At the road crossing - 08:15
I left home early, in pouring rain, and drove around near to the local tube station. As I was turning into a side road an overtaking car clipped my car's wing mirror with a loud bang and drove off. It looks like the mirror is actually OK but the glass was hanging out of ir when I stopped! I parked, checked the mirror as best I could in the dark then headed off to the station with my bag and camera tripod. I caught a train just after 6:30 and got to Hatton Cross tube station about 8:00.
When I got to the exit I found it was still raining - if anything it seemed harder. After a quick look around I set off for the road crossing, a quarter of an hour's walk away. As I got close I peered over at the British Airways hangers, trying unsuccessfully to see Concorde amongst the parked aircraft. Then I saw her - she was already lined up ready to cross the road. So it was out with the camera, trying to protect it from the worst of the weather, and I started taking pictures as you can see below. Click on the pictures to see a larger version of them. |
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After a few minutes the warning sirens sounded and we had to leave the crossing area ... well that was the theory. In fact we edged over a bit and carried on taking pictures. The airport security man sat in his car and waved us away ... so we edged a bit further away but stayed the "wrong" side of the road barriers which had come down by now. Lets face it, it was going to take a lot to make him get out of the car and get wet. The barriers across the taxiway opened and then Concorde G-BOAF crossed the road for the last time. |
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After taking these pictures I scurried off to a local hotel where I ate a lovely cooked breakfast, drank several cappuccinos, dried out my camera and arranged for a room at the front of the hotel with a good view of the airport. This last took longer than I expected as the receptionist and I visited several rooms to compare the view before I settled on one. The view wasn't perfect (the planes vanished behind buildings almost as soon as they had started to take off) but it did have a good view of the airfield area. |
View from the hotel room - 11:00 to 11:30
The weather had just started to clear up a bit when I go my first view of Concorde across the airfield. Then she wended her way across the airfield, through the salute from the fire service and eventually on to the runway.
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Far across the airfield I caught a glimpse of Concorde's distinctive tail. From other pictures I've seen I think this was a photo call for her. |
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This was the view from the hotel window. To give you an idea of the zoom I was using the street lamp on the horizon line to the right of this picture is the same one that is just caught on the edge of the previous picture. |
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More by luck than judgement I managed to catch the start of the water arch tribute from the Heathrow fire service. |
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If you'd like a copy of any of these pictures then drop me an e-mail (peter <underscore> sheil <at> hotmail <dot> com Put "Concorde pic" in the title and tell me which number(s) you are interested in and which size.)
The original images are 2048 x 1536 and are between 500 and 900 KB each.
The larger images on the web site (click the small ones) are 683 x 512 and between 28 and 85 KB in size.
The thumbnails are 200 x 150 and between 5 and 10 KB in size.
The camera is a Minolta Dimage Z1, 3.2 M pixels, 10 x optical zoom, 4 x electronic zoom. |
