Sun Oct 26, 2003 9:39 am My timing at airports was for once impeccable. As my return flight from Oslo came into land at Manchester Airport, I was surprised to see crowds of people on the ground in all sorts of improbable places. I suddenly worked it out and checked with the stewardess behind me - "Concorde?" I enquired. "Yes - it lands at 11.45" - that was about 5 minutes after us.
It was, in the best fitting tradition of British transport, 15 minutes late - but at 12.00 noon, Manchester Airport witnessed the final landing at this airport of one of the most glorious examples of cold-war technology - the first supersonic aeroplane. Even British Airways and airport ground staff were all out on the tarmac to watch on as a chapter of aerospace history came to an end.
Even at the end of it's 30 year life as the Queen of airplanes, it still resembles something mythical, glamorous and gorgeous - and I'm sure not the only one who had a tear in my eye as I walked away from the airport into my waiting taxi wondering: "When will we see anything that approaches this glamour in flying again?"
http://www.pbase.com/zanoni/concorde
