Concorde heads for supersonic test

Engineers work on the Concorde before its supersonic test

LONDON, England -- A Concorde jet is due to make its first supersonic flight since last year's devastating crash which killed 113 people.

The test flight -- the first by British Airways since the Air France crash -- will check on modifications made to the plane to ensure the tragedy cannot happen again.

BA hopes the test flight will pave the way for services to resume before the end of the summer, though Air France said even if Tuesday's test was successful it would not be possible to set a date for Concordes to return to service.

The French and British national carriers are the only airlines to have the Concorde in their fleets and since last July's crash, outside Paris both have been grounded.

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A statement released by the French national carrier said: "It is too early to say precisely when commercial flights of the Concorde will start again.

"Air France and British Airways hope this resumption will be possible, but it is up to the (civil aviation) authorities to decide."

BA's chief Concorde pilot Captain Mike Bannister will be at the controls for the test flight which will leave London's Heathrow airport around 1320 GMT on Tuesday.

Accompanied by flight crew and engineers, Captain Bannister will take Concorde out into the Atlantic before returning to RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, central England, around 17:00 GMT.

The flight will test various modifications that are being made to both BA's and Air France's Concorde fleet.

Air France successfully completed its first Concorde test flight from Paris in January.

Since then Air France has operated the plane between Paris and an engineering base in southern France, but Tuesday will be the first time the plane has flown at supersonic speed since summer 2000.

Tuesday's verification flight will see Concorde fly at its top speed of 1,350mph while travelling at an altitude of around 55,000ft.

From Heathrow the plane will fly towards Iceland before turning back to the UK for a journey that will last around the same time as Concorde's normal London to New York service.

Captain Bannister's co-pilot tomorrow, in what BA describe as a "verification flight", will be Civil Aviation Authority test pilot Jock Reid who will be present on behalf of the Airbus UK planemaking company.

After the flight, the plane will remain at Brize Norton for a few days so engineers can check to see how well the aircraft performed. Further verification flights could follow.

Manufacturers, governments and regulatory bodies are working closely to bring about a return to the skies for Concorde.

The UK and French civil aviation authorities will have to be satisfied that everything possible has been done before granting the plane an airworthiness certificate.

BA's seven Concordes are being fitted with Kevlar fuel tank liners and tougher tyres aimed at preventing any repetition of last year's tragic accident.

The disaster has been blamed on debris from a burst tyre rupturing a fuel tank as the airliner was taking off.

The Kevlar is designed to prevent a dangerous volume of fuel from pouring out of a ruptured tank and igniting.

But the fuel in a Concorde's tanks must flow freely to cool the plane's hot skin as it cruises at twice the speed of sound.

British Airways has said it hoped to resume a single daily Concorde service in late summer and to return to the usual schedule of two flights a day by the end of the year.

Air France has said it wanted the prestigious plane back in service as soon as the airworthiness authorities gave it the all clear, which could be late summer or early autumn.

The Concorde has been a 50:50 Anglo-French project since its inception four decades ago, and in that spirit the two airlines are expected to resume commercial flights on the same day.