SPEAKER_05 0:14

Welcome to the Pan Am Podcast, brought to you by the Pan Am Museum in Garden City, New York. This podcast and our museum are dedicated to celebrating the legacy of the world's most iconic airlock, Pan American World Airways. My name is Tom Betty, and I'm the host of this program. Thank you for joining us. The Pan Am Museum Foundation is a nonprofit organization. Please visit our website for more information at the Pan Ammuseum.org. Again, our website is the Panamuseum.org. You can find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. If you are using Apple Podcasts, please consider leaving a review. It will help others discover this program. This podcast is sponsored by the generous personal support of Mr. Adam Aaron, the CEO and chairman of AMC Theaters. He is also president of our sister organization, the Pan Am Historical Foundation. If you're not familiar with Pan Am, welcome. We are honored to have you here and for you to learn about what we're all about. If you already know of Pan Am, worked for, or flown on the airline, or just love our history, it's good to be with you again. So with that, let's get this episode in the air, so to speak. Welcome aboard your Pan American jet clipper.

SPEAKER_09 1:43

Now, when you fly the flag, you can fly the future. British Airways Concorde. The first supersonic passenger airline to fly you at more than twice the speed of sound. Concorde has crossed the Atlantic in three and a half hours. And now she will fly you to Bahrain faster than ever before. It's all part of taking more care of you, giving you what you need. First, best, and fastest. Fly the future. Fly the flag with British Airways.

SPEAKER_05 2:20

You just heard a commercial from British Airways in 1976. In this episode, we welcome back to the program Captain Mike Bannister, the chief pilot of British Airways Concorde Fleet from 1995 to 2003. He is also the author of a recently published book titled Concord. The book is available through your favorite bookstore or online retailer. There is a link in the episode description to purchase this book. Also coming out to Great Fanfare in 2023 was a special Lego set of the Concorde designed to be built by adults. This special detailed replica from Lego of the world's most famous supersonic commercial passenger airplane gives builders an immersive project that takes creativity to new heights. There is also a link in the episode description to order your own Lego Concorde set. To learn more about Supersonic Transports, or SSTs for short, listen to episode 7 of this program titled Supersonic Transports in Angry JFK and Flying the Line after this installment. In that episode, we explored the race for the first passenger supersonic aircraft between a British and French partnership, the United States and the Soviet Union. This episode is also a direct follow-up to episode 19 titled Concord, where we explore the fascinating history of Concord and interview three special guests: Jetliner Cabins author Jennifer Coots Clay, who was Pan Am's general manager for product design and development, and before that worked on the Concord project for British Airways. John Lampole, a veteran executive of British Airways who worked for the Concorde program the entire 27 years of passenger service and a total of 41 years for BA. And of course, Captain Bannister was interviewed in that episode. Again, if you haven't heard episode 19 already, we encourage you to listen after this installment. Captain Mike Bannister joined BOAC, British Airways predecessor, in 1969 as a pilot and flight navigator on the Vickers VC-10 fleet. He joined the Concorde flight crew in 1977, becoming the fleet's youngest pilot. In 1995, he became the chief pilot of British Airways Concorde program until the retirement of the aircraft in 2003. Captain Bannister accumulated around 9,600 Concorde flight hours, with almost 7,000 of which were supersonic. Before our interview with Captain Mike Bannister, let's listen to a six-minute clip on the incredible history of Concorde from British Airways and luxury watchmaker Bremont. In 2018, the two companies joined forces for a special and exclusive timepiece. Metal from a Concorde known as Alpha Bravo was used by Bremont to incorporate into only 500 limited edition watches. The aircraft was registered in 1974 and was the third Concorde to join the British Airways fleet. Aluminum taken from the plane was incorporated into a decorated ring visible through the case back. This ring also features a description of the aircraft's number and registration, years of active service, number of supersonic flights, as well as the aircraft's top speed. Let's take a listen and then on to our interview with Captain Mike Bannister.

SPEAKER_07 6:20

Slicing through the stratosphere 11 miles above the Earth's surface and at over twice the speed of sound. Witnessing the curvature of the Earth below and the deep blue of space above. Rarely does a machine garner such affection, but during her 27-year service, Concorde secured a place in people's hearts. A design marvel, a message from tomorrow. Nothing in the world of aviation has rivaled her since. The Bremont supersonic chronometer marks the 50th birthday of this very sublime flying machine, an icon of British engineering. By 1962, Great Britain and France signed a treaty to develop a supersonic airliner. The result was Concorde. Concorde first flew in 1969. Her elegant design was worlds apart from the subsonic airliner fleet. Her delta wing with its sweptback curve was sculpted from one solid piece of aluminium. Over 5,000 hours of wind tunnel testing ensured the wing could generate lift at both low and supersonic speeds. At these speeds, her skin temperature would already reach over 90 degrees Celsius, and her airframe would stretch up to 11 inches.

