The world through a lens
I have another lifelong passion and that is aviation. Normally I’m not much of a “people photographer”, but unusually, three of my best shots from this airshow were of people not planes. The pilot shaking hands had just landed on his second attempt, having to go around on the first due to some gusts of wind. The two girls re wing walkers. I was thinking how relaxed, calm and disconnected they looked, given what they were about to do.
The Sud Aviation-BAC Concorde served British Airways and Air France from 1976 until 2003. In the autumn of 2003, I travelled up from Southampton to London Heathrow airport on a number of occasions to see the supersonic jet land and depart. Following the unusually hot summer that year, the autum was surprisingly warm and dry until quite late on and it produced some spectacular sunsets, just in time for the Concorde arrival from and then departure to New York JFK, at around 7pm and 7.30pm respectively. I was present both for the final landings of G-BOAE, G-BOAF and G-BOAG on October 24th for the last ever passenger flights and early, on the cold wet morning of 26th of November for the final depature of ‘Alpha Foxtrot to Filton where it was assembled.
Through an internet forum I was chatting on, I became involved in the “rescue” (transportation and restoration) of a Hawker Siddeley Trident airliner, which in 2007 was put on display at Manchester Airport, who also had taken delivery of the former British Airways flagship G-BOAC “Alpha Charlie”. Here, she is pictured at night in January 2007.
