What an amazing website. I've been captivated for quite some time looking through your fabulous photographs. What prompted me to write to you however, was the Concorde section, specifically the Heathrow takeoff of Alpha Golf. For a while I used to work in a factory not far from Heathrow, and used to rush out to hear the Concorde's taking off early in the mornings. The ferocity and shear power of the noise was absolutely heart stopping, (In the car park is a small pond which used to ripple under the pressure), and it really used to set me up for the day - feeling terrific.

A few years later I was lucky enough to fly on Alpha Alpha (the first of BA's Concordes), and I can report with a silly grin on my face that the experience is burned into my emotions. She was 70 tonnes lighter than normal and the acceleration down the runway was unimaginable.

There can be no greater expression of power than those few seconds, when hell itself is unleashed, the reheat is lit, and you streak off like a bolt of lightning. This was my first ever flight on any plane anywhere!!!

My father was working at the Rolls factory in Filton during the development of Concorde, specifically the Olympus engines. He tells me loads of stories about flights in Vulcan bomber test beds, prototype Concorde's blasting up and down the test runway, day after day after day, driving everyone crazy, and my favourite of all her first takeoff from Filton - he was there!!!

Consequently we are both Concorde anoraks - although I was the only one lucky enough to fly in one. As I clicked your link to the movie, I thought It would be just another minuscule white dot lumbering off away from the camera. How wrong I was!!! I have quite a serious sound system with my computer setup and that sound, that unique combination of movement, power, grace and beauty has quite literally moved me to tears. Not something I expected. So many amazing memories have been brought back in those few seconds, they had nowhere to go. I can't wait to show my father your website.