SPEAKER_04 7:50

The only aircraft capable of Mark 2.2 were jet fighters, one-seater, two-seaters. They had very limited range, and they certainly couldn't take 100 people in comfort across the Atlantic. It really was an engineering marvel. Nobody had seen anything like this before. But even more remarkably, nobody has seen anything like this since.

SPEAKER_07 8:10

Her 24-foot-long nose coat was distinctive, shaped like a bullet. It was designed to droop for landings and takeoff, enabling the pilots to see the runway. At high speeds, the nose was raised and a reinforced tinted visor slid up to protect the cockpit at supersonic speeds. Concorde's design was ahead of its time. She was drawn up on blueprints, and early wing designs were tested using paper aeroplanes. Her prototype airframes underwent more testing than any subsonic airliner ever had. When Concorde was built, no engine was capable of accepting airflow at supersonic speeds.

SPEAKER_02 8:49

One of the challenges was to produce an engine that would give us enough power to take off and fly supersonically. They chose the Olympus engine that had been developed for other aircraft, but we vastly developed it for Concorde. It produced a lot more power.

SPEAKER_07 9:11

On the takeoff roll, the powerful thrust of a full voltage are his turbo jets pushed passengers back into their series. Each engine supplied 38,000 pounds of thrust with afterburner.

SPEAKER_00 9:24

A feature usually found on miniature jets. For a pilot who loves flying airplanes, it was the ultimate, the real satisfaction right down to the very bones of a pilot to fly this wonderful airplane. Although it's so obviously beautiful, I think people really understand that it was a sophisticated piece of engineering. Everything was precision made. So much of it was international, but so much of it was British. And everybody feels a sense of pride that we actually did this. The rest of the world couldn't, but it was done by those that brought Concorde to life.

SPEAKER_07 10:00

Concorde's aerodynamic design gave her an instantly recognizable silhouette. It is this iconic silhouette which has been incorporated into the beautiful mechanical movement of the Bremont Supersonic.

SPEAKER_03 10:38

The Concord still owned by British Airways, which resigned at Ethereum. This is the first man in one movement that Bremont has ever produced. It's an eight-day power reserve which incorporates a pan reserve indicator within the town. So it's a pleasure to be walking British Airways on this project as they celebrate their centenary and importantly 50 years of Concord.

SPEAKER_07 11:01

Concorde's maximum operating ceiling is 60,000 feet. Any military pilot at similar altitudes would be wearing a spacesuit to breathe out to Concorde passengers, however, were wearing shirt sleeves and drinking champagne. When she was finally withdrawn from service in 2003, hundreds of thousands turned out to wish her a fond farewell. While she undoubtedly saved her passengers' time, there were many who wished the flight lasted longer.

SPEAKER_05 11:33

Thank you for coming on the program, sir.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

Oh, it's a great pleasure, Tom.

SPEAKER_05 11:37

So let's talk about a golfing story on the Concorde.

SPEAKER_01 11:41

Yeah, Concorde was used for a whole bunch of special flights or charter flights, in addition to its scheduled program. These special flights would range from a quick trip round the bay where you'd take off at one airfield and uh an hour and forty minutes later land back at it, having gone up to 60,000 feet and twice the speed of sound, all the way to a round-the-world air cruise where you'd be going from five-star hotel to five-star hotel, travelling on Concorde for 23 days. It was also used for sporting events and in particular carrying the US uh golfers around the world, particularly between the UK and the USA. It was also used for the European Ryder Cup team in 1999, when they flew over to compete against the USA team. They took a flight to Boston, a special charter flight, which in itself was unusual, we rarely went there. And during the flight, Jose Maria Lather Ball decided he'd have a go at breaking the world record for the longest cut. So he figured if he could cut a golf ball from the front of Concord to the back, then during the time that the cut is rolling, the airplane would have travelled a long way at twice as speed of sound. And that's exactly what he did. So he parted from the front all the way to the back and it went into the cup. The ball was moving for an amazing 26 seconds, and in that time it travelled 9.2 miles. A brand new record, ironically beating the American Fred Fraxon's record from 1997, where he did something similar, but that was only 8.5 miles, and the European managed to beat it.

SPEAKER_05 13:18

That's a great story. Let's go back to 2003, the final arrival at Heathrow of the Concorde. I understand that you landed in Heathrow, you and your co-pilot opened your windows and uh flew the Union Jack out of the window. But then something unexpected happened.

