Concorde: The thrilling account of history’s most extraordinary airliner

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When Concorde’s retirement was announced it was Mike who masterminded the celebrations, flying the last ever Concorde scheduled flight in October 2003. It’s a personal letter at that, between Bannister and the machine, the legend, the “thoroughbred”, and I am grateful to him for sharing it with us. The doomed Concorde had run over a piece of metal which had fallen from another aircraft on to the runway.

It takes us through his early years of becoming a pilot, then as an airline pilot and then, his dream job, flying Concorde. One of the few in that legendary aircraft's quarter-century of flight to fully understand both the plane's intricate engineering and what it took to fly her at supersonic speeds. If you select Prototype or Pre-production test you will see how Concorde was developed into a flying aircraft. I never got to fly in Concorde but have been in ones on the ground and watched it landing and taking off from Heathrow, with its distinctive drooped nose at such times to allow pilots to see the runway.

His new book, Concorde, charts his experiences and pays tribute to the world's first - and, so far, only - supersonic passenger jet.

Once he was established, Mike gives a good feel of what it was like in the early days when Concorde was in its prime and gives a few amusing anecdotes of a bygone age when passengers could wander onto the flight deck. Seeing him flick the switches and pull on the throttle at Brooklands, where Concorde was designed and partly built, it's obvious he enjoyed every one of the 10,000 hours he spent in various Concorde cockpits - particularly the 7,000 hours flying at supersonic speeds.The reconstruction team at Brooklands, led by Gordon Roxburgh, gave the Surrey students the job of reconditioning the air intakes.

Dynasty star Joan Collins preferred to sit nearer the front and always seemed to look fresher and more elegant after her journeys. From there he worked for a time in heavy industry and later on the design and construction of projects as diverse as lock-gate machinery, cranes, bridges, and hydraulic pumps. It’s the story of Concorde and its history in BA, including the politics and economics as well as technical details about the aeroplane and what it took to fly it. The first UK-built Concorde flew from the British Aircraft Corporation's Filton factory in Bristol to RAF Fairford on April 9, 1969. Add to this the entire list of anecdotes obtained from his experience as Concordes Chief Pilot and you arrive at a book, that tells the story of this magnificent machine from a technical, but also emotional perspective.

Part celebration, part history, part detective story and part courtroom drama, it's almost as riveting as flying in Concorde itself - almost . And what really happened on that tragic afternoon in July 2000, when the crash of Flight 4590 grounded the Concorde forever?