We finished our last trip at Manchester airport. There we had our personal guided tour of Concorde. Seemed fitting to begin this trip on another Concorde. The Scottish Concorde.
Well as you may expect Concorde is Concorde.
(Reminder… Concorde never takes a definite article. It is not The Concorde, or A Concorde. It is always just Concorde. Not even sure if you can call it THE Scottish Concorde. Perhaps it is just Scottish Concorde. I may never know.)
Not sure I added anything much to my Concorde-ing but was lovely to walk through another one.
Well as you may expect Concorde is Concorde.
(Reminder… Concorde never takes a definite article. It is not The Concorde, or A Concorde. It is always just Concorde. Not even sure if you can call it THE Scottish Concorde. Perhaps it is just Scottish Concorde. I may never know.)
Not sure I added anything much to my Concorde-ing but was lovely to walk through another one.
The big highlight for us though was discovering an old Comet IV jetliner on the ancient airbase. The comet was the plane we flew on from England back in 1965. The Comet had an amazing history from its first flight in the late 40s till retirement in the 80s. This one we discovered last flew in 1985 and made the last ever flight into this airbase. It has not moved since - and it shows.
The Comet was the first ever jetliner. It beat the Boeing 707 by years. Being the first has its own problems and many crashed in the early days. The airline industry owes lots to those who died in the crashes. Todays airliners are so much safer because of the lessons learned.
We flew in an updated Comet. The Comet IV-c, just like this example here. Now things become interesting. It took under 30 hours to make this trip in 1965. Almost 7 hours of the trip time was spent in transit lounges. Beirut, Karachi, Bombay (old name in 1965), Singapore, Darwin. Flight time was about 23 hours.
Hmmm our 777-300ER from ADL to GLA with 2 hours in DXB is 23 hours. Interesting comparison from 53 years ago.
The Comet was the first ever jetliner. It beat the Boeing 707 by years. Being the first has its own problems and many crashed in the early days. The airline industry owes lots to those who died in the crashes. Todays airliners are so much safer because of the lessons learned.
We flew in an updated Comet. The Comet IV-c, just like this example here. Now things become interesting. It took under 30 hours to make this trip in 1965. Almost 7 hours of the trip time was spent in transit lounges. Beirut, Karachi, Bombay (old name in 1965), Singapore, Darwin. Flight time was about 23 hours.
Hmmm our 777-300ER from ADL to GLA with 2 hours in DXB is 23 hours. Interesting comparison from 53 years ago.
The Comet was fascinating to walk through. It was also quite emotional. So many memories wound up in the tiny shell. It is quite different to a 777 and its 3 seats, 4 seats, 3 seats for 10 across with 2 aisles. The Comet is exactly half the width. 2 seats, aisle and 3 seats. Look at the pictures. The space in the Comet seats are not that different from the 777.
The final thing to stretch out brain at the airbase was to look back in Concorde. Look at the seats there. There is not much more space for sitting in Concorde’s 2+2 seating. The seats are nicer. But the space is not much nicer. The real hook there though is that you never ever spent 13 hours in Concorde. LHR - JFK was barely over 3 hours. I guess for 3 hours you can tolerate a tiny seat. Especially when you consider the people you will be sharing it with.
The final thing to stretch out brain at the airbase was to look back in Concorde. Look at the seats there. There is not much more space for sitting in Concorde’s 2+2 seating. The seats are nicer. But the space is not much nicer. The real hook there though is that you never ever spent 13 hours in Concorde. LHR - JFK was barely over 3 hours. I guess for 3 hours you can tolerate a tiny seat. Especially when you consider the people you will be sharing it with.
RSS Feed