SPEAKER_01 13:38

Yeah, we were quite keen on flying the flags out of the windows. When we left New York, we had a Union flag flying out of one side and the stars and stripes out of the other, because we'd wanted to make the last flight a real celebration of the 27 years of successful supersonic flight to Concord and British Airways. Uh and also the airport at Kennedy was very keen to give us a wonderful send-off. And to that extent, the airport fire service has arranged a water arch for us to taxi under. A red, white, and blue water arch. It was great. And we did that, it was very spectacular, and there were lots of wonderful photographs taken. Then off we go, set off for London, and I guess whilst we were in flight, the message had got across to Heathrow about what the New York Fire Service had done. So I got a message saying that the Heathrow Fire Service had decided to do something similar, that we would go under a water arch on arrival as well. Great, we can do that. So we landed and we were taxiing in and we're approaching the water arch. I've done this once or twice, so I I know what the routine is. I've got the union flag out of the window, uh, and it's out of the window, literally, you just open the window. So the the r the routine is flag in, close window, taxi under water arch, open window, flag out. Dead easy. So we approach the water arch, right, flag in, close window, oh no, window jammed. And we taxed it under the water arch with the window wide open, and literally a fire hose amount of water came in straight into the flight deck window on the left-hand side where I sit, and I got absolutely wrenched. It's October the 24th, it's quite chilly. And so when we parked up and cleared customs, the first thing I had to do was to go off to the media centre, uh, which was a temporary structure, three stories high, mark you, uh, with all the various media from around the world. And the first interview I had to do was with Richard Quest from CNN, who I knew quite well because I'd done a number of things with him before. I knew him well enough so that when I walked up towards him, squish was squashing across the floor, with water coming out of my shoes and my trousers and my uniform jacket absolutely so he could not stop laughing. He was absolutely eforic, so much so that we had to delay the interview while I just stood there and literally dripped on the floor.

SPEAKER_05 16:04

And I don't think that that uh shone through on TV because I didn't see that at all when I watched it on TV.

SPEAKER_01 16:10

Such are the benefits of having a dark blue uniform, I guess. And a pretty stiff upper lip, maybe.

SPEAKER_05 16:18

That's a great story. That's a great story. How about uh celebrities and memorable passengers on your flights?

SPEAKER_01 16:26

We've had lots and lots of celebrities. Celebr everybody perceives that celebrities made up a huge amount of the uh customers that traveled with Concord. Actually, they didn't, 80% of the people were business people, but celebrities were uh notable. And apart from many, many members of the UK royal family, we also carried many politicians, we carried film stars, TV stars, uh a lot of whom wanted to travel incognito, and of course what British Airways on Concord offered was a certain level of discretion. Some not quite so incognito. Elizabeth Taylor was a famous one, and a particular flight back from New York to London was one of those days when we had very strong tailwinds, the jet stream. And this is in the early days when there was not a lot known about the jet stream. It's a very narrow tube of high-velocity winds that uh can sit over the Atlantic at about 15 to 55,000 feet. And its position varies, it goes north and south, and we now know that it drags weather systems with it. But in those days, we knew that it was around, and if we could find it and sit in it, we'd get some really strong tailwind, 150, sometimes almost 200 miles an hour, speeding us up as we crossed the Atlantic. So it was a great tool for uh record crossing attempts. And this particular day was one of those days when the circumstances were right. So I I got under the public address system and told the customers what we were doing, of course I'd told the cabin crew before, that we were trying to cross the Atlantic in well less than three hours, the record at the time being two hours and fifty-four minutes. And we were going really well until about two-thirds of the way across the Atlantic, uh the jet stream swung away from our track and we dropped out of it, and it was clear that once we were going to beat three hours, we weren't gonna beat the record. So I got on the public address system and told the customers what was happening uh and that we weren't gonna beat the record, but it was still gonna be a very rapid crossing. Uh, and thought nothing more of it until about two or three minutes later the Chief Stewart S came up and said, Mike, I just got a message here from uh Elizabeth Taylor said, Oh yeah. She said, If you're not gonna beat the record, could you please slow down because she takes 45 minutes to put her makeup on. Uh needless to say, we always accommodate our customers' requests, so we did slow down, but not a huge amount.

SPEAKER_05 18:51

I heard a story about an SR-71 Blackbird and Concord from an air traffic controller story that they needed 5,000 feet vertical separation. And they called the SR-71 Blackbird and said, you know, what is what is your your altitude? And they said above 60,000 feet. And the air traffic controller said, I need to know your exact altitude because I have a concord that is crossing your path. And the SR 71 Blackbird responded saying, Well, what is their altitude? And they said 59,000 feet, uh, and we need 4,000 feet vertical separation. Then they responded with a chuckle and said, We're well above that, because at that time it was classified on how height the SR-71 Blackbird could go. Was that one of your flights by chance?

