GREAT AVIATION QUOTES
CONCORDE

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!

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 decision on 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.

New York to Tokyo could be less than an hour. You could be traveling at 19,000 miles per hour orbitally. After we’ve done the space program, we will be producing supersonic planes, which will go far, far, faster than Concorde.

Richard Branson

CEO Virgin Group, interview on CNBC TV, 6 May 2014.

See eight other Richard Branson great aviation quotes.

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.

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.

This is where astronauts and fighter pilots fly, only they’re in spacesuits and you’re in chinos and a cotton shirt, sipping fine wine and listening to Mozart on headphones. From Concorde I have seen the Northern Lights, the deep blue of outer space, the curve of the Earth, and have traveled faster than most of the human race can even imagine.

Graham Boynton

A Flight of Fancy That Made Your Spirit Soar, Telegraph newspaper, 26 July 2000.

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

In his book The Concorde Story, 1986.

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.

“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.

Too late. No time, no.

Captain Christian Marty

Air France 4590 Concorde, last recorded words of the Captain. From the BEA English version of their Appendix 2, CVR Transcript. Shown in brackets indicating exact wording may be doubtful. 25 July 2000.

Negative, we’re trying Le Bourget.

First Officer Jean Marcot

Last recorded words (translated into English), Air France 4590 Concorde. Radio transmission to ATC. F-BTSC suffered FOD impact on the runway causing an in-flight fire and loss of control. La Patte d’Pie in Gonesse, 16:44 local time, 25 July 2000.

It’s a wonderful airplane, but boring.

Jean Franchi

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

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.