Concorde sale starts
Hundreds of Concorde spares went up for auction today, with the first under the hammer fetching more than double their expected price.
Cockpit gauges, including air speed indicators and artificial horizons, are being sold along with lower-tech items such as a cabin oven, plate-and-silverware sets, and even a Concorde toilet seat.
The parts were being sold by Toulouse’s Aerotheque organisation which runs a museum dedicated to the city’s aviation history.
Planemaker Airbus inherited the parts and gave them to the group four years ago.
The first item among the 835 lots was a Concorde filling valve, which sold for £320 (€459) more than double the pre-auction estimate.
The pieces attracting most interest included a 1.2-ton, 12ft high piece of landing gear, and a Machmeter which measured the aircraft’s velocity in relation to the speed of sound.
They will be sold tomorrow.
But there were none of Concorde’s trademark needle noses.
Three were auctioned in London and Paris in 2003 and 2004, the first of which went for more than £250,000 (€358,415).
Concorde made its maiden flight in 1969, but was retired in 2003 after a crash in 2000 that killed 113 people.
