Now, was it realy looping around London at 1,350 mph???????? -----Original Message----- From: nobody@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:nobody@xxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Bill Hough Sent: Wednesday, November 26, 2003 3:27 PM To: airline; skyone@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [Sky-1] SF Gate: Final Concorde flies to retirement in western England ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This article was sent to you by someone who found it on SF Gate. The original article can be found on SFGate.com here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2003/11/26/ international1212EST0534.DTL ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday, November 26, 2003 (AP) Final Concorde flies to retirement in western England JILL LAWLESS, Associated Press Writer (11-26) 09:12 PST LONDON (AP) -- A British Airways Concorde flew into retirement Wednesday, looping over the Atlantic and English Channel at its top speed of 1,350 mph in what the airline said was the last flight for any of the elegant supersonic jets. Thousands of Concorde fans cheered the plane's landing at Filton airfield, near Bristol in western England. Prince Andrew greeted the flight, carrying 100 airline staff, at the Airbus U.K. facility at Filton. The needle-nosed jet -- the last Concorde ever built -- will go on display at Filton, where it was assembled in 1979 and from where Concorde took its first British test flight in April 1969. "Today is one of the saddest in aviation history but at the same time, it's a day to reflect on the glory of what the U.K. can achieve," the prince said. Earlier, hundreds of people had lined the perimeter fence at Heathrow Airport to watch the plane roar into a gray, drizzly London sky. "There won't be anything like it in our lifetime," said John Smith, who regularly watched Concorde jets fly over his house in Shepperton, near the airport. "I'm disgusted by the way they are taking it away. It wasn't built for a museum." The Anglo-French Concorde, capable of flying at twice the speed of sound, entered commercial service in 1976. Carrying celebrities and business high-flyers between London and New York in three and a half hours, Concorde became the ultimate symbol of jet-set glamour. But it never earned back the vast sums spent on its development. Air France retired its Concorde fleet in May, and British Airways made its last scheduled passenger flight on Oct. 24, when tens of thousands of people turned out to watch the Concorde land at Heathrow. Four of British Airways' seven Concordes have been sent to final homes at Manchester Airport in northwest England, Grantley Adams Airport in Barbados, the Museum of Flight in Seattle and the Intrepid Sea Air Space Museum in New York. On Tuesday a Concorde was towed on a barge up the Hudson River to the Intrepid, an aircraft carrier moored off Manhattan's west side. The plane is to occupy its own barge next to the Intrepid pier. Two more, which have not flown since the July 2000 crash of an Air France Concorde near Paris, will stay in Britain -- one at Heathrow and one at the Scotland Museum of Flight in Edinburgh. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 2003 AP Yahoo! Groups Sponsor <http://rd.yahoo.com/SIG=12cf0vd20/M=259395.3614674.4902533.1261774/D=eg roupweb/S=1705073027:HM/EXP=1069964879/A=1524963/R=0/*http://hits.411web .com/cgi-bin/autoredir?camp=556&lineid=3614674&prop=egroupweb&pos=HM> <http://us.adserver.yahoo.com/l?M=259395.3614674.4902533.1261774/D=egrou pmail/S=:HM/A=1524963/rand=416944045> SkyOne--The Airline News Channel To Post message: Skyone@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To Subscribe: Skyone-subscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To Unsubscribe: Skyone-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx List owner: Skyone-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Skyone URL: http://www.yahoogroups.com/group/Skyone Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service <http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/> .