SPEAKER_01 19:46

Not that particular one, but I have flown at the same sort of time as a blackbird. Uh one of the special flights we did was to go out to Abbotsford for the air show there. Uh it was a trip out to Vancouver, and we did some flights around Vancouver, and um again these special, short special flights taking off from Vancouver, landing back. And we sold those tickets to to fund the whole trip and to enable us to go to the Abbotsford Air Show. And uh the Blackbird was displaying there as well, and we got to know the crew quite well. Obviously, there was no arrangement for us to fly together, and the air show was organized so that the two main uh exhibits like ours were were not contrasting against each other, we were flying at different times. But we went off on and flew and then we landed and they flew, and and that was kinda happened for two or three days, and then the the third or fourth day, um we were doing a flight again, a quick flight out of Vancouver back into Vancouver before the air show. Um whilst we were out, we were up at about fifty-eight, fifty-nine thousand feet. The flight engineer pointed out something up above us, uh way, way above us, that uh was uh contrailing. And we thought, well, that's gotta be the blackbird, hasn't it? I mean we we because we we were up at fifty-nine thousand feet, so it's gotta be the blackbird. Uh amazing. We looked up and and the contrail out of it was a little bit unusual in that it was sort of pulsing. Um it wasn't a steady flow contrail, it was kind of a a beep to it. Anyway, couldn't think much more about that until we landed and we went over and had a cup of tea and then wandered over to chat to the SR seventy one crew, only to discover that they had a technical and service ability and hadn't flown that day. So when we told them what we'd seen and said, you know, um well it must have been another blackbird, they said, Well, we're not supposed to tell you that there are no other blackbirds in the area. And in hindsight, we think we saw uh something new and unusual. And the pulse uh contrail coming out of the back of it would be very similar to that that would be made by our pulse jet. And there's been a lot of speculation since those days about whether the US had uh special projects and aircraft that would remain secret until. This day, and in the back of my mind, I kind of think that maybe uh that particular day uh we saw one of those. Whether we did or not, I don't know, but it was very interesting. When we told the Blackbird crew they were just as interested as we were.

SPEAKER_05 22:15

Fascinating. Question for you. So after 2003, after the Concorde was retired, did you continue flying? If so, how was the transition to subsonic aircraft?

SPEAKER_01 22:28

By the time that Concord retired in 2003, I was also the general manager for all British Airways short haul and medium hall aircraft. So the 737, 757, 767, the Airbus family, as well as Concorde. And so when Concord had stopped, I figured I'd go fly one of my short haul airplanes, probably an Airbus. And I was kind of making plans to do that when I got a call from the boss who said, Mike, I'd like you to look after Gatwick as well. So British Airways had a main operation at Gatwick, and the idea was that I would look after the Heathrow operation three days a week and the Gatwick operation three days a week. Which, if you work out six days a week, I only get a day a week off. But hey-ho, he said to me, and before you ask, there's no more money. So I thought, why am I doing this? Well, the main reason I did it was it was going to be good fun and a new challenge and uh a new operating environment, so yeah, why not? So I swapped flying Concord for driving my car around the motorways between Heathrow and London. Um, and and that was interesting, but it wasn't like the real thing. So I carried on flying small airplanes. I'd actually got quite a long history in general aviation. I I had run an air taxi company in the 80s and 90s. I'd flown for the UK Army parachute team, the Red Devil. So I'd got a lot of general aviation experience. So I carried on doing some of that. And our daughter Amy was getting uh older and older and getting more and more interested in aviation, so I'd take her along with me. Fast forward ten years, and Amy graduates as a commercial pilot, and she now flies for a major airline in the UK, and now she takes me flying. And so I jump into small airplanes, and uh she's the pilot in command, and I'm the co-pilot, and we go off and toodle and enjoy ourselves. So, yeah, I still fly to this day, and uh I also fly the Concord Simulator, which is at Brooklyn's. Uh, it was the very simulator that I and all my colleagues learned to fly on and did our regular checks on. It was moved to Brooklyn's uh in a terrible state because it had been completely surrounded at Filton at Bristol, where it was housed. It had to be cut out of the cell. But the team at Brooklyn's put it back together and now it flies just as well as it ever did. It's actually a real Concord flight deck, not made to look like one, it really is one. And members of the public come and fly with me or with my colleagues, and we've had all sorts of people from an 85-year-old lady who had never flown, I don't mean never piloted, she had never flown, all the way through to a pilot coming all the way from Boeing in Seattle just to fly the Concord simulator. So, yeah, I still get the buzz and still get the enjoyment of flying and still get the expectation of looking forward to doing just that.

SPEAKER_05 25:09

Let's talk about your daughter for a second. So you have an aviation legacy that you left. How does that make you feel?

SPEAKER_01 25:16

Oh, absolutely delighted. Most importantly, of course, is that she is happy and she's doing what she wants to do. My wife and I never actively encouraged her to take up being a pilot or being aviation, although both of we were. But obviously, by osmosis, it uh kind of gets its way into the system. And she's very much her own person. She doesn't want to be in her parents' shadow, she wants to follow in her parents' footsteps until she makes her own path. Um that's great, and I absolutely love it, and she is very happy and she's really enjoying it. And we occasionally go on flights where she's the pilot, and of course, needless to say, being a very proud parent, we just sit there smiling all the way with our chests puffed out, thinking that's our daughter. It's great, I love it.

SPEAKER_05 26:03

That's great. Let's talk about Pan Am. What is your opinion of Pan American World Airways and the what if Pan Am did not cancel their Concorde order? Uh, what would you speculate about what would have happened?

