Concorde My Story

This story belongs to Amy, her brother Tommy,

and her step-grandfather Tony, who they call Tappi.

It's a tiny tale about Tappi's life and his love of flying.

Tommy, let's see how fast you can go.

Hold on tight, Tommy!

Well done, Tommy. Well done.

OK, Amy, let's see how fast you can go.

Wahey! Well done, both. Fantastic! You've done a good job.

That's really good.

Now it's time for Tappi to take Amy and Tommy on a journey of discovery,

and share his memories with them.

Tommy and Amy, shall we make some aeroplanes?

BOTH: Yeah! OK, great. Let's take a single piece of paper.

I love making paper aeroplanes.

Have you ever tried to make one at home?

Why not give it a go?

Match up the two sides close together.

And, hey, we've got a plane. What do you think?

-Yay!

-Yay, cool, huh?

-It's just like the plane you used to fly.

You're absolutely right, Amy. It is just like the plane I used to fly.

Hey, guys. Shall we fly our planes? BOTH: Yeah!

All right, let's go. One, two, three...fly!

What's it like flying a real plane, Tappi?

Oh, it's absolutely magic. I'll ask you a question first.

What's the most favourite day of the year for you?

-My birthday.

-For me, it's the most exciting time.

Every time I go to fly, it was like having a birthday.

And that's what I like about the job. It's really magic.

Have you flown lots of planes?

Yes, Tommy, I have flown lots of planes in the RAF.

And it was really good fun.

And Tappi talked more about being a pilot -

which means he used to fly aeroplanes.

Amy and Tommy, I went on an aeroplane for the very first time

in 1948. I was the same age as you, Amy.

I just knew from the age of eight that that's what I wanted to do.

And it just stayed with me the whole time.

When Tappi was 18 years old, he joined something called the RAF.

Which is a shorter name for the Royal Air Force.

Which has been teaching people how to protect

the sky above our country for almost 100 years.

Tappi is taking Amy

and Tommy to a special place called a flight museum.

Which has lots and lots of very old aeroplanes.

You can see up close and, sometimes, even touch.

They're off to see an aeroplane, which Tappi's dad used to fly

many, many years ago.

-This is the Spitfire.

-It's very, very small.

It's very small indeed.

But did you know, this was the fastest fighter aeroplane in the last

big world war. My dad used to fly one of these things.

Look underneath here. You see the roundel here?

That's the symbol for the RAF aeroplanes,

so they knew that they were friendly aeroplanes coming over Britain.

Here's this huge engine.

Inside there's a Merlin and it turned its big propeller around

to make the aeroplane go very fast. More than 600mph.

If you look over here, can you see the bubble on top of the aeroplane?

That's the canopy.

And when the pilot wants to fly, he gets up there and opens it, that goes

back, he gets in, and he can close it, start the engine and go and fly.

That's what my dad used to do. Cool, eh? Yeah, really cool.

I wonder where they're off to next.

Tappi is taking Amy and Tommy to see another type of plane

he used to fly - passenger planes.

It's so lovely to be sitting here relaxed with you guys.

This is what I used to do when I left the Air Force -

took people flying to holiday destinations on large aeroplanes.

And it was absolutely great fun. We went to some really lovely places.

-Where did you go to?

-A lot of the times, to the Caribbean.

And all over the world. But my favourite place was in Lapland.

And that's the home of...?

-Santa.

-Absolutely right. Santa used to meet every aeroplane that came in.

We used to take the children from the aeroplane, straight through to the

hotel, where there would be a big Christmas party and pantomime show.

But the guest of honour was Santa and the reindeer.

One time the reindeer came into the hotel.

I've got pictures of them. It was really good and the kids loved it.

They all came up and got lovely presents. It was just good.

Then we took them back to the aeroplane, and off they'd go

and fly back to England again.

People were flying in other things before aeroplanes.

Balloons. Hot air balloons can fly really high, and really far.

So people would travel on long journeys by balloon,

before aeroplanes were invented.

The first proper flight was in this funny-looking aeroplane,

which was built by two brothers called the Wright brothers.

And it took off over 100 years ago.

That very old plane was amazing.

Now Tappi would like to show Amy

and Tommy another special aeroplane that he used to fly.

Good morning, Captain Amy and Captain Tommy. BOTH: Good morning!

This is Concorde. What do you think, Captain Amy?

-She looks very big.

-She is very big from the outside.

But she's actually small inside. In the flight deck, even smaller.

Does she go really, really fast?

