Hello, you're listening to the witness history podcast from the BBC World Service.

It's been exactly 50 years since Concorde, the supersonic passenger aircraft, made her

first non-stop flights across the Atlantic. Concorde slashed the transatlantic air crossing

record, making the journey between Washington and Paris in just over three and a half hours.

Today, we're taking you back to March 1969, when the airliner took to the skies for the

very first time. In 2012, Mike Lanchin spoke to some of the people who were there on that

monumental day. It's March 2, 1969, a cold and windy day at Toulouse Airport, where the

world's media has been camping out, waiting to see where the Concorde, the first ever supersonic

passenger plane, with its revolutionary drooping nose and its swept-back wings can actually

fly.

Now you can hear her engine winding up to a 60-ton-roar. Andre Tercault has now switched on his

rehearse, which gives him full power. The cockpit was very, very silent. We were on board,

we as the crew, the controls were excellent and we have computed of course.

French airline pilot Andre Tercault was the man chosen to take Concorde up that day.

Now, at this moment, Tercault is pulling up the nose, now rotation. Now with the smoke

and dust rising from the tail still on the ground, she's airborne. The Western world's

first supersonic jet has taken to the air.

There had no problem in the takeoff. It was really, really easy. Could you feel the speed

as you went up?

We don't feel, we read our instruments. Of course, the feeling is there and it was smooth

and we just raised the nose. I would say, 15 degrees, something like that, and began

our large circular under the airfield.

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