Pilot still fascinated by Concorde 50 years on

A Surrey pilot who became the youngest person to fly a Concorde says he is still fascinated by the supersonic plane, 50 years after its first commercial flight.

Concorde first flew passengers from London Heathrow on 21 January 1976 and ran for nearly 30 years before retiring in 2003.

Mike Bannister, who flew Concorde's last commercial journey, said that while it was sad that the plane had to be retired, he was excited for the next generation of supersonic travel.

Bannister, from Staines, said: "It's fascinating to think that Concorde was designed in the late 1950s and early 1960s and there's still nothing that can do all the things it could all that time ago."

Speaking at Brooklands Museum, where one of the planes is kept, Bannister added: "Most of our customers were business people or world leaders, but we really enjoyed carrying those people who were doing the trip of a lifetime because they were the ones who got really excited.

"Some passengers travelled so frequently that they would become friends of the crew. It was rather like a sophisticated club in the air."

After its first flights in 1976, Concorde began its signature route from London Heathrow to JFK airport in New York in November 1977.

Concorde flew nearly 50,000 times with more than 2.5 million passengers while in service with British Airways, according to the airline.

From 1985, Concorde also flew supersonic journeys from Gatwick Airport in West Sussex.

The supersonic aircraft, which flew at more than twice the speed of sound at 1,354mph (2,179 km/h), was retired in 2003, with Bannister captaining its last trip from New York to London on 24 October.

Bannister, 77, became the youngest person to fly Concorde when he took charge of the aircraft in 1977, aged 28.

Francine Carville, from Sunbury, was a member of the cabin crew for the first flight on 21 January 1976 and said that working aboard Concorde was "very exciting".

"I couldn't believe the number of people standing on the roads around the airport waiting for takeoff," she told BBC Radio Surrey.

She added: "We fell silent when we approached Mach 2 [twice the speed of sound]. The passengers all had a glass of champagne and clapped their hands and cheered when we reached it.

"Those passengers were all allowed to go up and visit the flight deck. Everyone was smoking cigars and having a brandy, and we arrived 10 minutes early."

Meanwhile, Concorde's first qualified female pilot was Barbara Harmer, who grew up in Bognor Regis.

After months of intensive training, her maiden flight as onboard first officer was to New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport in 1993.

She went on to serve for 10 years flying regular scheduled services with the aircraft, before swapping it for a Boeing 777.

Harmer died in 2011, aged 57.

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