Work starts in £15m plan to get Concorde flying

Work starts in £15m plan to get Concorde flying

news.bbc.co.uk

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.

(visit the link for the full news article)

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.

"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.

The tests will first establish whether the engines can be safely started and whether the aircraft could complete a ground taxi.

It is hoped the jet will be able to fly as part of the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics.

Well it looks likes the Concorde might fly again. I have always marveled at the design & awed at the flight. To be able to fly from the USA to UK in under 3hrs. Of course tickets were not cheap to be able to book a seat on one of these puppies. It could cost as much as 10 thousand dollars to fly one way.

I would sure like to see the Concorde up in the air again. Maybe with advent of technologies since, the Concorde can become more efficient.



The above was a goodbye video after it was retired in 2003.

The video below is the mother named Tupolev TU-144 that many believe was formulated through espionage. Both planes share the design except the Concorde sustained True Hypersonic SuperCruise from its inception breaking Mach 2+.



news.bbc.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 29-5-2010 by prionace glauca]

[edit on 29-5-2010 by prionace glauca]

The concord is such a majestic bird, it gives me the impression that it is alive.A real shame that it ended the way it did because it had such a good safety record and i have doubts about the official crash report.

15 million hu?
really you dont know a pr stunt when you see one?
every plane has been warehoused for how many years now? 15 million wouldnt even get it out of the hanger let alone into the air.

Hooray!I remember when the Concord made a stop at the Colorado Springs airport. Traffic was pulled over on the side of the road for miles because everyone wanted a look at it. I can kick myself for not taking pictures. I hope they can revive the project and still make some money in these times of high gas prices.

Edited to add that the Tupolev was copied from the Concord. Not the other way around. Russia had spies in the factories in France and England.

[edit on 5-29-2010 by groingrinder]

Ah, Concorde! The 1960s and 1970s and the days when we at least pretended to get on with the French.

reply to post by prionace glauca


Nice!

Odd, I had a dream last night about Concorde...didn'thear this story 'til just now!

Weird....

This can very well be a PR stunt, with the London Games coming around soon..I would love to see Concorde up in the air again.

The Tu-144 could have been developed out of espionage, but it was not superior to the Concorde. The Tu 144 needed afterburners to break mach 2 because it used turbofan engines as where the Concorde could easily cruise past Mach 2 with its Rolls Royce Turbojet engines.

Either way, this was one capable SST. I just wish the ticket prices were a little bit more approachable. I had a chance to see this thing Take off a few times from NYC. I have some old pics somewhere, if I find them..I will scan them and post them here.

Have been lucky enough to see Concorde take off or land many, many times - it was always a very special moment and never got old.

When I was growing up I developed a love of planes because of Concorde and the SR-71 Blackbird - they were like the personification of good and evil; one brilliant white, graceful and used to transport people - the other completely black, totally mean-looking and used for spying. Both miles ahead of anything else, both fastest in their respective fields, both made in relatively small numbers. Even now they're both retired they still look like something out of the future.

BTW, thread spoiled by Russian pile of junk in opening post

Its not impossible. We got an Avro Vulcan flying again for air displays and it was out of commission a lot longer than concorde. It was also done by charitable donation.

Concorde had after burners too, yes, it would be great to see it flying again.