Extra baggage and 60 kilos of newspapers had also been loaded without the knowledge of the crew, which meant the aircraft was a ton-and-a-half over the maximum take-off weight. The reconstruction team at Brooklands, led by Gordon Roxburgh, gave the Surrey students the job of reconditioning the air intakes. So they set-to stripping them down, repainting and re-assembling both port and starboard intakes a task they completed in the summer of 2005, see Figs 2-3 below. I have to say they and Ross put in many, many more hours that I did but it was great experience forming friendship bonds that have lasted to this day and the start of formal relations between the University and the Museum. A US project dubbed Boom Overture, which resembles Concorde, could be a contender. Still in the design phase, it aims to carry 80 passengers at Mach 1.7 - making it slower and smaller than Concorde. "I just hope they offer me a ride," adds Mike, smiling. As boss of the UK Concorde fleet, Mike was closely involved in trying to unravel what had happened in France. He discovered considerably more fuel had been pumped into the aircraft than there should have been and that one fuel tank had ruptured from within.

At feet you see the of the quarter of square "I'd wanted to fly from the age of seven, so to pilot Concorde was a dream come true. I can remember taking her up for the first time in training at RAF Brize Norton. With no passengers or baggage, the aircraft weighed 120 tonnes, but she could carry 65 more tonnes, so we had 65 tonnes of excess thrust available - that's a lot of power. When Concorde’s retirement was announced it was Mike who masterminded the celebrations, flying the last ever Concorde scheduled flight in October 2003. When, after that terrible crash, the cause had to be established, Mike was a member of the British team that was part of the investigation. And when the French-led investigation led to unsafe criminal convictions, Mike was the expert witness whose evidence help see them overturned, while at the same time as restoring the reputation of his beloved aeroplane. Concorde was part of my childhood. I had a poster of the aircraft on my bedroom wall along with the insignia of all the airlines who planned to buy it. I remember seeing its first flight on TV, and thinking when it was announced that its first commercial flight would be delayed until 1976 like that seemed a lifetime away - time passes so much more slowly when you’re young! So the chance to read this book by a man who flew Concorde was irresistible.Above all it is a thrilling, revelatory, intimate and insightful account by the man who knew her best. We were flying faster than the Earth rotates, so we left London in pitch dark and arrived in New York in broad daylight," Mike continues. The author dreamed of being a pilot as a child and first flew the VC10 when he joined BOAC, a predecessor. The VC10, Britain’s answer to the Boeing 707, with its four engines at the rear was another elegant aircraft. There are thrilling descriptions of the author's flight training for the VC10 on the west coast of Ireland when they flew towards land and straight at the cliffs rising from just above the stormy seas and raising the nose at the last moment to clear the cliff tops. But the brilliant cross-Channel avionic collaboration first forged in 1962 was tested to the limit when one of the French aircraft crashed shortly after take-off in Paris in 2000, killing 113 people. This book is in effect a partial biography of the Concorde aircraft, at least the part when it was operational. Mike Bannister was a pilot for over 20 years and started not long after Concorde came into service. By the time he finished, he had risen to a management position that allowed some flying time and was well a huge part of the investigation into the Paris accident in 2000 which grounded the aircraft for over a year.

With nearly a quarter of a century’s experience flying the world’s only successful supersonic airliner, there’s no one better qualified to tell her story.

Part celebration, part history, part detective story and part courtroom drama, it's almost as riveting as flying in Concorde itself - almost . . . I am not a plane buff. I have never been to an airshow. But I do live on planet earth, and am old enough to know Concorde. If the author is as good a pilot as he is a writer, I want him flying me. He is a better writer than a lot of actual writers, and he is WAY better at narration than most professionals. He is better than 99.9% of author narrators too. The book is both Mike’s journey and the story of Concorde. In detail he describes the latter’s change in fortunes from loss-making behemoth to profitable national icon. An interesting area was discussion of the 1980s BA revamp under Lord King. Concorde thereafter gained a new lease of life, notably branching out into the lucrative charter market.

Take the Brooklands Concorde Experience and see inside the world's most famous aircraft. Re-live the excitement of the supersonic age in this fascinating 25-minute tour, evoking emotional memories.The doomed Concorde had run over a piece of metal which had fallen from another aircraft on to the runway. For all the books written on Concorde, it is surprising that until now there has been none written by Mr Concorde himself, Mike Bannister. As someone who spent 22 years on the aircraft, rising from First Officer to Chief Pilot his perspective adds a new viewpoint to the existing material. An excellent read. For a change, I listened to the audiobook version, narrated flawlessly by Mike himself. Neil Armstrong observed it was an amazing technological achievement, and that whilst flying to the moon had lasted only a few years, Concorde was in service for nearly 30 years. Loved and missed like no other aeroplane, Concorde is part celebration, part history, part detective story and part courtroom drama.