コンコルドの話題
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BBCのニュースから、
Concorde cone fetches thousands
The fleet first took off in 1969
An Italian buyer has splashed out thousands of pounds for a piece of aviation history at a Concorde auction in Warwickshire.
News.telegraphのトップページより、
Concorde takes to the waves
Concorde began its final and slowest journey as the last of the decommissioned fleet to be moved to a new permanent home was ferried down the Thames on the way to a museum in Scotland.
The aircraft once hailed as the future of air travel floated through the capital on a 225ft barge en route to the coast where it will be carried up the North Sea to the Museum of Flight near Edinburgh.
For Golf Bravo Oscar Alpha Alpha (G-BOAA), which in 1976 had flown the first British Airways commercial supersonic flight and travelled faster than a speeding bullet between continents at twice the altitude of a jumbo jet, it was a humble departure.
Hundreds of spectators still lined the river's banks and bridges to catch a glimpse of the aircraft as it passed at little more than walking pace. The vessel paused for an hour and a half from 4.30pm opposite the Houses of Parliament so that enthusiasts packing both sides of Westminster Bridge could snap one last photograph.
But shorn of its swept-back wings and tail to fit into the barge, the one-time Queen of the Skies appeared pitiful compared with the sleek shape booming through the heavens that was remembered by those who had come to say a last goodbye.
Even the trademark nose had been only temporarily stitched back on after being removed when the aircraft was squeezed into a trailer to carry it from Heathrow to the Thames at Isleworth. "Concorde was once a testament to British engineering and a pride to millions in this country," said Gavin Porter, a taxi driver from Hounslow waiting on the Embankment with his two children, Penny, seven, and Eliza, four.
"Now it looks like an Airfix model someone hasn't completed," he said.
"I loved that plane. I wish it was still flying as I would have liked to have gone on it one day," said Penny.
Half a dozen pleasure boats had accompanied the barge. Two vessels gave a couple of hoots of their horns as the aircraft's fuselage was lifted up to give the crowd a better view during its pause at Westminster.
At 6pm it was lowered back into its metal carrier and taken to Dartford. Today the top of the barge will be sealed and it will set off on the £300,000 six-day journey to Scotland.
Without licences from the Civil Aviation Authority, it could not fly.
Once it arrives at the museum the aircraft will undergo a four-month restoration before going on permanent display. The jet is the last of seven British Airways Concordes to find a home following the airline's decision last year to end commercial services. Three others remain in Britain and are on show at Heathrow airport, Manchester airport, and Filton in western England where the aircraft were made.
The others were sent abroad: to the Museum of Flight in Seattle, the Intrepid Sea Space Museum in New York, and Grantley Adams Airport in Barbados.
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