Local farmer Alan Gardiner was fuming when drivers parked on his freshly-ploughed and sown land.

"I spent a lot of time and money on that field," he told a reporter.

"If police hadn't stopped them it would have been full of cars."

But the spectators were amazed to see the power of the drop-nosed aircraft as it blasted off on the first of many flights from Ringway.

All eyes may have been looking to the sky, but it was the chaos on the roads that grabbed the headlines.

Congestion was so bad that sections of the roads had to be closed after the plane set off on its 85-minute journey to Paris.

Ambulancemen struggling to get to a nine-year-old boy who had been injured needed a police escort.

Cars were double-parked on grass verges and double yellow lines and one driver had even left his car perched on top of a police 'No Waiting' cone.

"It was like a circus," said chief inspector Peter Jones.

Concorde had been chartered by Renault and was carrying 200 of the car company's most successful dealers.

In June that year Concorde was due to land at Manchester to allow members of the public, who could afford it, to board the aircraft.

But for the supersonic plane's first flight a view from the ground was good enough.

Among those lucky enough to be there was Guardian chief photographer Alan Taylor who captured the moment on camera.

"Everyone was impressed by the noise it made," he said.

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.