Fourth month of the project: Concorde, menus and unusual routes

Credit: BAE Systems

We’ve now entered the fourth month of the project and cataloguing the Bristol Types series is well underway, but the nature of the project also means returning to the Concorde material for digitisation and for planning events.

One of the more interesting parts of this project so far has been learning unusual facts about Concorde, and the lesser known pieces of trivia. Searching through boxes for items in need of digitising is when these stories truly come to light, and one that has during this process was the existence of a short lived Braniff Concorde route between Washington and Texas. The route only stayed in service between 1979 and 1980, and Braniff didn’t own a Concorde of their own, so it was perhaps not the most iconic of routes, and since it flew overland it presumably couldn’t fly supersonically. Despite all of this it is a well-documented route within the archive.

Most interesting find of the month:

And on that note, the most interesting item of the month is a menu from one of these Braniff flights. While we have several Concorde menus in the archive, most are from the more iconic routes. It was exciting to find we also have a menu from a less iconic, more unusual route.

News:

As this is the first blog post of 2019 it seems a good time to introduce some of the events in the pipeline for the coming year. Over the year, to celebrate Concorde 50, the archive will be open on set afternoons to highlight and display archive material related to various aspects of Concorde’s development and early flights. The first of these afternoons will be held on Thursday the 31st January, in the archive reading room from 1-3:30pm. Hopefully you’ll be able to join us in celebrating Concorde with original documents on display – many for the first time!

Access to the Archive Reading Room is free with your standard admission ticket, simply come along between 1-3.30pm on Thursday 31st January. The Archive Reading Room is located inside the Concorde Hangar.