Catalogue description Ministry of Aviation and successors: Aircraft General Services Research and Development Division, Resident Technical Officer (Aircraft) Administration and successors: Registered Files (QAY/SST Series)

The files in this series were created by the Ministry of Aviation (and its successors) Resident Technical Officer's (Aircraft) Office at British Aircraft Corporation (Operating) Limited (BAC), Filton Division, Bristol. The files deal exclusively with the development of Concorde. The office of the BAC Resident Technical Officer was responsible for the organisation and administration of aircraft resident Technical Officers and their staffs at aircraft firms.

Preliminary research on the problems of supersonic flight as applied to passenger aircraft had been carried out in European industrial and governmental establishments from 1956 onwards. The Anglo-French agreement was signed on 29 November 1962.

The programme for building the aircraft began in 1965 and a certificate of airworthiness was granted by the British and French airworthiness authorities in 1975

Resident Technical Officers (RTOs) (Aircraft) were responsible in the period 1963-1966 to the Aircraft General Services Research and Development Division of the Ministry of Aviation, and, in the years 1966-1971, to the Civil Aircraft and General Services Research and Development Division. This reporting structure remained constant throughout several administrative changes; from the Ministry of Aviation to the Ministry of Technology in 1967, and to the Ministry of Aviation Supply in 1970. It appears that, when the functions of the Ministry of Aviation Supply were, in turn, absorbed into the new Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) in 1971, BAC Limited, Filton came under the responsibility of the Concorde project office of the DTI Concorde Division.

The British Aircraft Corporation (BAC), which became part of British Aerospace in 1977, was jointly responsible with the French company Sud Aviation (later part of the Societe Nationale Industrielle Aerospatiale) for work on the airframe of the Anglo-French supersonic transport (SST) project ultimately known as 'Concorde'. The airframe was assembled at Filton, near Bristol, and also at Toulouse, France.The Resident Technical Officer (Aircraft) Administration was responsible for the organisation and administration of aircraft RTOs and their staffs at aircraft firms, including BAC Filton. RTOs were the senior representatives of the Ministry of Aviation, and its successors, who were permanently sited at the works of contractors carrying out Government contracts. Their purpose was to provide day-to-day liaison with, and representation for, the Ministry on the contractors' premises.