British Airways Flew 4 Concorde's, G-BOAA, G-BOAC, G-BOAB & G-BOAG
In the words of Adrian Meredith: "This was one of the most important and exciting photographic assignments I have ever undertaken, and very prestigious for Concorde. The date was Christmas Eve December 24th 1985; this was the only day possible that we could photograph four of the Concordes together, as they were not flying commercially that day. The Photography was to promote and commemorate the 10-year anniversary of Concordes commercial service. After 10 years of service the BA Concorde's had 71,000 supersonic flying hours!
Many hours were spent at the briefing sessions, to ensure the formations were tidy to military precision. Different formations were discussed, and decided upon. The swan, the diamond & the echelon, to ensure all went to plan. Nothing like this had ever been done before commercially. Concorde Senior Captains Brian Walpole and John Cook were experienced pilots and had a wealth of experience of flying in formation, from their days in the RAF. My task was to capture in essence the group formations. The flight plan was to take-off from Heathrow, fly to Filton in Bristol, the home of Concorde, down the Bristol Channel, and return to London, flying at a height of around 18,000 feet.
The Lear Jet had to be fitted with optically corrective glass in the windows, which wouldn’t distort the camera’s image. We were first to take off in the Lear Jet, from London Heathrow, and special permission had to be granted for each Concorde to take-off every 30 seconds, in succession. This had never been done before.
The weather was very dark and gloomy as it was December time the sun was low and watery. We rose above, and circled over the clouds, to brighter skies, and as we looked down, we saw each Concorde pop through the clouds like a firing bullet. After the 4th aircraft had emerged we quickly descended and took chase at full throttle to try and catch them up. They started to manoeuvre and steadily flew into position for the first formation . . . flying in diamond, then echelon and swan formation.
The weather was very poor, and every time they set-up for a different formation, a bank of cloud would roll in, and the Concordes would have to break off their positioning for safety.
This gave me a briefest of opportunities to liaise with the pilots, in between the shooting. As soon as they were back in another formation, I knew the photography had to be very brief; on one occasion we banked steeply, sweeping over the top of the formation to get the perfect overhead shots. Other photography was taken side on, during one stage of a particular formation; the Concorde wing tips were only 70ft apart. The entire exercise took one hour and 45 minutes, and all Concorde's returned safely home, and thankfully I had all the shots in the can."
To watch the formation video click here: