Wednesday 22nd October 2003

• Wednesday 22nd October 2003 at Manchester airport saw one of the worlds most famous and glamorous aircraft take to the skies of Manchester one last time before being retired by British Airways.

• On its 204th and final in-service visit with British Airways, Concorde G-BOAG touched down from London Heathrow at midday on Runway 06L as BA9020C.

From 12:00 until departure to London Heathrow as "Speedbird 9021C" at 16:30, Concorde parked on Taxiway Bravo in full view of the airport's Aviation Viewing Park, where an estimated 10,000 crowd had gathered from the start of a very cold day to catch a glimpse of 'Alpha Golf.

Type replacement?! ...

Concorde Captain Mark Jealous underwent a type conversion from Concorde to Flexwing(!) in his home county with the South Cheshire Microlight School at Arclid. John Bradbury, Chief Instructor at Arclid has recently been operating Pegasus Quik G-CBVN as a demonstrator and it was suggested that it would be a nice touch (and possibly a unique opportunity) for the World's fastest commercial aircraft and fastest flexwing to join up together.

• Photos of Concorde taxiing past the Pegasus Quik at the time of departure were taken but not when the Quik arrived and taxied past Concorde. John Bradbury intends to build up a photographic record of the day and would like to get a good selection of joint shots of the Quik with Concorde. If anyone has access to any joint photos, or knows of anyone else who might have, please could you send them as 'jpegs' to John at enquires@cheshiremicrolights.co.uk

Visitors to the viewing park were also given the opportunity to see an exhibition by The Aviation Society charting the history of Concorde. The exhibition sited in the visitor centre at the facility tells the story of Concorde from its early days on the drawing board in the 1960s through its illustrious 27 years in service.

Each of the airliner's 203 previous visits to Manchester was covered along with key events in its supersonic life and all the technology that made it a world-beater.

Shortly after the 'final' visit of Concorde to Manchester, the airport received news that the bid to land on permanent display one of the seven British Airways Concorde was a success. Airport officials had submitted plans to BA earlier in 2003 with a view to acquiring one of the historic aircraft on loan after the fleet was retired.

On Wednesday 31st October 2003 Concorde G-BOAC touched down at Ringway for a new career in the public eye. Read on ..

• Images from visits of Concorde to Manchester airport over the last decade

If you would like to submit a picture taken on the farewell day at Manchester on 22nd October please click here to email Ringway Reports.

All photographs used will appear in the Farewell Concorde picture gallery with credit to the photographer.