G-BSST

G-BSST was the second Concorde to fly and the first assembled in Britain. It was registered to the Ministry of Technology on 6 May 1968. On 9 April 1969 Brian Trubshaw flew it from Filton to RAF Fairford, with John Cochrane as co-pilot and Brian Watts as flight engineer. Three test flight engineers were also aboard.

Fairford became its base for the development programme. It made its public debut at the Paris Air Show in June 1969 and first landed at Heathrow on 13 September 1970. It reached Mach 2 for the first time on 12 November 1970. In February 1972 it flew with the production-type undercarriage for the first time.

Much of its work was sales and environmental testing. Between 2 June and 1 July 1972 it toured the Far East and Australia. In January 1973 it left for Johannesburg for hot-and-high trials, and in July 1973 temperature and altitude trials began at Madrid. As production aircraft took over, its test role ended.

Its final flight, on 4 March 1976, took it to Yeovilton. By then it had made 438 flights and logged 836 hours 9 minutes, of which 173 hours 26 minutes were supersonic. The Science Museum bought it for the nation, and it was re-registered to the museum on 26 July 1976. It opened to the public that July and still carries much of its original test equipment.

Concorde 002 is in Hall 4. You can go aboard, walk through a cabin still filled with test instrumentation and look into the cockpit; access is tight for wheelchairs.