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Comment by djaychela | Hacker News Reader

They ran them from Bournemouth Airport where I live, and they were always popular. I went down to watch it take off once, and the noise and jet blast was incredible - MUCH more than any other plane I've seen take off from there, like being blown by a hairdryer all over.

My most lasting memory of it, though was the pollution - the air was brown behind it when it initially thrusted up, and the smell was really intense. A great machine, but not a friend of the environment, sadly!

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They struggled to get them in and out of regional airports.

Can't remember runway minima etc, but I remember watching one leave Leeds-Bradford that also ran some charters near end of life.

Right to the end of the runway, then full short takeoff tactics. Spin up engines and fire reheat on the brakes, then release. Noise and smoke as you'd expect - engines were in the power and on reheat before it even moves. One thing afterburners can never be is environmental.

Still managed to look like it used most of the runway before unsticking!

Bournemouth has a long runway, legacy of its WWII roots. It was chartered for £60,000 for some 20-minute subsonic flights. There were also some day trips to Cairo from Bournemouth.

They're very similar to each other. Both count as short to Concorde, rotate at 250mph+ and wings that don't generate that much lift.

Blimey, I never thought I'd find someone on Hacker news that lives in the same town as me. Up the Cherries.

The noise on takeoff was insane. In another aircraft on the taxiway (sadly the closest I every got) at Heathrow you could barely hear your own engines, or even those of nearby 747s taking off, but when Concorde fired up the reheat and went down the runway, you knew all about it! Lovely to watch, and hear. I also regret not getting a flight on it, the cheapest ex-Paris tickets were actually closer to business class prices than first, so it wasn't as expensive people believe at all.

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