Alpha-Echo: The Royal Story of Barbados’ Concorde, and its space-age next door neighbour.
On the 17th November 2003, a Monday, if my memory serves me correctly, I was hurriedly making my way up the island’s main highway to the perimeter fence of the Grantley Adams International Airport in Barbados. As a self-proclaimed ‘avgeek’ this was not unusual, but the immediacy with which I was handling my faithful Toyota Corolla suggested this was beyond my usual trip to watch the afternoon “heavies” arrive from North America and Europe.
That date in history was special for me, and for countless others across the world and most certainly in Barbados, as it was the day that British Airways’ Concorde, registration G-BOAE or Alpha-Echo to us aficionados, was making her final voyage across the Atlantic, to be retired like a true silver haired snowbird, in the Caribbean Sun.
The Concorde had become a marvel in the skies above Barbados, and will long remain a fixture in the collective nostalgia of Barbados throughout the 80s and 90s. First flying to the island on a very auspicious occasion, which we’ll discuss later, and returning many times after, earning Barbados the distinction of being one of only four destinations the supersonic jet flew to on regularly scheduled service (including New York City, London and Paris), the Concorde was one of the main factors that my 166 square mile island home, became synonymous with luxury and is still considered a favoured playground of the rich and famous.
On Saturday mornings, you could tell the time by the Concorde. During the peak Winter season, and sometimes in the Summer, the jet would grace our skies. My mother and I had made a tradition of watching it as it rounded the northwestern tip of the island, making its way down the West or “Platinum Coast”, roaring like thunder gliding much like a majestic bird of prey, as it made its way to the island’s lone airport in the south.
But just how did this rocky outpost, famous for rum and now, Rihanna, end up the recipient of coveted supersonic air service? Any number of global capitals and metropolises the world over were considered rare destinations, popping up on special round-the-world charters, meanwhile the British Airways and occasionally Air France fleet, made frequent stops in Bridgetown.
The Concorde, an Anglo-French marvel of engineering, took its name from the historic, well, concord, between the two nations in building the supersonic aircraft. British Aerospace (BAE) and Aerospatiale (the front-runner of the modern Airbus Industrie), worked together to design and launch, what would become the world’s only successful, commercial supersonic transport (SST).
In the early days of the supersonic gold rush, the Concorde was not the only contender for breaking the sound barrier. Indeed, the former USSR, locked in eternal rivalry with the West, moved at speeds surpassed only by their creation, the Tupolev 144, or “Concordski”, and managed to launch the world’s first SST, three months ahead of the Concorde. The Americans, not to be outdone, had plans for similar SSTs, which never materialised, the most notable being Boeing’s B-2707. Similar to the space race, the march towards viable supersonic commercial flight, was marred by tense geopolitics and imperial-sized egoism, but closer to the ground, there would be another issue, which inadvertently, helped the Barbados case.
Concorde, and her less successful counterparts, due to their high speeds, generated tremendous sonic booms. Without getting into physics and aerodynamics, a sonic boom is the very real side effect of a body crossing the sound barrier. Sonic booms by large aircraft, e.g. Concorde, are not only incredibly startling to populations, but are capable of even minor damage to structures on the ground. As such, the grandiose plans for many of the world’s leading airlines at the time, including long-dead giants such as PanAm, Trans World Airlines, Continental and Braniff, were curtailed, as governments refused to allow the jets to fly over land. In the United States, opposition was particularly vehement and there was a real risk that even NYC service might not have materialised. While Air France and BA served cities such as Rio, Caracas, Bahrain and even Washington D.C., New York City was the true golden egg both carriers were banking on to make the aircraft successful.
Eventually, the Concorde disproved the initial concerns of catastrophic increases in noise pollution, and flew London and Paris, respectively, to the Big Apple up until their retirement. However, due to the campaign against the jet, many of the original orders dried up and in the end, only the flag carriers of its birth nations ever flew the aircraft in regular commercial service. Overland flying was deemed problematic, and so the expansion of supersonic service was greatly constrained.
The late queen, while on the Caribbean leg of her Silver Jubilee tour, made history when she returned to the United Kingdom aboard Concorde. Her tour of the Bahamas, the British Virgin Islands, Antigua, millionaire hideaway Mustique and eventually Barbados, reached a supersonic crescendo, when for the first time in history the monarch would fly at twice the speed of sound, on the iconic jet.
The aircraft chosen for the mission, was of course, G-BOAE, the E a tribute to Elizabeth. Having raced ahead of the royal yacht, Britannia, to Barbados’ then Seawell Airport, the craft later had the honours on 31 October 1977 to whisk the royal couple back to London, with throngs of Barbadians turning out not only to see the Queen of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth, but the undisputed Empress of the Skies (Queen of the Skies is reserved for the Boeing 747 — sorry).
It was therefore a fitting tribute that when Concorde ended the halcyon age of supersonic flying that G-BOAE, Alpha Echo, would come to permanent rest in Barbados, where she made first history — royal history, no less.
Barbados, thanks to the likes of Ronald Tree, the founder of the island’s most prestigious luxury resort Sandy Lane, late US President, Ronald Reagan, Hollywood actress, Claudette Colbert and even the late Princess Margaret, became synonymous as a favourite outpost of the wealthy, the well-known and the well-heeled. Elizabeth II’s fondness for the island, also positioned it firmly as an aspirational holiday bastion in the minds of the British, and her return (on Concorde) in the late 80s, ushered in an age of supersonic flying from Bridgetown.
