AS the world adjusts to life without Concorde, the first, only and possibly last supersonic passenger aircraft, Nailsworth resident and retired design engineer Bryan Saunders reflects on the part he played in aviation's great adventure.

The plane which flew at the speed of a rifle bullet was officially grounded on Friday when the last four big birds of the sky made a final descent into London's Heathrow Airport.

SNJ reporter David Gibbs reports.

BRYAN Saunders could say he wrote the book on Concorde.

For 12 years, from 1968 to 1980, he headed a team of draughtsmen mapping the electrical innards of Concorde, turning French schematics into English handbook diagrams, while also working on the plane's wing and rudder servos and its black box.

"We had to pick up the French schematics and convert them into working drawings," he explained.

"They had to be like a manual so anyone could understand them.

The plane dominated his working life, with trips from his headquarters at Cheshire firm Hebron and Medlock to the British Aerospace's Bristol hangar, where Concorde 002 was being assembled.

"I used to crawl around the thing looking at wiring runs.

"It was our bread and butter job although I did other jobs as well."

Back then Concorde was a precociously advanced piece of engineering and, said Bryan, it remains so today.

"For its time it was cutting edge technically and it still is in certain respects. It's just a shame it has had to go.

"It was the first fly-by-wire aircraft. Old planes were all mechanical. This was all electric. Concorde was the first to do that."

But the iconic plane that came to define the commercial jet age almost never got off the ground.

The retired engineer recalls the initial orders for the plane totalling between 50 and 60.

"Pan Am said they could use about 20 planes, then they backed away. The order figure fell to 16, including the two prototypes and they had to give them away," said Bryan.

But Concorde was expensive in the air and on the ground. Its days were always numbered.

"It was expensive to run, heavy on fuel and it was not allowed to fly supersonic overland. "They must now be old and creaky, needing major refits, which I don't think it's possible to do. The costs are just exorbitant," he said.

Pragmatism has triumphed over romantic vision, in the end, even if it took 34 glorious years to defeat Concorde.

Faith is also required to sustain romantic vision and the Paris crash of an Air France Concorde in July 2000 was as fatal for the future of the plane as it was for its 113 passengers.

"I knew when I saw that it would probably signal the end of the line," said Bryan.

"I'm not sure we've got the money to put into it and I don't really think we have got the technological skills now."