Concorde completes final journey to new £19 million home

The new museum has been supported with a £180,000 donation from global engineering technologies company Renishaw, which was created by two former Rolls-Royce employees to commercialise an innovation that solved a measurement problem faced in the manufacture of the Olympus engine that powered Concorde.

The complex move was conducted with the greatest care by engineers from British Airways and Airbus, who managed every facet of Concorde’s final journey. The iconic aircraft was towed across Filton runway and up a ramp into the new purpose-built hangar at Aerospace Bristol. The hangar, constructed by Kier, had a wall removed to allow the aircraft to enter the building and, with less than a metre between each wing tip and the building, Concorde was slowly and carefully winched into her exhibition position.

British Airways’ Concorde Alpha Foxtrot – also known as 216 – was the last Concorde to be built and the last to fly. She made her maiden flight on 20 April 1979 and touched down on her last flight to Filton on 26 November 2003. Since that landing, Alpha Foxtrot has stood alongside the Filton runway, cared for continuously by Airbus UK and remaining in remarkable condition. Now inside, she starts a new chapter as the centrepiece of the new Aerospace Bristol museum.

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