Work starts in £15m plan to get Concorde flying

[nopy99]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8712806.stm

Work starts in £15m plan to get Concorde flying


Concorde completed its last commercial passenger flight in 2003
The engines on a French Concorde are to be examined as the first move in a £15m project aiming to get the supersonic passenger jet back in the air.
The Rolls Royce engines of the former Air France Concorde will undergo an initial examination to see what work needs to be done to start the engines.
Concorde was retired seven years ago, but it is hoped the jet could return to flight in a heritage capacity.
The tests by a French-British team will take place at an air museum near Paris.
The work at the Le Bourget Air and Space Museum is being done through a partnership between the British Save Concorde Group, SCG, and a French group Olympus 593.
'Critical date'
Vice-chairman of SCG Ben Lord said: "Today marks the most critical date in Concorde's history since she was retired almost seven years ago.
"Two members of our management team are in France this weekend to observe these amazing developments.
"SCG has always maintained that she could return to flight in a heritage capacity, and the findings of today will hopefully go an awfully long way to proving our point.

After today, we will know exactly what needs to be done with those four engines
Ben Lord, vice-chairman SCG
"This is just the beginning, but we are delighted and privileged to be working with a team of skilled Concorde engineers who both worked on the aircraft at British Airways and Air France."
The tests will first establish whether the engines can be safely started and whether the aircraft could complete a ground taxi.
Mr Lord said: "After today, we will know exactly what needs to be done with those four engines in order to take this to the next stage of engine test runs with an objective to hopefully perform a ground taxi."
It is hoped the jet will be able to fly as part of the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics.
Meanwhile, the trial over the Concorde crash that killed 113 people in Paris in 2000 ended on Friday after four months.
The Air France Concorde crashed soon after take-off, after hitting a metal strip from a Continental jet that had taken off earlier.
The French court said it would give a verdict on 6 December

[nopy99]

Unfortunately the majority of BA's Concordes will never fly again. This is because BA CUT the delta wings when the planes were mothballed.

An act of sheer vandalism by BA to save a bit of money on transport costs.

[Moin]

The Wing Spars were intentionally broken. Sounds more like to prevent Virgin Atlantic from ever getting their hands on them.

[PK777]

Well they are hoping for it to do a flypast at the Olympics.

[ConnieMan]

My full support is with "Save a Concorde group" for there efforts to get this majestic aircraft back in air again. It's not an easy thing to do however it's looked at but it sure is very much doable in "Experimental" category. All of BA's Concordes are done flying for sure as through different sources over the years it has come to my knowledge that the fluids were drained and plumbing was cut so none could ever fly again. Only 2 of BA's Concordes had there main spars cut and wings removed, one is G-BOAA and other is G-BBDG in Brooklands and Scotland's museums now. This was done to ease up the mega transportation task to move these airframes from airport to designated museums only. Presently both are assembled back together and are main attractions for the museums there are in. Now AF Concordes are bit different as none of those birds were slaughtered as BA did with there birds, only two of AFs Concordes had there engines removed only as those are on pedestals as display artifacts now. One is in Germany's Sinham museum and other is at CDG airport, both are displayed outside. Rest of AF birds all have engines and full avionics and hydrolic systems in them to this day hence why BTSD at CGD museum is the one of few in almost airworthy condition that "Save a Concorde Group" is conducting checks on to be flown again....

[nopy99]

Well at the time Branson was really gunning to get his hands on the concorde fleet but BA refused.

Branson could probably have kept them flying but obviously that would not have been ideal for the "worlds faveorite airline"

There is also a save concorde facebook group that has been setup