Barry Weir's incredible Concorde in space suggestion was close to take off.
'The bank manager said: "If you can make it work i will find the millions needed".' - Barry Weir.
Barry Weir is a man full of ideas and one in particular still grabs his imagination.
Having designed and built the Aston Martin Jet 2+2 car- the last vehicle ever to be built by legendary Italian coachbuilders Bertone- perhaps it was inevitable his next big project would be even bigger.
During a drive with his bank manager, Barry came up with the suggestion that Concorde could be adapted to fly into space.
Impressed with the very thought of it, the bank manager said: "If you can make it work i will find the millions needed".
To have an idea is one thing, but Barry didn't stop there.
Barry knew someone at British Aerospace which ran the concorde project and within days he was speaking to a seniro engineer about his idea.
Barry said: 'I put my ideas to him , including carrying liquid oxygen to allow the engines to operate outside the earth's atmosphere and filtering it to the engines so the fuel could burn. He was most impressed and said he would look into it as it was something that they had never considered before'
To Barry's delight and amazement the engineer then gave him the direct telephone number of his French counter-part.
After a long chat, the French engineer sai dhe would come back to him.
However, a week later he received a phone call from UK chief engineer saying that the hull of the plane would not stand the negative pressure. So, it looked like the idea would never take of.
Except, a year later the media started reporting the possibility of Concorde in space had been looked into.
It turned out both countries had dedicated five days of research into the idea, at a huge cost.
Of course, the project never get the go-ahead but it went long way from Barry's initial thought during a drive with his bank manager.
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