Concorde back in the air?

[Ascot 1960]

Taken from the BBC website

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.


 

[Baldonnel-boy]

This story has been doing the rounds for a while

the French are not trying to get Concorde back in the air, they just want to taxi .

"The objective is not to get it (Concorde) to fly again but to get the engines working again, hoping one day to see it taxi on the tarmac for the pleasure of visitors to the museum," said Frederic Pinlet, head of Olympus 593, named after the Rolls Royce/Snecma engines used on the aircraft.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100529/lf_afp/franceaviationconcordemuseum_20100529205635

[Frank]

the French are not trying to get Concorde back in the air, they just want to taxi .

The French might only want an aircraft that can taxi but the British group wants one that can fly:

http://www.save-concorde.co.uk/

[elmo]

I for one would love to see the classic flying again! Hopefully to the state whereby it is feasible to give pleasure flights to those willing to part with substantial amounts of the hard earned stuff.

[Shamrock145]

The current story seems to be just getting the engines running (or at least two of them) again.

Presumably, if a Concorde were to return to flight, it will not be as a passenger/transport aircraft, but rather just as a demonstration/show piece.

Does anyone have any information on how much work was involved in taking a Tu-144 from storage and getting it back to flying condition in '95 for the NASA tests? Wiki' (so, pinch of salt), says it cost $350m, which would have included the outfitting for the test, but might not include the re-engining costs. Keep in mind that the Tu work would have been done with the support of from Tupolev, Airbus (who hold the manufacture certs for Concorde) pulled the plug on support.

..145

[Fouga]

Its not gonna happen, Taxi state maybe but fly hell no.