SPEAKER_01 26:20

Pan Am was a great airline, and one that we in British Airways and before that the OAC highly respected. Of course, they were competitors on many routes around the world, but on other routes they were complementary. We would occasionally meet up with their crews and socialize with them, so that on a social level we'd get in, clearly on a competitive level, each was trying to always be a little better than the other, but it was a friendly competitiveness, and one underscored by much mutual admiration and appreciation for the technical nature of their operation. I mean, Pan American technically were a very good airline, as were BOAC and British Airways. So there was a an aviation kinship. It was terribly sad when the uh accident in Lockerbie came about, and that was partially to bring about the downfall of Pan American, something I was very, very sad about because I have personal friends who were flying for Pan American at the time. But before that, of course, Pan American was one of the companies that had expressed a serious interest in acquiring Concorde. At one point during its project development in the very early 70s, there were over 230 aircraft orders and options placed for Concorde by airlines around the world, of which Pan American was one. And it looked at that stage that the Concorde program was going to be very successful worldwide. But then two fundamental things happened. First of all, there was a major fuel crisis and a major fuel price hike in 1973, 74, where the price of fuel doubled practically overnight when the price of crude oil went up. And airlines were faced with a choice. Do we use the fuel that we can now afford to buy, which is probably about half of what we could afford to buy before? Do we use that to fly this supersonic airliner with a hundred passengers on board? Or do we use it to fly this brand new Boeing 747 with upwards of 400 passengers on board? Ironically, crossing the Atlantic with a full Concorde burned marginally less than a full 747, but earned quite a bit more money for the company. But they were thinking ahead and thinking about the future and generating and maintaining strong customer bases. So it's more or less a no-brainer that keeping a hundred passengers happy was not as desirable as keeping 400 passengers happy. So Pan American and all of the other airlines elected to cancel their Concorde orders. When I say all, I do mean all, including British Airways and Air France. But at the time, those two airlines were owned by their respective governments, their respective taxpayers, who had poured lots of money into the design and development of Concord, and who told British Airways and Air France that they were going to operate it. Both British Airways and Air France at the time were not keen on that idea. They thought they'd lose money and they were not keen on having to support the ongoing development of the airplane and support the infrastructure. So they spoke to the governments and struck a deal whereby the UK government and the French government would underwrite any losses that British Airways or Air France made. Downside of that was that if those two airlines made profits out of Concord, the governments wanted 90% of the profit, which is not an unreasonable deal if you're underwriting all the losses. That was okay for a while, but British Airways went to the UK government in 1984 and said, we can't really work with this, there's no incentive to make any money. How about we pay for all of the costs, we stand all the losses, but keep all the profit? It was a lot more complicated than that, but it's fundamentally that was the thing. And that's what happened. And from that point forward, Concorde had the ability to become a very profitable airline. But of course, by this stage, there are only two airlines in the world flying supersonic passenger transports, which meant it was very, very much a niche and exclusive market. And we could charge really high prices because there was very little competition. It was just London, New York and one or two other scheduled destinations, or Paris, New York. And what we did was decide that the first thing we needed to do was to find out how much flexibility there was in the pricing. So we asked our regular customers how much they thought they paid for a Concord ticket. Well, of course, the the chief exec and the chief financial officer of big companies don't buy their own tickets, their PAs do it for them. So these individuals didn't really know, so they guessed. And they guessed a figure about 30 to 40% higher than what they were actually actually paying. So if they thought they were paying 40% more than they really were paying, if we put the price up by 20% and told them it's 20% less than they think they're paying, you know, all round a win. And that's what we did. And so we then were making lots of profit out of Concorde, which we probably would not have been so successful in making if lots of other airlines, including Pan American, had had it. The pilot in me, of course, would much rather have seen a worldwide fleet of Concorde than the 14 that actually came into service. But the commercial person in me said that ironically, British Airways and Air France benefited significantly from the fact that all of the other airlines pulled out. And at Brooklyn's Museum, where I'm vice chair of trustees, we actually have a cabinet that has 13 models in it, with the liveries of 13 different airlines, not including Air France and British Airways, one of which was Pan American. Sadly, to report that of those 13, seven of those airlines are no longer with us. So Pan American wasn't the only one that failed. But yeah, it would have been great to see a Concorde flying with Pan Am on the fin.

SPEAKER_05 32:20

We are going to take a quick break with a 2023 commercial from Lego announcing the new Concorde setup. Now available at bookstores worldwide. Looking at Pan Am history, like in the 1960s, Pan Am viewed supersonic aircraft as the future. The 747 was designed to be first for passengers, but then once the supersonic fleet started becoming a reality, they were going to convert it to cargo. So the 747 was designed for passengers and cargo with the explicit goal of transferring everything to supersonic fleet in the next 25 years from the 1960s. Unfortunately, that didn't happen, but it's certainly fascinating to hypothesize.

