Concorde flies into the sunset

London – From royalty to pop stars, tycoons to supermodels: if you’re rich, famous or just in a hurry, Concorde has been the only way to jet across the Atlantic in style for more than a quarter of a century.

A last plane load of VIPs and frequent flyers will cram into Concorde’s final passenger flight on Friday under British Airways, resting their rears where more than a few celebrities have been before.

Like most Concorde pilots, Christopher Orlebar has had more than a few jet-setters in the back of his plane.

On one occasion he watched a spoon appear to bend when the self-styled paranormalist Uri Geller was on the flight deck.

“He then said, ‘I can spin the compass’,” recounted Orlebar, who flew the plane for a decade before his retirement.

“I thought, at 37 kilometres a minute, are we being wise to allow this man to fiddle with the navigation?”

Geller put his head next to the standby compass, “and sure enough it whizzed round,” Orlebar said. “I’d never seen anything like it. When it stopped I’m pleased to say it went back to show accurately where we were going,”