arcing towards

the flightline, slowing down

and cruising elegantly past our

widening eyes. A chorus of camera

shutters and the whine of its

engines provided the soundtrack.

“How close will it come?” I had

asked, fearful that I might not be

tall enough to see anything among

the crowds. “You’ll see the whites

of the pilots’ eyes,” I was assured,

and while that wasn’t quite true,

the aircraft’s appearance remains

pretty much stamped on the back

of my own retinas.

Even though Concorde first flew

long before I was born, it seemed

like a physical embodiment of

my time – a symbol of mankind

striving to go faster, higher,

further. Intoxicated by the

seemingly endless possibilities

that childhood imagination

Concorde G-BOAF is the star attraction at

Aerospace Bristol. AEROSPACE BRISTOL