What a waste of a fine aircraft! (From Gazette Series)

What a waste of a fine aircraft!

SIR - As a former member of management at BAC Filton, working on the engineering design of Concorde, I was invited to witness the return and landing of Concorde 216 on November 26.

As I watched the aircraft approach and land for the declared last time, it was with very mixed emotions, knowing much of the detail and the amount of work that had gone into making this magnificent, world-leading aircraft, with a valid air-worthiness certificate until the year 2010, which I am sure would have been extended on at least another 20 years.

I hoped of course that the amount of public opinion on the subject would have caused the power that be, to think again, that this would not be the last flight of Concorde and that they would park them in various hangars and bring them out for special occasions or for when the market conditions change and they could fly again as a scheduled service.

But as early as the following day, we see on TV the shear vandalism of dismantling them to sell off as trinkets to the general public.

We have had many examples in this country of taking something that has become uneconomic at that time out of service, such as the railways under Dr Beeching, ripping up the lines and selling for scrap and disposing of the land. How useful some of those railway lines would be today!

Concorde was one of the last things this country had to be proud of and now that's gone too.

R G Frost, Kingswood