This is an event that will never happen again. I was one of the lucky ones to witness Concorde at Teesside Airport on a crisp November day in 1982. It was a majestic sight at this tiny airport.
Photograph and details courtesy of Ian Pirie.
Picture Stockton Archive 
I was there and what a sight to see it taking off the only trouble with it is that the Americans did not build it (they were envious) otherwise it might have kept on being improved and a version could still be flying today
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Only 9 Concordes were sold to BA and Air France, the total cost being £207 million. The development programme cost six times as much.
Up to the time of the crash BA were making an operating profit on flights but this in no way covered the initial expenditure. BA retired Concorde well before the scheduled date as the modifications etc were too heavy a financial burden.
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14 Concordes we’re operational, BOAC and AF had 7 each. 20 were built in total.
They had orders for 100, which enabled them to press on with development as the costs would be recouped by the volume of sales.
Noise complaints globally and a ban in the USA killed the sales, obviously after development work completed, and the orders were cancelled leaving the UK and French governments to carry the development cost burden.
Such a shame as it proved very profitable in operation after a shaky start, from 1983 to 2003, including for 3 years after the AF disaster, when BA Concordes were retired.
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My dad worked at the airport as a baggage handler back then so he could be one of the guys in the yellow overalls.
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I was on Concorde.
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Jim you were lucky. Was the Teesside flight an effort to drum up interest, with Concorde replacing a normal flight to Heathrow? One of my work colleagues came down, in such a fashion, in Concorde, from Edinburgh. At that time the usual plane was a BA146.
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I flew on the Concorde from Heathrow to JFK in 1978. Other than the time of the flight (3hr 27min gate-to-gate) it was much more impressive on the outside than it was on the inside. It was actually very small inside – 25 rows of two seats on either side of the aisle. The windows were very small and as it didn’t head up to much 2 until we were over the ocean I didn’t feel any ‘thrust’.
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Looks magnificent, but doomed to be an engineering as well as a commercial failure. Concorde was essentially the medium range supersonic transport that the French wanted, but “stretched” by the British to increase passenger numbers with Trans Atlantic capability. The Olympus engine, which dated from the late 1940s did not have the thrust to make this really practical.
Was down on speed, cruising altitude, and range from the original projections. On hot days flying out of Washington, passenger numbers had to be below 70. Nominal passenger capacity was kept at about 120.
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It was actually a commercial success, and widely regarded as an engineering triumph.
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Superb photo. I also saw Concorde take off and land at Teesside Airport back in the day – magnificent aircraft well ahead of its time. Thanks for sharing the photo. Pamela Simpson-Howard
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