small ritual

concorde 002 maiden flight 40 years on

i saw this broadcast at the time - we watched the takeoff on tv and then ran outside as it flew over our house three minutes or so into the flight. in the broadcast at 4:30 there is a map of the flight path - we were under the first arrow after chepstow. we could certainly hear it coming - if i remember correctly we actually heard the takeoff five miles away through the open front door at the same time as watching it on tv. the broadcast doesn't convey the full noise. in the previous year or two we could often hear the roar of the engines in the testbed at filton - heaven knows what it was like for the houses bordering the airfield. but the truth is that people were proud of it - the american protests against the noise were incomprehensible to us. we liked to hear it. the engines on the final production planes were somewhat quieter and less smoky.

the commentator is the late raymond baxter, presenter of tomorrow's world and the voice of all things aerospace on british tv in the 60s and 70s.

images from the other 2001

came across these stunning images of spacecraft from the alternative world of 2001:a space odyssey, of which the pearl is this shot of a lufthansa orion 3 spaceliner.

i am reminded of the end of eternity where one of the catalysts for the hero's rebellion is the beauty of the spaceships in an alternative future he is obliged to delete...

Tu-144

while adding the moscow taxi videos to youtube, it threw up this clip of the tupolev tu-144, the soviet supersonic airliner:

which reminded me that i have a tu-144 publicity brochure which my uncle brought back from russia in the 1970s.

in some ways i prefer the look of the tu-144 to concorde - the central engines, the angularity. it's not clear why it flew for such a short time - issues of cost, and safety i presume. did it ever live up to the brochure?