SPEAKER_01 33:58

Yeah, and of course, it's it's kind of in people's minds now in that the next generation supersonic aircraft, and I'm my glasses always half full, I think there will be one. I happen to think that boom overture is a very strong contender. And the uh and the concept is that it will get into service, it will provide a supersonic service at an attainable price, and it will start taking some of the premium traffic from subsonic aircraft. So that concept of the premiums flying supersonic and the non-premiums flying subsonic may well yet come to pass to a certain extent. Certainly on the high-density routes where there is a lot of business traffic. Clearly, it doesn't make sense to pay a huge amount more to travel twice as fast if you're going on holiday. It might be a very enjoyable part of your holiday experience, but if you rationalise the cost, maybe that's not the way to go. But certainly for a business person, time is very much money. And even in these days of remote conferencing and video conferencing and all talking to each other across the world by computers, the uh real import of face-to-face communication and face-to-face business is still there. I recall once years ago, this is past the Gulf War, when a lot of people had stopped flying, talking to a particular regular Concorde customer who was backflying with us, having had a period of working remotely because there nobody was flying post the Gulf War. And I actually said to him, you know, you're backflying, which is great, we love it, but surely, you know, video conferencing enables you to do things without having to travel. And he said, Well, yeah, for the low-level stuff, we can do that. I'm going to New York potentially to seal a multi-billion dollar deal. He said, I want to be there. I want to look the other parties in the eyes. Uh, and before I sign, I want to see whether the perspiration breaks out on the other guy's forehead, and I want to see who's pulling the strings. And I can do that by going to New York and back in a day. He said, it's a no-brainer. You know, the Concord cost is absolutely nothing compared to the cost of getting this deal wrong. So I think people will continue to aspire to travel quickly, and I'm a great believer that that is the destiny of air travel, and it always has been. The human race has always wanted to travel faster.

SPEAKER_05 36:28

How does it make you feel that you were part of the next generation of aviation aircraft?

SPEAKER_01 36:35

I'm very proud of that, and I'm very honored and privileged to have been part. You know, the seven-year-old boy who wanted to be a pilot had dreams of uh becoming a commercial pilot, and as that those came towards fruition, increased dreams to be a Concorde pilot. And that all came to pass. And I was lucky enough to have two bites of the cherry, two times on Concord, one as a co-pilot and instructor, and then came back as chief pilot. And uh, you know, I when you think about uh the vision that a seven-year-old kid would have, if you told that seven-year-old kid that one day you'll end up not only as a Concord pilot, but as the chief pilot responsible for the flight operations of the entire fleet, and you will fly the airplane for twenty-two years, and you'll get more Concorde flight time than anybody else in the world, and that you'll have movers more supersonic flight hours than practically any other Air Force in the world, he wouldn't have believed you, but he'd have been very happy little lad, thinking it was at all possible, just like I'm a a very happy little old man thinking I've been fortunate enough to be part of it. And hopefully the legacy that Concord has left, not my legacy, but the legacy that Concord has left, is still in the forefront of lots of people's mind. It is quite amazing that now as we talk, there is not a child in the world that has seen a Concord fly, because it's over 18 years since Concord last flew. So there's not a child in the world that's seen a Concord fly, and yet I know, particularly my experiences at the museums around the world that have Concorde exhibits, that children are absolutely fascinated by the airplane. They're fascinated by its shape, they're fascinated by its style, and fascinated by what it could do. So if we can continue to inspire children and young people about the art of the possible, anything can be done.

SPEAKER_05 38:27

I have a couple young people that work in my office. You know, at lunch the other day, I was talking about how, you know, I was talking to you. They said, Well, what's what is a concord? And I said, You don't know what a Concorde is? And they're like, No, instead of being like, Oh my god, how could you not know? You know, it's an opportunity to educate. So I pulled up my phone and I showed them a picture and they're they said, That's a plane? And I said, Yeah, let me show you this video. And they're like, That is the most beautiful looking plane I've ever seen. So now they're learning about Concorde because uh image is so striking.

SPEAKER_01 39:03

Yeah, the uh the psychologists tell us that um one of the reasons for that is it appeals to both sides of the brain. It appeals to the left side and the right side, it appeals to the artistic side and the technical side. People realize it is beautiful and they also appreciate what it could do. Uh and so, you know, it has always been one of those aircraft that everybody always looked up at when it flew over. And uh from the beginning of the Concorde project all the way until the very last day, people would look up, even those that lived near to Heathrow or near to Kennedy, uh, who would see it regularly, they'd still stop and still look up as it flew over.

SPEAKER_05 39:39

I talked to my dad the day that we uh chatted, and I said, You're not gonna believe what happened to me today. And he said, Well, what happened? And I said, Well, I was six years old, and you took me to the Cleveland air show, and we saw the Concord. He's like, Oh, yeah, you were totally enamored by that uh plane. And I said, Well, I just talked to the guy that was flying that plane that day in Cleveland, and he's like, Wow, that that is like fate.

SPEAKER_01 40:07

Well, it is kind of, isn't it? It is fate, yeah. Two and a half million people flew on Concord with British Airways. So it's not that unusual for me to encounter people that have flown with BA on Concord and quite often with me on Concord. But what I find amazing is still the general level of interest about Concord amongst the aviation population, the technical population, and the non-aviation, non-technical population. People are still fascinated with it. I expected there still to be an interest because it was unique and it was very special, so you kind of expect there to be a lingering interest. But the level of the interest is still far more than I ever anticipated, and it still amazes me to this day how many people are still fascinated by this wonderful aircraft so many years after it last flew.

