Concorde 24 Hour World (DVD)

Concorde: 24 Hour World Concorde, the head-turning supersonic airliner, only entered commercial service in January 1976, and although 'Concorde 24 Hour World' was made some years previous to that in 1973, it remains the definitive documentary to chart the optimism and weight of expectation this stunning aircraft carried. Its Anglo-French design and development was an enormous technological and logistical effort with the nose, tail and part of the fuselage being built in Bristol and its body and wings in Toulouse. The film focuses on Concorde 002, the British test aircraft that was to spend "most of its flying hours at the edge of the stratosphere" and which was "the most thoroughly tested civil aircraft ever". Built to be tested to the limits, 002 was never to see public service. We see test pilot John Cochrane in a pre-flight briefing and in the cockpit, and this beautiful aircraft in stunning taxiing, take-off, air-to-air, descent and landing shots, as well as at various locations on its 1972 World Tour visiting places as diverse as Athens, Sydney, Singapore, Tokyo, India, Beirut and Iran in order to encourage vital orders from foreign airlines. Concorde A celebration of Concorde in the year it entered commercial service. This film shows Concorde in its early British Airways livery at Heathrow. We also get an insight into the construction process through scenes at the British Aircraft Corporation factories in Weybridge and Filton, and the unbelievably rigorous developmental testing procedures of the airframe at Farnborough, including the C.A.A. certification for rain. At Fairford we see the latest production Concorde undergoing testing, and shots of early Concorde flight simulators, with a voice-over by John Cochrane. We see the pre-production Concorde 001 and the final shots of 002 at Fairford before its final flight to the Fleet Air Arm Museum where it remains as an exhibit to this day. Day Of The Concorde Another film celebration of Concorde covering an early return proving flight from London Heathrow to Gander in Newfoundland, with an emphasis on the superb in-flight service and the "Concorde experience" of the customer at 55,000 feet, flying at Mach 2 - twice the speed of sound. The success of the flight was a pre-cursor to a presentation of the CAA's certificate of airworthiness and the celebrations surrounding the inaugural commercial flight to Bahrain on 21st January 1976 - the "Day Of The Concorde".