Yes, Captain Tommy. She does go extremely fast.

2.5 times faster than any other passenger aeroplane.

I used to fly her a long time ago. It was great fun.

Would you like to go on board and see where I used to work?

BOTH: Yes! Great! Come on then, let's go.

Come on, guys.

Tappi, Amy and Tommy are going inside the Concorde to explore.

How fantastic.

Concorde aeroplanes were designed and built by the French and British.

And they were very expensive to build.

So they only made 20 in the whole world.

Concorde was very slim and had very powerful engines,

which meant they could fly nearly twice as high

and twice as fast as most passenger aeroplanes.

This is the cockpit of Concorde.

And I used to sit exactly where you're sitting, Amy.

Where do you fly to on Concorde?

I used to fly to New York twice a week.

But other places - Washington, Barbados.

But New York, in fact, was my favourite place.

-Is it faster than a Spitfire?

-Absolutely, Tommy.

In fact, I think probably three or four times faster than a Spitfire.

It would go so fast that when we took off from London at breakfast time

we would arrive in New York in time for lunch.

Just over three hours flying.

A jumbo would take probably seven and a half hours.

Captain Tommy, would you like to fly the aeroplane?

-Yes!

-Great. Turn round there, put your left hand on the control column,

and the other hand here on the throttles.

Captain Amy, one of the other jobs was to make

an announcement to the passengers before we took off.

Would you like to do that for us today?

Welcome aboard Concorde. This is Captain Amy speaking.

We'll be taking off shortly so please sit back

and relax as we'll be travelling very, very fast.

Thank you, Captain Amy.

Amy and Tommy are going to pretend to fly Concorde.

But don't worry, the aeroplane will stay safely on the ground.

Captain Tommy, I think it's time we went flying.

What you're going to do - you go, "Three, two, one, now."

Push the throttles forward, and pull the stick back.

Three...

Two...

-One...

-Now.

Don't worry though, it's not going to take off. It's only pretend.

That's it. And now we're flying. Well done!

Now we're going to come back and do a quick lap.

Push the stick forward.

OK, pull the throttles back. OK, that's it.

Well done. We've landed. That's very good, Captain Tommy.

Wasn't it fun pretending to fly Concorde?

Now, with you two, we have two more pilots in the family.

How about that, guys? Hey! Come on! Give us five.

Fantastic. Brilliant. Congratulations. Welcome aboard.

This is mummy Natalie and Uncle David, and they're taking Amy and

Tommy to an air show to see lots of different aeroplanes - old and new -

flying in the sky.

JET ENGINE ROARS

Wow! This Typhoon jet is fast!

And loud!

Here it comes again. Cover your ears, Amy!

This aeroplane is called a Swordfish, which is

known as a biplane. A biplane has two sets of wings.

Look at this really fast plane. It's called a Hawker Hunter.

Roller coaster. Look at that!

This one's called a Piper Grasshopper.

Wow, look at these girls standing on the wings of the plane!

They're called wing walkers.

But don't worry, they're very safely attached.

What an exciting day out at the air-show.

Thank you for telling us stories about flying.

And showing us Concorde.

My pleasure. Can you remember all the special things we did together?

We made paper aeroplanes together and they flew very far.

Hey, we've got a plane. What do you think?

-Yay!

-Yay, cool, huh?

You took us to the flight museum to see lots of aeroplanes.

And we saw a Spitfire aeroplane. Like the one your daddy used to fly.

Cool, eh? Yeah, really cool.

And you told us great stories about flying.

Santa used to meet every aeroplane that came in.

Then we went to see Concorde - your favourite aeroplane.

Amy and I made announcements.

Please sit back and relax as we'll be travelling very fast.

And pretended to be pilots.

That's it. Now we're flying. Well done.

That's very good, Captain Tommy.

-What was your favourite bit, Tommy?

-Looking at the Spitfire.

-And Amy?

-Playing in the cockpit of Concorde.

I used to sit exactly where you're sitting, Amy.

That's where I used to fly the aeroplane from.

What was your favourite thing?

My favourite thing was to do things with you two.

Especially to take you both on board Concorde,

and go into the cockpit together and tell you all about it.

Thank you very much cos I had a fantastic time. I loved doing it.

I hope one day we'll all go and fly together. Thank you both very much.

What a fabulous heap of fun.

That was Amy, Tommy

and Tappi Tony's tiny tale about Tappi's love for flying.

Now that Tappi has shared his story with Amy and Tommy,

it's time for them to start their own story.

Do you know someone with a story to share?