SPEAKER_05 40:59

When I interview Pan Am pilots, I asked them to do something for me. Sometimes I used it, sometimes I don't, but it's kind of a cool little thing. Can you, as Captain Bannister on a Concorde, can you give us some cabin announcements as if you were on the plane? I know that the Concorde program, you had very specific announcements at specific times during the flight.

SPEAKER_01 41:24

Oh, it's it's interesting you say that. Actually, we didn't have specific announcements at specific times in the flight. Nobody predicated that you will say this then. But it was kind of evolved by some form of magic that there were certain junctions within the flight that you really wanted to talk to the passengers and let them know uh what was going to happen. So you'd got people on board, some of whom had flown literally hundreds of times on Concord, some who were flying for the first and probably the only time on Concord. So you had to find a way of talking with the customers that um entertained them, fascinated the people on there for the first time, but at the same time didn't bore to death those that had heard something similar. So there was no predicated way of doing it. We all did our own thing, uh, we all s said what we felt was appropriate, uh, and we all developed uh our own personal routines. We didn't have a script, but we did talk quite often on the PA. When I say quite often, maybe three, four announcements during flight, so that's sort of kind of once every 45 minutes-ish. One of the reasons, of course, for that was there was no in-flight movie. Uh, you didn't need an in-flight movie system on Concord, and there was very high quality in-seat sound, uh, but no movie, because by the time you'd got on board and you'd had an absolutely fantastic lunch or breakfast occasionally, or occasionally dinner, you'd be two quarters, uh three quarters the way there, so there wasn't really time for a movie. So it was really all about keeping your customs informed. And one of the key things for me was just before we went through the sound barrier. That was the essence of Concord. You are going to fly faster than sound. And a lot of people had the perception that was born out of some of the post-war black and white movies that flying through the sound barrier was very dangerous, that the airplane would vibrate and shake, uh, and that it was very difficult to do, and that the pilots who did it were really heroes and all that stuff. Well, of course, post-war that was actually true. And the airplanes did shake, and the people that did it were heroes. But the fantastic designers that put Concorde together had made it so that the passage literally through the sound barrier was totally sensation free, which is one of the reasons we put indicators in the cabin to tell the passengers what speed we were at and what height we were at. And so what we would do as we ran up towards the point where we're going to accelerate to supersonic speed would be to. Come on a public address and say something along the lines of uh Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking, Mike Bannister from the flight deck. We're now approaching the point where we're gonna accelerate to supersonic speeds. We're currently travelling at mach point nine five, ninety-five percent of the speed of sound, some 150 to 158 miles an hour faster than an ordinary subsonic jet. But the fun bit comes now because we're gonna put uh our engines up to full power and switch on the reheats, the afterburners that we use for takeoff. This time we're gonna switch the reheats on in pairs. Indeed, you might feel two slight nudges of acceleration as they come in, which is absolutely the only sensation of going through the sound barrier. Apart from the two nudges of acceleration, all you'll see is the n the indicator in front of you clicking up until we get to mark 1.00, the speed of sound. Then we'll continue climbing and accelerating through the speed of sound until we reach Mark 1.7. And at that stage, Concorde's engines have become so efficient that we can switch the reheats off and Concord can do something that no other aircraft in the world can do, uh, which is to climb and accelerate at the same time from Mark 1.7 to Mark 2, with just full power without the need for reheats and after that. And so then I'd go on to actually give them a countdown to switching the reheats on, and the nudge that they felt in the back was really quite noticeable. Um not uncomfortable, but certainly something that you could feel. And that's why we switch the reheats on in pairs, because if we switch all four reheats on together, the nudge would be that much uh harder, and there'd be a distinct possibility of spinning the customer's drinks, and you never want to do that.

SPEAKER_05 45:44

That's fascinating. Anything you'd like to add about Concorde?

SPEAKER_01 45:48

There's a another couple of people that I met that might be of interest. So I'm a great ballet fan, and I fortunately had the opportunity once to have Rudolf Noriev flying as a customer. This is in the days before 9-11, in the days when we could invite people onto the flight deck, and it wasn't unusual for us to v invite somebody on the flight deck during the flight, quite a few people usually, and occasionally somebody on the flight deck for the takeoff and landing. And on this occasion, because I'm such a big ballet fan, uh, we invited Rudolf Noriev up for the takeoff and um and for the landing, and um on the crossing at chatting to him, I had been to see him dance at Covent Garden. And I was very, very lucky because I turned up, I just sort of out of the blue decided I'd go to the ballet at Covent Garden in London. And I just literally rocked up there at the box office and said, Can I have two tickets please? I didn't realise at the time that the only reason I got two tickets was the person in front of me had just returned to and everybody else in the theatre had had to book and get their tickets a year in advance, but I didn't know that. And so um off we go, watch the first act, and at the interval I'm saying to everybody all, listen, hey, isn't that guy great? He's really good and he's almost as good as Laurier. Well, of course it was Laurier. Um and um so I spoke to him, told him this story, and he said, Well, he said, actually, he said, if you ask me what my ballet highlight was, the pinnacle of my career was dancing Giselle in Covent Garden, and I had been fortunate enough to go and see him. So I you know, I told him the story I've just told you, and he said, Well that he said that makes it um really quite equal because you've watched me work and now I'm watching you work. And that's when he set up for the landing into London.

