Les Marton (a Rotarian from Box Hill R C) was the guest speaker. He will also be the AG for RCBMC for the Rotary year 2021-2022. The topic for the presentation was the Concorde aeroplane.
Les introduced himself as a Hungarian refugee who grew up in Paris. When he was 16 years of age, he saw a picture of the Concorde in a magazine and his passion for this airplane grew from then. He became a pilot and had a long career in commercial aviation. Les described in detail the history of the development of the Concorde. He described the plane as “well ahead of its time”, but it was not an efficient aircraft as its fuel consumption was enormous. The Concorde was assembled in France but was a joint effort between the British and the French manufacturers. The dimensions of the plane was small compared with the A380 of today as illustrated by Les in a powerpoint picture. It flew at 60,000 feet at speed in excess of Mach 2 and was all first class.
There are no corrosive parts in the aircraft and in its history of being in the sir, there was only one fatal accident which occurred in 2000., where 100 people on board and 200 people on the ground died. The operation of the Concorde was not sustainable due to its high fuel consumption and cost. The last flight of the Concorde was from San Francisco in 2003. The damaged aircraft is now in Toulouse and the remainder of the fleet have been given to aviation museums around the world. Two members present, Kevin and Margaret, had flown on the Concorde! Thank you Les for a most interesting presentation.
