GREAT AVIATION QUOTES
Concorde


I hope you find what you are looking for. And maybe discover something you had no idea about!

There are 31 quotes matching Concorde in the collection:



You can be in London at 10 o'clock and in New York at 10 o'clock. I have never found another way of being in two places at once.

Sir David Frost

TV host and interviewer, who was maybe Concorde's most frequent flier, with about 300 trips. He taped shows in both New York and London. The Final Flight, Evening Standard newspaper, 12 April 2012.

An aircraft which is used by wealthy people on their expense accounts, whose fares are subsidized by much poorer taxpayers.

Denis Healey

British politician and Chancellor of the Exchequer, regards the Concorde, in his 1990 memoirs The Time of My Life.

The sun is now climbing from the west. In winter it is possible to leave London after sunset, on the evening Concorde for New York, and watch the sun rise out of the west. Flying at Mach 2 at these latitudes will cause the sun to set in the west at three times its normal rate, casting, as it does so, a vast curved shadow of the earth, up and ahead of the aircraft.

Concorde First Officer Christopher Orlebar

British Airways.

I enjoyed my service flying very much. That is where I learned the discipline of flying In order to have the freedom of flight you must have the discipline. Discipline prevents crashes.

Captain John Cook

British Airways Concorde Training Captain. I've lost the original source, help please!

I plead for a policy of hurrying slowly. We have a great Minister of Aviation, a young man capable and imaginative but if he pursues this policy, he will, as I believe, ruin civil aviation from the point of view of paying, for ever. He said the other day, in a great speech before the Society of Aircraft Constructors:

“Space beckons us with a golden finger”.

My Lords, it beckons us to the three brass balls of the pawnbroker.

Lord Brabazon of Tara

UK House of Lords debate Supersonic Civil Aircraft, 13 November 1962. The Minister of Aviation was Julian Amery, the outcome was Concorde. The next speaker was Lord Shackleton:

“My Lords, we expected an entertaining speech from the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara, and we certainly got it.”

See three other John Moore-Brabazon great aviation quotes.

It’s a lovely shape – one feels that if God wanted aircraft to fly he would have meant them to be this shape.

Sir Morien Morgan

Concorde engineer, interview im the 1964 BBC documentary Supersonic. He had worked on the Spitfire in 1937/38, but the swept-wing design was his real baby, making him known as Morgan the Supersonic, or the Welsh father of Concorde.

The SST is ‘inevitable’—the next logical step in the development of air transport; the progress of aviation is tied to speed, and so is U.S. leadership. The technical challenge is good for us, they say.

Wallace Cloud

Can We Build a 2,000-m.p.h. Airliner?, Popular Science, April 1964. “Top men in U.S. aviation are sweating to make a decisionon how guys like you and me, as fare-paying passengers, will fly like test pilots of the 2000-m.p.h. A-11 interceptor.” The cover showed designs from Boeing, Lockhead and North American. The story inside did mention the British/French Concorde.

Popular Science cover 1964

No major airline in the world will be able to do without buying Concordes. Pan American and TWA included. And if they sell for around 8 million pound a copy, and it may be a little more, this is going to bring in immense sums of foreign exchange to the British and French economies.

Julian Amery

British Minister for Aviation, speaking to the BBC in March 1969, following the first flight of Concorde. Heard on BBC progam Witness History: Concorde's first flight, released on 26 March 2023.

Finally the big bird flies, and I can say now that it flies pretty well.

André Turcat

Concorde test pilot, in both French and English, emerging from the cockpit after the first flight of Concorde prototype 001, Toulouse, France, 2 March 1969.

Concorde flight flight

It’ll change the shape of the world, it’ll shrink the globe by half. We’re trying to build the T model Ford of the supersonics for the 1970s and 1980s. It replaces in one step the entire progress made in aviation since the Wright Brothers in 1903.

Tony Benn

British Labour Party politician and before that, a RAF pilot. Praising the Concorde, Central Office of Information film interview at Filton, 21 March 1969.

It was wizard — a cool, calm, and collected operation.

Brian Trubshaw

Concorde test pilot, on the ground after first flight of a British-built concorde, prototype 002. RAF Fairford, 9 April 1969.

See one other Brian Trubshaw great aviation quote.

A very friendly boom, like a pair of gleeful handclaps.

Sir James Lighthill

UK government scientific advisor regards Concorde supersonic noise profile, 1971.

LAX in LA Times 9 August 1970

To squander a fortune in public money, billions and billions, stubbornly carrying on with a Concorde we can only sell to ourselves.

Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber

Editor of L’Express and member of the the French Chambre des Dputs, 28 August 1972.

Its operation in a world beset by fuel and energy crises makes no sense at all.

Senator Alan Cranston of California

1974. Regards the Concorde. Quoted in Flying magazine, January 1975. The editor added this comment:

“In addition, this opinion no doubt reflects the Senator’s constituency—Lockhead, Douglas, Northrup and Rockwell.”

It’s a wonderful airplane, but boring.

Jean Franchi

Aérospatiale Test Pilot, in Concorde, Flying magazine, October 1974.

The new engines are far quieter than the prototypes, people living near the airports will hardly notice the aircraft.

Henry Marking

British Airways, regards Concorde’s noise profile, 1975.

“How do you like your coffee, captain — cream and sugar?”

We are at 30 west, the half-way point between the European & North American continents, and the stewardess in charge of the forward galley is looking after her aircrew during a pause in serving the passengers' meals.

Mach 2. On autopilot, eleven miles high, moving at 23 miles a minute. Nearly twice as high as Mount Everest, faster than a rifle bullet leaving its barrel. The side windows are hot to the touch, from friction of the passing air. Despite the speed we can talk without raising our voices.

“Milk, please, and no sugar.”

Brian Calvert

Opening paragraphs of Flying Concorde, 1982.

A passenger commented on an early Concorde flight that Mach 2 travel felt no different:

Yes. That was the difficult bit.

Sir George Edwards

Co-director of Concorde development. Quoted in 1982 book Concorde: New Shape in the Sky.

Too late. No time, no.

Captain Christian Marty

Air France 4590 Concorde, last recorded words. ATC had just warned, “Concorde zero … 4590, You have flames. You have flames behind you.” 25 July 2000.

Concorde zero, four-five-nine-zero. You have flames, you have flames behind you.

Air Traffic Controller Gilles Logelin

First words spoken on radio of trouble with Air France 4590, Concorde F-BTSC. Charles de Gaulle Airport, Paris, 16:43 local time, 25 July 2000.

Air France 4590


.


Don’t see what you were looking for? Try the home page, or do a super search:


.