My Ride on the Concorde

摘要

AIR FRANCE scheduled its last transatlantic Concorde flight for June 12,2003. Although it was actually a ferry flight to the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles airport in Virginia, Air France treated this one no different from its regular Concorde flights. In other words, Flight 4386 would be magnificent. As the Museum's curator of air transportation, I was invited to be one of 60 passengers on the trip. Others included France's transport minister, several past Air France presidents, and former Concorde pilots and crew members. Mstislav Rostropovich, the famed cellist who always flew the Concorde with his cello in an adjacent seat, was to make the flight as well.