A British Airways Concorde is escorted by Skyhawks from the Royal New Zealand Air Force No.75 Squadron while flying to New Zealand in April 1986. Photo / RNZAF
A British Airways Concorde is escorted by Skyhawks from the Royal New Zealand Air Force No.75 Squadron while flying to New Zealand in April 1986. Photo / RNZAF
In 1986 Halley's Comet crossed the sky above New Zealand, and a Concorde touched down in Auckland. Kenneth Irons, then a Palmerston North businessman, brought the two together.
It fascinated me that a rock in the sky could go someplace for 76 years and come back, and people could predictwhere it'd be and when you'd be able to see it.
And if you missed it ... there'd be very few people who could see it twice in their own lifetime.
That blows my mind.
I thought, 'Where is it going to be?', so I started this research. It was pre-internet of course, so you had to go to the library and get a book out.
I started to find out that Halley's Comet takes a particular elliptical orbit, and it's so far away that it takes several days to pass through the visible spectrum of astronomical observation.
That's what got me going, and I thought, 'Well okay, how are you going to look at this? If it's flying through the sky fast, what goes fast through the sky? And what could I rent?'
The visiting Concorde outlined by bush at Kauri Point, Birkenhead, as it flew over Auckland on April 7 1986. NZME file photo / Ross White
I got in touch with the then-sales manager for British Airways New Zealand, who thought it was a great idea.
I kept badgering for six months till finally he said he couldn't get the boss interested.
I asked for the name of the Concorde charter division, but he said they don't deal with the public - you have to go through a retail office, they don't even publish their phone number.
So I waited till that night, rang the main switchboard for British Airways and said, 'charter division for Concorde please'. This bloke named Vic Amor picked up and I said, 'I'd like to charter a Concorde' and he said, 'Good, you've come through to the right guy'.
I couldn't have met a nicer guy.
This was probably about February 1985. There was no such thing as the internet, let alone Zoom, so he said he'd arrange for me to come to London for a meeting.
Three days later first class tickets arrived in the post for Palmerston North to London.
I had to have a reservations department, a flight authorisation department, a crewing department and a finance department, but it was all just me.
Sparked initially by a fascination with Halley's Comet, Kenneth Irons organised for the first visit to New Zealand by a Concorde supersonic passenger airliner. Photo / Supplied
I ended up collecting $4.65 million for something that cost me $4.75m. But I recovered.
You've got to have a passion that gets you up at two in the morning night after night to argue for flight rights or PCN rating - which is the hardness of the concrete on [each stopover] runway, and whether it would carry the weight of a Concorde.
They were trusting this kid in his 30s from Palmerston North to find out whether Concorde's going to drill a hole in the airport runway.
I also organised the [Royal New Zealand Air Force] Skyhawks to go out and meet the Concorde.
They told the Concorde they were going to do a u-turn and accompany them in.
Well, the Concorde screamed over the top of them and they couldn't catch up, so the captain had to dawdle to allow them to catch up.
When the Concorde flew over Auckland, people got out of their cars.
The Harbour Bridge got talked about, because it blocked the bridge. But that happened all over Auckland.
David Lange, Mike Moore, who was minister of tourism, Cath Tizard and I had walked out onto the runway.
Health and safety, nobody knew that phrase then, the four of us were standing about 100 metres from the edge of the tarmac.
I told them the pilot's going to do a fly past and turn left, and we're going to look straight at the tail pipes of the afterburners.
He put the afterburners on and the four of us, it nearly singed our eyebrows. It was so hot.
A clipping from Concorde's New Zealand visit. The group photo shows Kenneth Irons, who organised the charter flight, at far right. Prime Minister David Lange is third from left. Photo / Supplied
I just remember the sheer power of the sound, the ground rumbling under our feet and the heat.
The acceleration is just mind-bending, neck-bending really, the g-forces are fantastic.
When the passengers landed some were feeling quite nauseous because they'd had these whirlwind afterburner trips over Auckland Airport.
On the flight I had Heather Couper, who was the president of the British Astronomical Association.
You'd think that'd be someone that wears a monocle, is male and aged about 80.
She was about 40 and she was this flirty, hair-teeth-nails flying everywhere, jewellery up the yin-yang, over-gushing, unbelievably funny woman, and yet she was the head of this fusty 300-year-old British Astronomical Association.
She was on the plane to point out which dot in the sky was Halley's Comet, which wasn't easy.
The pilot had to fly the plane at an angle, and to make the plane not go around in a circle they had to tilt the nose upwards.
Picture that.
A hundred, mostly elderly passengers, hanging onto their seats with Heather working her way down the aisle, trying to get three faces into a tiny window and pointing her finger at a little, dull dot in the sky.
The funniest story of the passengers was the first lady to book.
I appointed Cox & Kings, the world's oldest travel agency, to be the London booking agent.
We put it out in the press that we were chasing Halley's Comet with a Concorde.
The very first lady to walk into the travel agency worked on the vegetable barrows on New King's Rd.
And she sat down and said, 'I've heard about this Concorde thing. I've always wanted to go on the Concorde'.
The sales rep, she's terribly upper class.
She looks down her nose, over her horn-rimmed glasses, at this barrow lady going, 'You do realise the price, don't you? It's £10,600 for the top package', thinking the lady will faint.
The lady said, 'Do you take cash?' And she reached into her brown paper bag and pulled out the cash.
She knew the price all along.
The money had rubber bands around it and they'd perished. She'd been saving up the money for so long.
I don't think the taxman had been too near it.
She put £10,600 on the counter and came first class.
