I recently saw something that announced it was fifty years since the first commercial services operated by Concorde. Air France and British Airways operated simultaneous flights to commence operations (although to different destinations – I am pretty sure I recall from my childhood them both landing at Washington Dulles at the same time and parking nose to nose). I didn’t take a lot of photos of Concorde over the years, but I did get some. Here are a few old film scans of BA Concorde flying. Sadly, despite having seen it fly by my flat many times when a student, I never spent the time taking any shots.
Tag Archives: concorde
Concorde Formations Flypast
RIAT is known for putting together formations of different types to celebrate certain events. The fiftieth anniversary of the first flight of Concorde resulted in two display teams getting together. Concorde was an Anglo-French collaboration and so was the celebration in this case. The Red Arrows and the Patrouille de France both fly formations to represent Concorde so, for this joint effort, both teams got airborne and flew their two Concorde formations in line astern. They made passes in each direction with the national anthems of each country playing – one on the first pass and the other on the second. It was a simple demonstration but an impressive one all the same.
Concorde
Few would argue that Concorde is an elegant aircraft design. It may have had commercial limitations, but it never failed to be a head turner. Getting good shots of it when it was flying was not too difficult. One the ground it can still be a good subject but having it confined in a tight space does make things a little more tricky. The Museum of Flight’s example is in their covered annex across the street from the main museum. The annex has a great selection of aircraft but they are right up against each other.
I decided, after getting some shots on an initial visit, that I would try something a bit different and took a fisheye the next time I went. Concorde already has some interesting curves and a fisheye can either help of ruin them so some careful framing was required. I combined that with a 70-200 to crop in close and avoid the surrounding clutter. It was a fun experiment to see what you could achieve in a constrained environment.