SPEAKER_05 47:36

Great story, great story.

SPEAKER_01 47:37

Of course, we've also carried um lots of other celebrities, including golfers, and I remember one particular occasion we carried Tom Watson, the famous US golfer. And he had been through a purple patch. He was playing really well in the early eighties. He won the the the Open, the British Open, he won the Open three times in 1980, 1982 and 1983, and he was in position to win in 1984. Um in 1983 I'd been lucky enough to fly on one of our special flights that took the golfers from the open back to the USA. So the Open finished on the 17th of July and on the 18th, uh we took the passengers back to the estates from Manchester because the uh open had been at Royal Burkdale, which is not far from Manchester. So we took off from Manchester, flew across to New York, where we uh landed an hour and three quarters in local time before we took off. So we took off at 9 a.m. from Manchester, had landed at just gone quarter past seven in the morning in New York, and uh everybody had gained just under two hours, which the Concord did every time it flew the Atlantic. But on the way over, uh we invited people up to the flight, one of whom was Tom Watson, who was absolutely delightful. And he came up armed with the open trophy because he'd won. And so we had lots and lots of photographs taken of the open trophy. Uh and then the stewardess came up and said, Mr. Watson, your your lunch is ready. Are you coming back? And he said, Yeah, I'll go back and and have lunch with you. And he said, But I'll leave the trophy here for them to take more photographs. So he left the trophy on the flight deck so we could get more photographs. And I picked it up and was smiling and just about to pass it to one of my colleagues, and I dropped it. It landed on the center console where all of the various radios are and some very tough buttons and switches, and it dented the open trophy. And about twenty years later I got an opportunity to look at it closely, and that dent's still there. Um So yeah, we had and funnily enough, the following year, Tom Watson was on board again, the f um again flying back from the open. This time they played at St. Andrews. So they were flying back from Presswick to New York. Um and they did that crossing in just three hours because the Presswick's on the west coast and straight out to sea. That year, uh famously Tom Watson was right in prime position to win as he went up the 17th hole and to do an amazing feat of winning the open three years running. And unfortunately, he pushed his ball beyond the green on the 17th and took another two to get down and scored a bogey um at the same time as Sebi Balasteros was doing the birdie on the eighteenth to win. So Tom Watson came back with us having finished second. And it it it was one of the highlights of my career because I never thought this would happen. Um two-thirds of the way across the Atlantic, Stewardess came up and said, Mike, she said, I've got a message from Tom Watson. Can he come up and see you? I said, Yeah, sure, of course he can. So he came up and walked into the flight and he said, Hi Mike, how are you? So we had a quick chat and he said, Look, I I I really wanted to come up and see you again because you were very kind enough to invite me up last year. And he said, I've s I've seen all the technical stuff. What I really want is will you sign my certificate? Because last year when I flew with you, I forgot to ask you. And I said, Yeah, of course I'll I thought, you know, maybe I've actually arrived when Tom Watson's asking me for my great times, absolutely fantastic.

SPEAKER_05 51:01

And did he ever notice the dent in his trophy? If he did, he's too much of a gentleman to mention. Well, you you you could just sign the dent, you know.

SPEAKER_01 51:11

That was a small dent, not a big dent, that's a small dent.

SPEAKER_05 51:14

This is a dent from the Concord flight deck at 59,000 feet. All right, sir. Well, thank you so much for your time. Okay, Tom. Great pleasure. Thanks a lot. Take care. That legacy lives on at the Pan Am Museum in Garden City, New York, where you can explore the rich history of the aircraft and individuals at the heart of the company known as the world's most experienced airline. For more information about the Pan Am Museum, check out our website at www.thepan Amuseum.org. You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. As was once a tagline in one of our commercials, we would greatly appreciate your support to help the Pan Am Museum continue making the going great. You can also support the museum by shopping on our online store for all things Pan Am accessories, apparel, jewelry, books, models, and posters. We want to hear from you. If you have a question for us or want to share your story, our email address is podcast at the Pan Am Museum.org. We are going to close out this episode with a special 2017 tribute from British Airways to celebrate their aviation heritage with a song composed by Helen Jane Long called The Aviators. As flight crews once said to passengers departing for their destinations around the world, thank you for flying, Pan M.

SPEAKER_08 53:01

Planet, the Aviators, building superhighways in the innocent sky, leaving wise and children in the state.