In 1987, Her late Majesty flew to Barbados on Concorde, and by the Winter season of that year, British Airways had inaugurated regularly scheduled supersonic service to Barbados, typically arriving on Saturday mornings.
The flight, Speedbird 273 (in-bound from Heathrow) and 272 outbound from Barbados, departed London at around 9:30 am GMT, arriving in Barbados roughly 3 hours and 45 minutes later. It is even reported, on some Concorde flights westward to Barbados, touch down would be earlier than the time you left London! This phenomenon due partly to Barbados not adjusting clocks for daylight savings time, so the aircraft and her passengers would appear to be going back in time as they flew west.
Barbados also boasts a lesser known, historical milestone relative to Concorde and supersonic commercial service. During the mid, to late 1990s, British Airways seasonal Concorde services to Barbados had proven successful. The island’s glittering West Coast luxury hotels and villas, chiefly Sandy Lane, boasted elite clientele that took full advantage of the unparalleled convenience of being able to cross the North Atlantic in half the time. To this jet set, the Boeing 747 that plied the route between London and Barbados at the time, was considered a “downgrade”, even if one was seated in the airline’s iconic First Class.
As such, the glitterati on the other side of the Atlantic, were also turning their gaze to the island paradise, and in 1999 British Airways inaugurated Concorde service to Barbados from New York City, during the peak of the Winter tourist season. North-East snowbirds could then switch Manhattan for Barbados in as little as two and a half hours’ time, but more importantly, this American supersonic schedule meant that Barbados became the only destination in the world to receive regular supersonic air service from both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.
Concorde might be long gone, precisely two decades this October, however, her legacy still shines brightly in the annals of history, not just relative to aviation. In the months following official retirement, back in 2003, many of Alpha Echo’s sisters ended up in permanent displays as part of museums, or as static monuments at busy airports, e.g. Charles De Gaulle and London Heathrow. Alpha Echo, just beginning her retirement in the Caribbean sun, found herself as the centrepiece of a criminally underrated, tourism attraction. Located just east of the main terminal of the Barbados airport, one could find the repurposed hangar, which housed the Barbados Concorde Experience. Here, Alpha Echo, the fabled chariot of Elizabeth II, provided visitors of all ages, a chance to tour her sleek and economical interior, experience a simulated sonic boom, gaze into the now silent barrels of the massive Rolls-Royce/SNECMA Olympus 593 engines, and have an up-close experience with a true marvel of modern technology and human brilliance, second only perhaps to the Space Shuttle.
Today, sadly, the Concorde’s Barbadian exhibition is closed, reasons unbeknownst to the public, but we have hope that it will return, in fine form, as the Concorde is not only a key chapter in Barbados’ success as a nation, but a testament to man’s ingenuity when he works together, in concord.
But what of Concorde’s space-age neighbour? It is interesting to note that Concorde, is but one of two aerospace treasures, hidden away in Barbados, both holding significance to the global, geopolitical landscape of a bygone era. Barbados, itself as a nation, never had any skin in the game during the 1960s space race, however, a collaborative project between the USA and Canada, headed by an eager scientist, put the island in the history books. Today, amidst overgrown foliage, on a paramilitary base south of the Concorde’s final resting place, one will find the remnants of the H.A.R.P Gun, the centrepiece of the Project H.A.R.P program.
In case you’re wondering, H.A.R.P = High Altitude Research Project, and it is reported that ensuing boom from each shot/launch, was certainly not music to the ears of nearby neighbourhoods.
Much like Concorde was in her time, the H.A.R.P Gun, was an extraordinary machine, used to test the ballistics of re-entry vehicles, essentially launching projectiles into the Earth’s high atmosphere. At a length of 119 feet, and weighing over 200 tonnes, the gun held the global record of being, in its life, the largest operational gun. The ultimate goal was to provide an alternative to rocket-based space launch, replacing the fuel-thirsty rocket method, with powerful guns capable of launching objects, such as small satellites into space.
This unique figure of the space age, which itself was shrouded in mystique and intrigue (Google: Gerald Bull, the project’s founder), is an important part of Barbados’ heritage tourism product; industrial heritage is a key facet of any nation’s modern story, and the island has two marvels of the modern age, less than 2 kilometres away from each other, that hold amazing, untapped potential (if redeveloped properly and responsibly) to become fantastic educational, historical and industrial sites of interest, ergo, tourism attractions. See video below from Megaprojects YouTube channel, for more in-depth history of the gun.
The gun could be dismantled and reassembled, with some careful restoration where possible, as part of a wider, more comprehensive aerospace experience, with the Concorde as the centrepiece. For such a small island, geographically, socially and economically, for Barbados to possess two important pieces of technology, so critical to the development of aerospace technology in the mid-20th century, is mind-boggling, and should be leveraged as part of a diversified tourism product offering.
No where else in this world can boast being the birthplace of rum, the grapefruit, Rihanna, the world’s largest gun and resting place of the world’s only, successful commercial supersonic aircraft. That’s iconic.
