Extra baggage and 60 kilos of newspapers had also been loaded without the knowledge of the crew, which meant the aircraft was a ton-and-a-half over the maximum take-off weight. Mike was one of those lucky people who ended up in the right place and time to do exactly the job he had dreamed of doing when he was a kid - which was flying. And when the French-led investigation led to unsafe criminal convictions, Mike was the expert witness whose evidence help see them overturned, while at the same time as restoring the reputation of his beloved aeroplane.

Concorde was acquired by Penguin Michael Joseph Publishing Director, Rowland White from Mark Lucas at the Soho Agency.Mike was again at the absolute centre of everything, even coming back out of retirement to be involved in the court cases. Flying over Windsor Castle, she once remarked: "I can see my sister's home - the Royal Standard is flying.

What is of somewhat shocking interest is the large volume devoted to the real story of the crash of Air France 4590. The opportunity to fly the supersonic plane came when he was in his 20s and he was a fully qualified Concorde pilot while still in his twenties.Mike also provides a novel glimpse at what it meant to be an airline pilot in the glory days of post-war air travel. The author makes a convincing case that Concorde was already on fire due to a wheel modification Air France, unlike British Airways, had failed to make, before it hit a piece of metal belonging to a Continental Airlines DC10 which had just taken off, and also that the plane’s fuel tanks had been overfilled, leaving no space for the energy of impact to be absorbed which then caused a fire to ignite, that the crew hadn’t taken account of a headwind and the aircraft was overweight, with the result it took off at a speed which was too slow which ensured it couldn’t reach nearby Le Bourget airport for an emergency landing and evacuation. And what really happened on that tragic afternoon in July 2000, when the crash of Flight 4590 grounded the Concorde forever? The Paris crash is a big part of the second half of the book and it was interesting to read again what happened and the various investigations.

Living under the 09L flight path of London Heathrow airport I was lucky enough to spend many days watching her at Heathrow and also looking skywards from my garden in Windsor.He became the youngest pilot on the Concorde fleet in 1977, was appointed the airline's Chief Concorde Pilot in 1995 and regularly flew as Captain on all of the aircraft's routes worldwide.